In the introduction to this book, the reader follows
Wilson Nyanforth, a 35-year-old Kru civil servant, through
his morning in New Krutown, Monrovia, Liberia. As Nyanforth
travels to work, he uses Kru and English separately and
in combination, his language choices varying with the setting
and the participants in the encounter. His greeting to
his boss is an example: “Good morning Honorable Tarpeh,
na kl[backwards c]ba (my chief)!” Breitborde's
monograph on language choices of Kru-speaking inhabitants
of New Krutown has many such specific case studies of language
in use: these illustrate his claims and make the book accessible
to readers. But his goal is to do more than provide descriptive
case studies. He writes: “I ask how the choices urban
Kru persons make to speak English embody certain aspects
of contemporary social relations and cultural values, not
simply within the community of speakers but also linking
them to the Liberian national polity. In this sense, then,
I attempt to integrate both the (societal) macrolevel and
the (individual) microlevel in the exploration of the social
meaning of English”.