Gender and Language in Sub-Saharan Africa: Tradition, Struggle and Change

IMPACT: Studies in Language, Culture and Society #33

by Lilian Lem Atanga (Editor), Sibonile Edith Ellece (Editor), Lia Litosseliti (Editor)

Gender and Language in Sub-Saharan Tradition, Struggle and Change is the first book to bring together the topics of language and gender, African languages, and gender in African contexts, and it does so in a descriptive, explanatory and critical way. Including fascinating new work and new, often challenging data from Botswana, Chad, Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria and South Africa, this collection looks at some ‘traditional’ uses of language in relation to the gender of its speakers and the gendered nature of the languages themselves; it also identifies and explores social change in terms of both gender and sexuality, as reflected in and constructed by language and discourse. The contributions to this volume are accessibly written and will be of interest to students and established academics working on African sociolinguistics and discourse, as well as those whose interest is language, gender and sexuality.

343 pages, ebook

First published January 1, 2013

Reviews

[KD · Rating 3 out of 5]

I taught this book in my Language, Gender, and Sexuality in African Contexts course this semester. It was useful to have so many relevant readings in one volume, and we had good discussions about many of the chapters. However, the chapters are very uneven and so many of our conversations were about how the research methods and/or presentation of data could have been improved.