Comments on: Why are you not citing any African female expert?

By: Ingrid Piller

Ingrid Piller — Mon, 19 Sep 2022 23:30:22 +0000

In reply to Brynn. Glad you found this post! It's a great book and well worth reading.

By: Brynn

Brynn — Mon, 19 Sep 2022 00:23:06 +0000

“Support for mother tongues and insistence on vernacular education and cultural production may well be a colonial project” – such an interesting and timely idea! It’s certainly becoming more and more evident that people’s language ideologies are never a binary. One person might wholeheartedly embrace the learning and maintenance of their heritage language while another person from the same cultural group might not identify with that heritage language at all. It seems that, rather than force one linguistic identification or the other on a person, people need to be given the choice to use (and identify with) the language that works best for them. Thanks for this book recommendation!

By: Nazzia

Nazzia — Fri, 15 Nov 2019 11:19:25 +0000

It is quite interesting to see so many people feel the same way after having read this article that we never think of whether the author is female or male or even where they are from. I worked with several authors from countries with English as a second language to help them get their research published in prestigious English language journals. It is with the emerging popularity of this field of language translation and editing that it is becoming possible for these authors to get their research published and not be held back because of language barriers.

By: Sasha Sunshine

Sasha Sunshine — Tue, 12 Nov 2019 13:11:11 +0000

This article was definitely an eye opener. When I look back at references I have cites, I think I was focused on how recent the article was and the content rather than the author. But we have to acknowledge that there is dominance of European writers in compared to the rest of the world. Back home in India and even here in Australia with my Indian friends I am at times judged as not being ‘Indian’ enough as Hindi is not my go to language when I communicate. Having been raised in an English-speaking home I express myself better when I speak English. Although, English is the medium of instruction it is taught as one would a second language and Hindi (although introduced as a second language) is taught as if everyone is familiar with the language. I definitely lacked the basic foundation and to some extent developed a dislike towards the language. I will definitely be reading Vernacular Palaver to read about multilingualism, globalisation and migration.

By: Irene Nguyen

Irene Nguyen — Mon, 04 Nov 2019 12:49:31 +0000

Thank you for this reading. To be honest, I never notice whether the researcher is conducted whether by a male or female writers. When I took a look back on all of my assignments, it almost shocked me as I did try my best to have a look but it turned out to have no African female writer appeared in my list of citations. Then the case of Vernacular Palaver is calling for more diversity in research and more acknowledgment for research works by people from minority ethnicity or undeveloped nations.  

By: Thi Thanh Huyen Do

Thi Thanh Huyen Do — Mon, 04 Nov 2019 11:32:44 +0000

Vernacular Palaver examines the continuing appeal of the idea of ‘the local’ for cultural brokers in West Africa, even in instances where they have a growing interaction with diverse global and continental languages of wider communication. It highlights the contribution of foreign and indigenous languages of wider communication to the formation of the new alliances and sodalities that are testing the relevance of locality and reshaping the concept of local culture, in West Africa. The language of wider communication is apparently Adejunmobi’s own invented terminology as her own tool to explore her own perspective on the palaver over language and identity. This was fundamentally concerned with the emergence of a multi-ethnic nation-state rather than with an individual ethnolinguistic group and its cultural distinctiveness.

By: Saichon

Saichon — Sun, 03 Nov 2019 12:56:51 +0000

Truth be told, we are learnt to cite all approved academic writing and reliable source. Especially me, I focus on the content rather than the person who wrote it down or who he/she is. To be honest, I was so surprise about this. I have never thought that gender would effect to citation or anything. As long as their papers are insightful, I think it is fair to admire them and praise them by citation.

However, thank you for opening my eyes. As I found that growing up speaking Thai is not a bad thing at all. It is ture that I was struggling to learn English, but Thai language makes me proud of who I am and the place I come from. It helps me to become a stronger and spread out my identity through other languages I have I learned.

By: Rajendra Prasad Kandel

Rajendra Prasad Kandel — Thu, 31 Oct 2019 08:57:03 +0000

Thank you very much, Ingrid, for your insightful article….
Moradewun Adejunmobi’s ideas are really thought-provoking. Today, people are being ‘glocalized’ (global + local) even in language use. People speak their local and national languages for their traditional or cultural identities; simultaneously they are acquiring global languages or ‘the languages of wider communication’ such as English, French, Spanish, etc, to ‘construct aspirational identities’ though limited languages of wider communication have the dominion in people’s verbal exchange. Interestingly, speaking multiple languages is a matter of necessity because of the migration and globalization, because of the unprecedented exchange of goods, people, and ideas throughout the world. As a result, so many minor communities’ languages are disappearing. Due to the revolutionary development in communication technologies and the transportation sector in the recent world, the closed states have transformed into open-states. Effective communication with the people throughout the world needs to be multilingual; it’s one of the imperative attributes of modern people to contend with the challenges caused by globalization.
However, suffering from the hegemony that European languages are superior and viewing the local language speakers as ‘different and inferior’ both are problematic.

By: Pramanandra Joshi

Pramanandra Joshi — Wed, 16 Oct 2019 02:39:39 +0000

I realized this fact when read African feminism in my masters degree in English literature. This article reminded me the plight of African women who have no space in academic article writing, they are not cited in the academic writing because of race, gender and regional discrimination. In academic discourse there is domination of English speaking people especially from Europe and America, this is called cannon. After reading this interesting article I realized that English is becoming dominant language in all over the world and mother tongue are under the shadow of English language. But, I realized that we have to conserve our mother tongue and made a combinations with English language.

By: Xin Zhang

Xin Zhang — Wed, 09 Oct 2019 04:45:37 +0000

Thank you for sharing. In fact, i had never noticed the background of researchers, including they are white or black. I always care about times of download of the reference, which is more convinced for me. Knowledge is not about the race. We should cite those references which are professional and convinced regardless of their religion or race. English is becoming an international language nowadays and many people prefer to use it in their daily life because it is a necessary skill to study and work, minority language starts to extinct. However, minority language is one of the representations of a country, which includes culture and history for a country. As a result, protecting minority language is important for all of us.

By: Sue

Sue — Sat, 28 Sep 2019 02:16:45 +0000

Before reading this post, I have never thought of the authors’ gender, the nationalities or the regions they are from. I incited them just because their works are powerful and helpful for my assignments. But it is a fact that, in my assignments’ reference lists , there are seldom authors or linguists are Africans, let alone female Africans. The reasons for this I think could be that on one hand there are not many female African linguists and on the other hand those female African linguists have not got sufficient attention in the field where linguists from English-speaking countries or Europe dominate. As English is Lingua Franca, learners around the world struggle to learn it as a foreign or second language. Under such circumstance, few learners think about the role of their vernacular in their life and culture and economy. This post enables me to reflect how to maintain and carry on my native language as a heritage and how to view the relationship between my mother tongue and English.

By: Summer Dang

Summer Dang — Fri, 06 Sep 2019 22:50:13 +0000

The example of Vernacular Palaver has indeed opened our minds of the diversity in linguistics studies and evoked a call of carefulness in seeking resources to researchers in the field. Especially, it is essential to look for diverse materials and perspectives from scholars of various ethnic backgrounds, just like the example of black female linguist in Vernacular Palaver. As a postgraduate student, we all should be aware of this when referring to different sources in our work.

By: Chi Tam Nguyen

Chi Tam Nguyen — Fri, 06 Sep 2019 09:49:25 +0000

The article provided me with a very interesting question before I even read it: whether I cited any journal articles or research by a female African researcher. I reviewed many of them and found almost no research of that kind cited in my assignments. What an embarrassing ignorance! Anyways, the found the book Vernacular Palaver every interesting to read thanks to your summary. My favourite part would be the very first chapter of the book which introduces discourses of languages in Africa. I hope I can find it. This article also inspired to do more readings about languages in minority areas. It would be a great topic for a future research about linguistics.

By: yofa

yofa — Wed, 04 Sep 2019 03:23:14 +0000

By reading this insightful post, I started questioning myself. Should I be either grateful to live in an area still highly embracing its vernacular language (Javanese) or regretted as English was not widely used which -I cannot deny- obstructed me from acquiring the language more facilely?
However, on top of that, everything must have happened for a reason. Maintaining identities by keeping our vernacular language in notable existence is not at all a sad-ending story for an English language learner like me. Instead, I should be proud of myself as I help promote multilingualism in the world where minority languages are subjugated and save my people’s voices.

By: Mia

Mia — Sun, 01 Sep 2019 15:17:52 +0000

Hi Ingrid,
In fact, I have never understood these phenomena. I think there is some bias in everything. Women are a weak existence or even a negative existence, just as few people think that women can excel in mathematics, IT, technology and so on. Moreover, I would like to talk about the disappearance of a few languages. In China, there are many ethnic minorities, and most ethnic groups have their own language. However, with the popularity of Mandarin, many minority languages have disappeared because of the closer exchanges and education among different ethnic groups. I think it is necessary to protect a few languages because dialects are the carrier of culture and hope that future child can understand the changes in culture through these few languages.

By: Leo

Leo — Thu, 29 Aug 2019 13:01:39 +0000

Thanks for sharing this post. I found it interesting in two ways. Firstly, it is a thoughtful question “Why are you not citing any African female expert?”. Actually, when I do assignments or write an essay which requires me to provide a reference list, I search for the key words on searching engine to find the most suitable articles or books that support for my essays. I do not mind where the authors come from, but the contribution and the quality of their articles. I strongly agree with you that not only white male researchers do the best work, but people all around the world do the great work as well. Maybe it is because you have a biased look on their work. Be equal always. The second thing I want to share is that minority languages gradually disappear, maybe because fewer and fewer people use them or the colonized countries are forced to use the language of colonizers.
As we all know English is an international language, thus we have to learn English to communicate with foreigners. But it is really interesting that when you meet a foreigner and you greet them in their first language, they really appreciate that and they feel respected as you know their language.