Language in The Gambia – VIRTUAL READING GROUP AND CONVERSATION SERIES Full description HERE / Summaries of previous meetings HERE

Open to anyone interested in language and The Gambia 

The Language in The Gambia Virtual Reading Group is a community of students, scholars and members of the general public interested in finding out more about how languages are used to communicate in The Gambia (e.g. the characteristics of diglossia, translanguaging practices and language contact in the country) and the working of these languages (e.g. their grammatical features, sentence prosody, and orthography development). We meet regularly for an hour to discuss advanced research articles related to these topics.  

Organisers 

The Language in The Gambia Virtual Reading Group is an initiative led by Clyde Ancarno of the Multilingual Education in The Gambia project (King’s College London) and Lamin Demba (University of The Gambia). The discussions will be facilitated by the organisers and/or guest facilitators. We are open to discussing articles ready for submission to relevant academic/professional journals. If you would like us to include your article as part of our reading list please email  clyde.ancarno@kcl.ac.uk 

LAUNCH – FIRST MEETING

The Language in The Gambia Virtual Reading Group will have its first meeting on Tuesday 6 April at 5.30pm. We will discuss: Juffermans, K. and McGlynn, C., 2009. A sociolinguistic profile of The Gambia. Sociolinguistic Studies 3(3), pp.329-355. Reviewing the various ways in which language(s) is/are used in The Gambia, Juffermans and McGlynn’s research article seems a rather good fit as an opening reading for our group. A copy of the article can be found HERE. “Following a portrayal of the indigenous and exogenous languages of The Gambia, with attention to hybrid, overlapping and shifting ethnolinguistic identities, the role of language in several social institutions in a changing society is identified and discussed. The paper culminates in a discussion of linguistic and cultural diversity and appeals for more research in this sociolinguistically unexposed country”. 

Where: To join the discussion at the scheduled time, use this Zoom link. If you don’t want to sign up to Zoom, click on JOIN MEETING AS AN ATTENDEE or JOIN MEETING, then enter the following details: 817 2556 6225 (personal meeting ID) and 1234 (passcode). You can also participate through our WhatsApp group by sending your phone number to clyde.ancarno@kcl.ac.uk

When: Tuesday 6 April @ 5.30pm (Gambian time – please note that the clocks will have moved forward for some of us by then, e.g. the UK will be an hour ahead of The Gambia)

Who: ALL welcome!