Hollywood in Uganda: local appropriation of transnational English-language movies
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Date
2012
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Language and Education
Abstract
Hollywood movies are popular in Uganda. This paper reports a study that investigated
access to English-language Hollywood movies in Uganda, by way of an ethnographic
audience study carried out in slum areas of the city of Kampala. The researchers
visited and participated in the watching and reviewing of English-language movies
in makeshift video hall shacks, where interpretation of the films into Luganda, the
most common local language, took place simultaneously with the viewing of the films.
By way of unstructured conversational interviews, descriptions of events, photographs
and reviews of movies, the paper examines the practices of interpreting and localising
carried out by the hired interpreters (known as Vee-Jays). In particular, it describes how
the interpreters operate as mediators who provide access to these English Hollywood
movies and examines how the global gets infused into the local through processes of
contextualisation of the films. The paper contributes to our understanding of how new
forms of cultural representation are created, consumed and shared through digital and
other media, and the effects digital technology has on the local movie entertainment
industry.
Description
Keywords
Local/global, English in Africa, Glocalisation, Film, Hollywood, Interpreter
Citation
Stella Achen & George Ladaah Openjuru (2012) Hollywood in Uganda: local appropriation of trans-national English-language movies, Language and Education, 26:4, 363-376, DOI: 10.1080/09500782.2012.691517