The Language in The Gambia Online Reading Group‘s fourteenth meeting will be on Tuesday (as usual) 6 February 2024 1-2pm (GMT/Gambian/UK time) / 10am Salvador de Bahia time. Dr Gabriel Nascimento, Assistant Professor at the Universidade Federal do Sul da Bahia in Brazil, will be our guest facilitator. He has written about linguistic racism (in education and beyond) and suggested the article below by Ngué Um for our reading group. In this article, Ngué Um notably says “According to me, not only does [linguistics] fail to accurately address the fluidity of the verbal reality characteristic of many social settings in the [African] continent, but resulting pieces of research does not seem to deliver contextually meaningful knowledge” (p. 108).

ARTICLE: Ngué Um, E., 2020. Had Ferdinand de Saussure spoken Wolof or Basaa…, the discipline of linguistics would have fared differently. Language, Culture and Society, 2(1), pp.107-115. [you can download it below]

Where: Google Meet on the day / WhatsApp group beforehand (see details below)

This is the Google Meet link you will need to use to join on the day: https://meet.google.com/kgq-unqf-dga. If you’re already using Gmail, Google Photos, YouTube, or another Google product, just sign in to your existing Google Account. If you don’t have a Google Account, you will need to sign up (free). If you’re using your laptop, any browser will work. If you’re using your phone or tablet, you will need to download the Google Meet mobile app from Google Play or Apple Store.

We will start the discussion the week before on our WhatsApp group so that our colleagues and friends who won’t be able to attend on the day can still have an opportunity to participate in the discussion. Send your phone number to clyde.ancarno@kcl.ac.uk if you would like to be added.

When

Tuesday 30 January 1-2pm (Gambian/UK time) / 10am Salvador de Bahia time.

Who

ALL welcome! This is not intended for an academic audience only. Invite others if you wish.

Dates of future meetings

We tend to meet the penultimate Tuesday of every month.