Suchergebnisse

This paper examines the discursive construction of a 'model Cameroonian woman' in the Cameroonian parliament. Model here is used to indicate a popular ideal. The starting point for this paper comes from discourses articulated within the wider society that tend to be rearticulated in public formal contexts such as the parliament. The data comes from a wider study (see Atanga 2007) and constitutes recordings from parliamentary sessions in Cameroon, which are transcribed and translated into English. I draw on Wodak's discourse-historical approach to Critical Discourse Analysis (Wodak 2001; Wodak and Meyer 2009) to analyse the data. This involves the identification of traditional gendered discourses articulated within the parliament and the discursive strategies used to legitimate them. The identification of these discourses is based on Sunderland's (2004) discourse identification approach. For the legitimation (see Reisigl and Wodak 2001) I examine arguments used to legitimate the construction of a 'model Cameroonian woman' and which serve to build in-groups and out-groups, and which sustain and maintain the status quo (e.g. of women as domestic or women as cooks). These strategies may include both a specific rhetorical style and arguments to legitimate the discourses. This study shows the ideological battles and challenges which Cameroonian men and women are faced with in an era of globalisation.

This book brings to light work done in the area of gender with a penchant to language within the Cameroonian context. It looks at different domains of gender study where language is a significant variable. It is the very first edited collection that examines language and gender side by side. Contributors draw richly on their current theoretical leanings and on the current gendered discourses within the Cameroonian context to interrogate the interconnections between gender and language through social relationships and interactions. This is a pluri-disciplinary study informed by perspectives from anthropology, sociology and applied linguistics. The book hinges on gender, discourse and social change in historical perspective. Gender and language studies contribute to knowledge of new problems in view of a better understanding of relations between women and men, and its amelioration in the social space. Gender and language studies necessarily incorporate gender and discourse studies. Discourse serves as a unifying factor to these diverse disciplines which bring external support to pure linguistic studies, not only to deepen the understanding of gender but more so to describe how it works in discourse. Here, discourse is seen as being at the centre of gender ideology.

This book brings to light work done in the area of gender with a penchant to language within the Cameroonian context. It looks at different domains of gender study where language is a significant variable. It is the very first edited collection that examines language and gender side by side. Contributors draw richly on their current theoretical leanings and on the current gendered discourses within the Cameroonian context to interrogate the interconnections between gender and language through social relationships and interactions. This is a pluri-disciplinary study informed by perspectives.

This book investigates gender and power relations in the Cameroonian parliament using a critical discourse analytical approach, which focuses on social issues and seeks to expose unequal relations within institutions. The study identifies different gendered discourses within the speeches of Members of Parliament and government ministers. Consciously or unconsciously, these participants within parliamentary debates draw on topics that construct women and men in specific ways, sometimes sustaining gender stereotypes or challenging existing conditions. The way men and women are constructed using.

Abstract
Women make up less than 20% of the faculty in Cameroon and continue to work in male-dominated workplaces against a context of patriarchal gendered ideologies. This paper explores women's experiences in the academy in Cameroon, highlighting the way they navigate these challenges to position themselves in higher education. Through autoethnography and critical discourse analysis, it examines literature within the area of gendered discourse and texts on higher education, and the author's personal experiences as a female academic in Cameroon. It is argued in this paper that the challenges of women are higher and include rendering content of teaching and research gendered, appropriating gendered identities as women, and asserting themselves in research, publication, and administration. Language is considered as the vehicle for disempowering women in the academy. Thus, women are called upon to demystify stereotypes about femininity and women's place in the academy through language use. That deconstruction of roles must start with gender-sensitive language use.

In this paper, we examine a range of issues associated with the study of gender and language in sub-Saharan African contexts. These include whether (and in what sense) such contexts may constitute a 'special case', the relevance of feminism, and what might be encompassed by 'context', 'African contexts' and 'African topics' – and a substantial amount of what we write is relevant to Applied Linguistics in Africa more broadly (see Makoni and Meinhof 2004 for a discussion). We argue that while all the gender issues are of interest and importance to language and gender study in general, it is possible to see some of these issues as 'characteristic' of African contexts (albeit with 'echoes' elsewhere). It will be evident from this first paper (and those which follow) that along with taking on board commonalities in terms of the theoretical notions used in our field in African and non-African contexts, there is also a need to recognise a range of situated understandings of gender identities, gender relations, understandings of gender more broadly, and feminism.

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