Perspectives Of Gender And Language In Cameroonian Contexts

1: Perspectives of Gender and Language in Cameroon

3 1 Perspectives of Gender and Language in Cameroon Lilian Lem Atanga University of Dschang There has been a paucity of gender studies in Cameroon compared to other fields in the social sciences. This has worse with studies relating to gender and language. The First department consecrated to gender related studies has been the Department of Women and Gender Studies in the University of Buea. Researchers in this department have published works most especially in the area of gender and development. Researchers including Endeley, Fonchingong, Fonjong and Fondo Sikod have been published. Although focusing on feminist studies, this department has paid little attention to both feminist linguistics and gender and language studies. Gender research has also been prevalent in other areas including medicine, agriculture, and psychology. This does not however mean that there has been absolutely no literature in the area of gender and language. Researchers like Mbangwana (1996) have investigated naming patterns of married career women in Cameroon, especially high profile women. His investigation revealed that these women, as expected by traditional western culture (in contrast to traditional Cameroonian culture)1 take the names of their husbands after marriage. The colonial legacy (though not institutionalised by law) required women to drop their maiden names after marriage. However, Mbangwana notes that these high profile career women, following an American tradition, in addition to their husband’s names, retain their maiden names. 1 By tradition, people from the Grassfield Bantu region (Northwest and West Provinces) have only one name which is their name, that is, their first name. They can only be referred to as’ wife of X’ but do not take the name of the husband. Only in the equatorial Bantu are girl-children referred to by the names of their fathers e.g. Ngo Nsom, where ngo means daughter of, and Nsom, the name of the father. So girl children and women do not have first names. Colonial practices made Cameroonian women take the names of their husbands, and children the names of their fathers. 4 Mbangwana argues that this is an expression of self affirmation. He gives examples such as: Anne Nsang Nkwain where the maiden name was Anne Nkwain, a name which used to be her ‘public identity’. Taking up a new name, the husband’s name – Nsang, prompts her to retain her maiden name Nkwain to preserve her old identity. Such a study points to the multiple identities (Wagner and Wodak 2006) of Cameroonian women both as traditional women who respect their culture and tradition and as modern, educated career women who want to assert their own personal success by maintaining their ‘original’ identities as children of their parents. After 2005 though, some MA and PhD thesis started focusing on aspects of gender and language. We have for example Atanga’s 2007 PhD on the Cameroonian parliament and Tangang’s 2009 PhD on gender and representation in English language textbooks in Cameroon. Gender and language is only beginning to gain mainstream attendance as it has been introduced as a course at the MA level in the Universities of Buea and Dschang in the Departments of English and Linguistics. This attention is beginning to yield fruits as some MA thesis are being done in the area including Ndeloa’s 2009 on Gender representation in Brewery Adverts, Ameli Tabi’s 2009 on Discursive construction of Gender in 100%Jeune and Anu’s discursive practices and its impact on female career choices. Some more students are currently researching within the area. The paucity of research in gender and language does not signify the absence of researchable issues in gender and language. Gender ideologies in our society serve to perpetuate for example relations of dominance within our society. Vološinov (1973) and Thompson (1990: 8) indicate that ideologies are complex ways in which meaning is mobilised for the maintenance of relations of dominion … This meaning is constructed and conveyed by symbolic forms of various kinds, from everyday linguistic utterances to complex images and texts. Ideology and discourse are intricately linked since ‘ideas’ do not drift through the social world like clouds (Atanga 2010). Rather, ideas ‘circulate in the social world as utterances, as expressions, as words which are spoken or inscribed’ (Thompson 1984: 4). 5 The intention of this book is to bring out aspects of gender and language within the Cameroonian context looking at different domains of language study where gender is a variable. Positioning Gender in...