This year’s BAAL Language in Africa SIG conference is held in collaboration with the Leeds University Centre for African Studies (LUCAS). The conference will be held online between the 7th and 14th of June.

The 2021 LIA SIG Annual Conference aims to bring together researchers to present and discuss current research on the role of language and languages – at the levels of policy, planning, education, social practice and literature – in contributing towards social change within Africa and the African diaspora.

Panel session schedule

You must register for each session individually. Please select a ticket for all of the dates you would like to attend!

These interactive sessions will provide an opportunity for discussion. Panels will be made up of selected conference speakers who will participate in a Q&A.

All times are BST (GMT+1).

Register to attend here

• 7th June 10:00-11:00

1. Language and Cultural Products. A lingo-literary examination of gradual death of Yoruba language: A case study of selected Yoruba folk-songs
2. Abiola S. Kalejaiye, Babatunde Adebua & Odunayo Adeleke – The Influence of Gender, Status, and Age in Buying and Selling in Akan: The Case of Makola Market
3. Freda Asante Kumi – Metaphorical Perception Wealth in Ijebu Remo
4. Abiola S. Kalejaiye – Preferences for Yoruba and Non-Yoruba Movies among Secondary School Students in Ibadan: What an Irony for Yoruba Students on the Yoruba Soil!

Adéyẹmí Adéyínká & Ifẹ́olúwa Akínṣọlá

• 8th June 10:00-11:00

1. Language and Education – A reflection on working with student researchers to explore multilingual experiences in two Tanzanian secondary schools
2. Laela Adamson – Language politics and activism: the need for a new line of reasoning
3. Bert van Pinxteren – Language use and language attitudes in Botswanan primary schools
4. Dikosha Dikosha & Phetso Mmolao – Balancing on the linguistic bar: Tensions in the use of top-down and bottom-up approaches in promoting conceptual understanding using African languages in SA Higher Education
5. Kotie Kaiser, Dolly Dlavane, Maryna Reyneke & Rosemary Wildsmith-Cromarty

• 10th June 10:00-11:00

1. Language Policy, Planning, and Politics – Colonial Continuities: Language and social class in capitalist Rwanda
2. Kate Spowage – English and the struggle for Southern Cameroons’ independence
3. Raymond Echitchi – Language, power and identity: Reclaiming voice through Transforming power relations between languages

Charles Tante

• 11th June 10:00-11:00

1. Language and Political Discourse – A systemic functional analysis of selected Nigerian gubernatorial electioneering slogans
2. Babajide Afolabi & Abiola S. Kalejaiye – Animal metaphor as a rhetorical strategy in Nigerian media political discourses
3. Ebere C. Krisagbedo – Domestication of child’s rights acts law in Nigeria: the fate of language of immediate environment
4. Temitope Funminiyi Egbedeyi – Interrogating the audacity of national unity rhetoric and governance failure in Nigeria

Chris Uchenna Agbedo

14th June 10:00-11:00

• Language and Media – Hashtags: A Tool for Performing “Nigerianess” on Twitter

1. Bunmi Balogun – Language and Sexuality in the Discourse Genre of Nigerian Social Media
2. Ololade Faniyi – Reporting insurgency effects in Nigerian newspapers: the story of linguistic erasure Mathias O. Chukwu

• Keynote – 14th June 16:00-17:30 0 LUCAS Annual Lecture

#AskAman and the cultural itineraries of courtship in South Africa – Grace A. Musila

Header Image: Fair Planet