ABSTRACT
Conversations in one Bwisha village often mix Kinyabwisha (Kinyarwanda), Kiswahili and French, within as well as between words, phrases and sentences. This paper examines this linguistic pluralism in the context of medical/agricultural pluralism and political pluralism. Rather than focus on languages per se, the paper examines discontinuities in the ways Banyabwisha1 understand and respond to human and crop health problems, and on related discontinuities in the ways they claim legitimacy in political action. The analytical strategy, therefore, is to focus on the frames of reference which orientate language use (cf. Pardon and Furniss) and to show what this reveals about the articulation between the different ‘languages’ which Banyabwisha draw on and mix.
