Gender and Language in African Contexts: one-day seminar in Cameroon

[Sunderland, Jane]

Dear all 

We are pleased to invite you to attend a Seminar on Gender and Language in African Contexts taking place at the University of Dschang, Cameroon, on Tuesday, 7th of April 2009. Similar events have taken place at the University of Leeds, UK, University of Botswana, and City University, London. We are pleased that this one will focus especially on Cameroon and West Africa.

The main purpose of the workshop is to provide an opportunity for those researching and teaching in the area of gender and language, directly or indirectly, to share their ideas and experiences, and to build up a focus on Africa in the field of language and gender study. The University of Dschang and other Cameroonian universities have a number of researchers and scholars working in the area of gender across disciplines and it will be interesting to (net)work with them. The seminar is however open to people from all over the world. We hope to enhance participants' understanding of language and gender issues in general in terms of language and language use in Cameroon (and West Africa more generally). We also plan to collect some data for a research project that may be of interest to us all. Lastly, we  hope to stimulate interdisciplinary work among linguists and other colleagues in the social sciences. 

The organizers of the seminar will be Dr Jane Sunderland of Lancaster University and Dr Lem Lilian Atanga of the University of Dschang. The event is co-sponsored by Jane (from her National Teaching Fellowship Award) and the Departments of African Studies and Applied Foreign Languages, Faculty of Letters and Social Sciences, University of Dschang. Lunch and refreshments will be provided. There is no registration fee.

The following are possible areas to be explored:

The gender-language relationship

Gender, language and discourse

Gender in different Cameroonian/West African languages 

Language and gender identity

Gender and honorifics/terms of address

Gendered  proverbs

Language, gender and power

Language, gender and the media

Gender and language change

Gender, language and politics

Gender and the language of institutions (e.g. classrooms, workplaces)

The language of ceremonies and gender

The discourse of family planning and sex education

This list is far from exhaustive, however, and other topics are possible.

We hope that the discussions will generate more interesting issues. 

There will definitely be two plenary sessions. However, we are also interested in hearing from others who would like to present a paper. Everyone will be expected to participate even if they don’t present papers. We hope to generate a lot of discussion as well as provide more formal input.

 Colleagues outside West Africa are of course also most welcome. We appreciate that you may not be able to attend but you sure can contribute ideas!!! (please send these to Lily).

Please let Lily know if you wish to attend. If you would like to present a paper, please send a short abstract of no more than 250 words by the 28th of February 2009. Email to HYPERLINK "mailto:l.l.atanga at googlemail.com"l.l.atanga at googlemail.com or HYPERLINK "mailto:ngwebin at yahoo.com"ngwebin at yahoo.com  

For other questions about arrangements (for example, about accommodation) please also contact Lily.

We hope to see some of you there.

Best wishes

Lily Atanga and Jane Sunderland

 

 

 


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