This chapter examines how, in the discourse of iweto marriage (where a childless hetero-sexual woman among the Kamba of Kenya marries another childbearing one), gendered subject positions are constructed, and how issues of power are played out. The study explores the roles and identities created via naming terms; the correlation between language use and how individuals construct their identities and accommodate (or resist) societal roles; and the social relations and identities that are thus constructed. Data on naming conventions was obtained through interviews of women who are in an iweto marriage or their close relatives. The findings show that language plays a central role in the mapping of gendered subject positions, that is, roles and identities which are reflected and constructed, sustained and resisted in the naming conventions of the iweto marriage.
Using data from a Setswana corpus built by Thapelo Otlogetswe, this study examines different uses and meanings of Setswana terms for women and men, boys and girls. Many terms express both gender and age. The study is, to the best of our knowledge, the first to show how sexism is inflected with age in an African language, an important contribution in the context of societies where age and sex interact to create hierarchies in the family and society. The chapter concludes that besides their denotative meanings, Setswana sex and age terms have fluid connotative meanings which are closely related to cultural considerations.
In languages where dialects differ according to gender, claims have been made that women are more conservative than men in rural settings and more innovative in urban settings. Both effects are seen in the tonal dialects of Kera (a Chadic language). I present data from perception experiments and production measurements on the voicing and tonal contrasts in rural and urban Kera dialects in Chad. The driving factor for change is probably contact with French. This chapter focuses on the fact that village women are the most reluctant to change, whereas town-women are abandoning tone more than town-men. I conclude that Kera provides a unique opportunity for observing the differing roles and behaviour of women in rural and urban settings and the effects on their language use.
This chapter investigates the interaction of pupils in a pre-school in Gaborone, Botswana with the aim of determining whether pre-schools in Botswana develop, enhance, reinforce or challenge gender stereotypes. The data were collected through participant observation and the analysis follows a close reading of classroom transcripts to show how social power, dominance and inequality are played out in the preschool classroom and playground. The study found that boys tend to dominate classroom interactions through games and by using louder voices to attract the teacher’s attention. Both the boys and the girls tend to reinforce gender stereotypes through the games that they play. The study also found that although the teacher tried to use techniques that encourage equal participation by both sexes, she was not successful because she still allocated stereotypical roles to the children: a boy played a doctor and a girl a child-minder.
This chapter analyzes address forms used for married and unmarried women among academic and non-academic members of a team of university staff in a Nigerian workplace. It examines how identities are constructed for women in relation to ‘higher’ and ‘lower’ occupational status, and, in particular, how they are categorized or positioned in formal settings. Findings indicate a measure of gender equality in the patterns of address forms used for women, although the traditional categorizing of women on the basis of marital status remains. The traditional use of Mrs is widespread, with some subtle resistance by younger, highly educated women professionals. The study underscores the importance of cultural specificity, as well as possibility of (some) sociolinguistic universals in relation to language use and gender.
In recent years, the ‘New Man’ has gained considerable momentum as a model of masculinity in South African advertising. It is with a view to better understanding what this cultural idea of the ‘New Man’ looks like that we analyse a television advertisement for a popular South African beer, Carling Black Label. Drawing upon critical multimodal discourse analysis, we show how the “new” man is not about masculinity alone, but is a multilayered discursive construction in which gender criss-crosses with social class, (hetero)sexuality, race and age. We also argue that the development of the “new” man is nothing but another manifestation of the ways in which modern power operates in a context of socio-economic change.
In this chapter I explore how men are constructed in Botswana contemporary music. I use critical discourse analysis as a conceptual framework and, at the analytical level, employ Halliday’s (1985) idea of a clause as representation and examine how characters in the songs are represented in terms of whether they are agents or goals of material processes. Six songs were selected for the study. The findings show that masculinities are multiply positioned in the songs, through a choice of clauses in which they are cast as actors in material actions that are anti-social and criminal, in negative behavioural processes and negative processes of being. While some men are proffered powerful subject positions, other men are represented as victims of other dominant masculinities, and still others are represented appreciatively as non-violent and caring. Men are therefore constructed in multiple, contradictory ways, underscoring the idea that no social meanings are ever fixed forever.
In recent years Botswana has seen tremendous growth in the popular music industry. Many of the songs that have recently been released represent critical commentary on contemporary Setswana society; they arguably construct, as well as reflect, the realities of urbanization, globalization and social change. In this chapter on the topic of popular music in Botswana I seek to answer the following research questions: How is gender represented linguistically in a selection of recent popular music in Botswana? How is such representation realised linguistically? I argue that the Setswana language is a key medium, spoken and written, through which Batswana transmit cultural values, and, as such, through it, gender identities are constructed, sustained and contested. The chapter concludes that these songs reflect the changing nature of Botswana society.
In this chapter I examine how the linguistic realization of sex discourses in Southern Sotho draw upon cultural sociolinguistic resources of hlonipha (respect) to reproduce traditional gendered identities. Using a sample of interviews of female rape victims by male police officers, I show that women’s access to sex discourses is constrained by the hlonipha culture to which to they are expected to adhere. However, when they raped, and report to the authorities, they enter into a completely foreign discourse environment. This conflict between cultural expectations of women’s traditional discourse (which requires avoidance of explicit sexual terms), on the one hand, and that of the legal system (i.e. explicitness for the sake of clarity and precision of evidence) on the other, is a phenomenon which constitutes linguistic and socio-cultural constraints that contribute to Basotho women’s failure to help bring about the conviction of rapists.
The chapter describes Student Pidgin (SP), a relatively recent youth language in Ghana that we can trace from the late 1960 / early 1970. Pidgin has always been a male language in Ghana and can be traced to itinerant migrant labourers who brought pidgin from Liberia and Nigeria. Pidgin was also associated with prostitutes from the riverin/Niger delta areas of Nigeria. When the first survey of Student Pidgin (SP) was undertaken (Tawiah 1998), only four out of 50 female students admitted speaking the language and they had all learnt it from their brothers. Today I estimate that close to 50 percent of female students admit to speaking SP. The chapter investigates why some young women speak SP and why others do not. I argue that some young women speak the code in part to create identities for themselves as SP speakers.
This paper addresses how young Zulu women choose two different isiZulu varieties, isiTsotsi and isiHlonipho, in order to construct ‘modern’ and ‘traditional’ femininities in South Africa. Based on semi-ethnographic data gathered over a period of six years (2004–2010), the paper explores how isiZulu-speaking females make use of the two linguistic varieties and what significance and implications these choices have in terms of gender dynamics. It is argued that speaking isiTsotsi signals linguistically that ‘traditional’ Zulu femininity is rejected while making use of an isiHlonipho lexicon endorses this very femininity. The research also highlights the context-dependent nature of linguistic gender constructions and contributes to the study of African femininities.
In this chapter I show how language can be used both to objectify those who engage in same-sex relations and to subvert homophobia and heterosexism. The chapter reflects a life history study of eight men who engage in same-sex relations, based on a series of interviews with each man. The study found that language was a key site of struggle, serving both as a mechanism for the regulation of individuals and as a vehicle for strategic ‘resist-stance’. Resist-stance was through the employment of isiNgqumo – a language predominantly spoken by Black ‘gay’ men in South Africa (Rudwick and Ntuli 2008). However, such resist-stance had its own limitations, as the language was associated with certain Communities of Practice, and was not spoken by all the men interviewed. The chapter calls for more sociolinguistic work in this area.
Much research on gender-based violence, especially sexual assault, indicate that women are often blamed for their predicament (Ehrlich 2002; Clark 1998). Prominent among the reasons given is ‘indecent dressing’ – which lures ‘innocent’ men to commit such crimes. Context therefore plays a major role in who is blamed. To contribute to this discussion, I discuss the role of context in apportioning blame in the two cases of sexual assault on a Ghanaian female artiste (Mzbel). This is done through the analysis of linguistic data from media reports, readers and Mzbel herself. The analysis shows that people view these cases differently depending on their personal ideologies and the context within which they operate. Whereas most of the text producers draw on the socio-cultural context to either directly or indirectly ‘justify’ the actions of the perpetrators, others draw on the legal to condemn the crimes.
This chapter examines how, in the discourse of iweto marriage (where a childless hetero-sexual woman among the Kamba of Kenya marries another childbearing one), gendered subject positions are constructed, and how issues of power are played out. The study explores the roles and identities created via naming terms; the correlation between language use and how individuals construct their identities and accommodate (or resist) societal roles; and the social relations and identities that are thus constructed. Data on naming conventions was obtained through interviews of women who are in an iweto marriage or their close relatives. The findings show that language plays a central role in the mapping of gendered subject positions, that is, roles and identities which are reflected and constructed, sustained and resisted in the naming conventions of the iweto marriage.
Using data from a Setswana corpus built by Thapelo Otlogetswe, this study examines different uses and meanings of Setswana terms for women and men, boys and girls. Many terms express both gender and age. The study is, to the best of our knowledge, the first to show how sexism is inflected with age in an African language, an important contribution in the context of societies where age and sex interact to create hierarchies in the family and society. The chapter concludes that besides their denotative meanings, Setswana sex and age terms have fluid connotative meanings which are closely related to cultural considerations.
In languages where dialects differ according to gender, claims have been made that women are more conservative than men in rural settings and more innovative in urban settings. Both effects are seen in the tonal dialects of Kera (a Chadic language). I present data from perception experiments and production measurements on the voicing and tonal contrasts in rural and urban Kera dialects in Chad. The driving factor for change is probably contact with French. This chapter focuses on the fact that village women are the most reluctant to change, whereas town-women are abandoning tone more than town-men. I conclude that Kera provides a unique opportunity for observing the differing roles and behaviour of women in rural and urban settings and the effects on their language use.
This chapter investigates the interaction of pupils in a pre-school in Gaborone, Botswana with the aim of determining whether pre-schools in Botswana develop, enhance, reinforce or challenge gender stereotypes. The data were collected through participant observation and the analysis follows a close reading of classroom transcripts to show how social power, dominance and inequality are played out in the preschool classroom and playground. The study found that boys tend to dominate classroom interactions through games and by using louder voices to attract the teacher’s attention. Both the boys and the girls tend to reinforce gender stereotypes through the games that they play. The study also found that although the teacher tried to use techniques that encourage equal participation by both sexes, she was not successful because she still allocated stereotypical roles to the children: a boy played a doctor and a girl a child-minder.
This chapter analyzes address forms used for married and unmarried women among academic and non-academic members of a team of university staff in a Nigerian workplace. It examines how identities are constructed for women in relation to ‘higher’ and ‘lower’ occupational status, and, in particular, how they are categorized or positioned in formal settings. Findings indicate a measure of gender equality in the patterns of address forms used for women, although the traditional categorizing of women on the basis of marital status remains. The traditional use of Mrs is widespread, with some subtle resistance by younger, highly educated women professionals. The study underscores the importance of cultural specificity, as well as possibility of (some) sociolinguistic universals in relation to language use and gender.
In recent years, the ‘New Man’ has gained considerable momentum as a model of masculinity in South African advertising. It is with a view to better understanding what this cultural idea of the ‘New Man’ looks like that we analyse a television advertisement for a popular South African beer, Carling Black Label. Drawing upon critical multimodal discourse analysis, we show how the “new” man is not about masculinity alone, but is a multilayered discursive construction in which gender criss-crosses with social class, (hetero)sexuality, race and age. We also argue that the development of the “new” man is nothing but another manifestation of the ways in which modern power operates in a context of socio-economic change.
In this chapter I explore how men are constructed in Botswana contemporary music. I use critical discourse analysis as a conceptual framework and, at the analytical level, employ Halliday’s (1985) idea of a clause as representation and examine how characters in the songs are represented in terms of whether they are agents or goals of material processes. Six songs were selected for the study. The findings show that masculinities are multiply positioned in the songs, through a choice of clauses in which they are cast as actors in material actions that are anti-social and criminal, in negative behavioural processes and negative processes of being. While some men are proffered powerful subject positions, other men are represented as victims of other dominant masculinities, and still others are represented appreciatively as non-violent and caring. Men are therefore constructed in multiple, contradictory ways, underscoring the idea that no social meanings are ever fixed forever.
In recent years Botswana has seen tremendous growth in the popular music industry. Many of the songs that have recently been released represent critical commentary on contemporary Setswana society; they arguably construct, as well as reflect, the realities of urbanization, globalization and social change. In this chapter on the topic of popular music in Botswana I seek to answer the following research questions: How is gender represented linguistically in a selection of recent popular music in Botswana? How is such representation realised linguistically? I argue that the Setswana language is a key medium, spoken and written, through which Batswana transmit cultural values, and, as such, through it, gender identities are constructed, sustained and contested. The chapter concludes that these songs reflect the changing nature of Botswana society.
In this chapter I examine how the linguistic realization of sex discourses in Southern Sotho draw upon cultural sociolinguistic resources of hlonipha (respect) to reproduce traditional gendered identities. Using a sample of interviews of female rape victims by male police officers, I show that women’s access to sex discourses is constrained by the hlonipha culture to which to they are expected to adhere. However, when they raped, and report to the authorities, they enter into a completely foreign discourse environment. This conflict between cultural expectations of women’s traditional discourse (which requires avoidance of explicit sexual terms), on the one hand, and that of the legal system (i.e. explicitness for the sake of clarity and precision of evidence) on the other, is a phenomenon which constitutes linguistic and socio-cultural constraints that contribute to Basotho women’s failure to help bring about the conviction of rapists.
The chapter describes Student Pidgin (SP), a relatively recent youth language in Ghana that we can trace from the late 1960 / early 1970. Pidgin has always been a male language in Ghana and can be traced to itinerant migrant labourers who brought pidgin from Liberia and Nigeria. Pidgin was also associated with prostitutes from the riverin/Niger delta areas of Nigeria. When the first survey of Student Pidgin (SP) was undertaken (Tawiah 1998), only four out of 50 female students admitted speaking the language and they had all learnt it from their brothers. Today I estimate that close to 50 percent of female students admit to speaking SP. The chapter investigates why some young women speak SP and why others do not. I argue that some young women speak the code in part to create identities for themselves as SP speakers.
This paper addresses how young Zulu women choose two different isiZulu varieties, isiTsotsi and isiHlonipho, in order to construct ‘modern’ and ‘traditional’ femininities in South Africa. Based on semi-ethnographic data gathered over a period of six years (2004–2010), the paper explores how isiZulu-speaking females make use of the two linguistic varieties and what significance and implications these choices have in terms of gender dynamics. It is argued that speaking isiTsotsi signals linguistically that ‘traditional’ Zulu femininity is rejected while making use of an isiHlonipho lexicon endorses this very femininity. The research also highlights the context-dependent nature of linguistic gender constructions and contributes to the study of African femininities.
In this chapter I show how language can be used both to objectify those who engage in same-sex relations and to subvert homophobia and heterosexism. The chapter reflects a life history study of eight men who engage in same-sex relations, based on a series of interviews with each man. The study found that language was a key site of struggle, serving both as a mechanism for the regulation of individuals and as a vehicle for strategic ‘resist-stance’. Resist-stance was through the employment of isiNgqumo – a language predominantly spoken by Black ‘gay’ men in South Africa (Rudwick and Ntuli 2008). However, such resist-stance had its own limitations, as the language was associated with certain Communities of Practice, and was not spoken by all the men interviewed. The chapter calls for more sociolinguistic work in this area.
Much research on gender-based violence, especially sexual assault, indicate that women are often blamed for their predicament (Ehrlich 2002; Clark 1998). Prominent among the reasons given is ‘indecent dressing’ – which lures ‘innocent’ men to commit such crimes. Context therefore plays a major role in who is blamed. To contribute to this discussion, I discuss the role of context in apportioning blame in the two cases of sexual assault on a Ghanaian female artiste (Mzbel). This is done through the analysis of linguistic data from media reports, readers and Mzbel herself. The analysis shows that people view these cases differently depending on their personal ideologies and the context within which they operate. Whereas most of the text producers draw on the socio-cultural context to either directly or indirectly ‘justify’ the actions of the perpetrators, others draw on the legal to condemn the crimes.