Taiwo Oloruntoba-Oju (ed.)
Gendered Dichotomies in African Youth Language and Language Practices With a Foreword by Mokaya Bosire and a Postscript by Fiona Mc Laughlin
Taiwo Oloruntoba-Oju (ed.)
GENDERED DICHOTOMIES IN AFRICAN YOUTH LANGUAGE AND LANGUAGE PRACTICES
With a Foreword by Mokaya Bosire and Postscript by Fiona Mc Laughlin
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This book has been published with funding from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation.
ISBN-13: 978-3-8382-1724-6 © ibidem-Verlag, Stuttgart 2023 Alle Rechte vorbehalten Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. Dies gilt insbesondere für Vervielfältigungen, Übersetzungen, Mikroverfilmungen und elektronische Speicherformen sowie die Einspeicherung und Verarbeitung in elektronischen Systemen. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronical, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
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Table of Contents FOREWORD Mokaya Bosire…………………………………………………………………..…ix 1. Gendered Dichotomies in Language Use, and Youth Usage in African Settings Taiwo Oloruntoba-Oju………………………………………………………........1 2. Gender Binaries in African Youth Language: The Case of Camfranglais Comfort Beyang Oben Ojongnkpot………………………………………….........35 3. Gender, Age and Rural-Urban Dichotomies in S’ncamtho Familiarity and Usage in Zimbabwe Sambulo Ndlovu…………………………………………………………………..61 4. Clever or Smarter? Style and Indexicality in Gendered Constructions of Male and Female Youth Identities in Kenya and South Africa Ellen Hurst-Harosh and Fridah Kanana Erastus………………………………...79 5. From Slanging to Code-mixing …, Pidginization …, Antilanguages …, and Paroemic routines: Gender Dichotomies and Dynamics in the Language of Nigerian Undergraduates on social media Taiwo Oloruntoba-Oju and Omotayo Oloruntoba-Oju………………………....97 6. Lugha ya Mitaani, Gender Stereotypes and Sexism. “Catcalling” as a Communicative Practice of Male Youths in Urban Public Spaces in Tanzania Uta Reuster-Jahn ………………………………………………………………129 7. Gendered Stereotypes and Discriminative Language in Luyaaye, Ugandan Youth Language Saudah Namyalo…………………………………………………………………161 8. Hustling Vibaya: Femininities and the Modern Kenya Woman Philip Rudd and Fridah Kanana Erastus………………………………………...189 9. Gender Dynamics in Camfranglais : A Study of Female and Male Cameroonian Musicians v
Elizabeth Bi Maondo Abang…………………………………………………….215 10. Fluid Gender Identity Doing in the African Diaspora in New Zealand Oluwatoyin Olasimbo Kolawole………………………………………………..237 11. ‘Baby, I’m coming’: The Linguistic Construction of Orgasm by Female Youth in Rural and Urban Nigeria Eyo Mensah, Romanus Aboh and Lucy Ushuple………………………………257 12. Intersecting Youth Digital Practices and Homosexuality: Identity Construction, Ideological Framing and Decolonisation in Homosexuality Narratives on Nigerian Twitter Paul Onanuga and Josef Schmied………………………………………………281 13. Li(ea)ving Behind the Mask: The Stylistics of Nigerian Sexual Diversity, and Homophobic Discourse in The Digital Media Rasaq Atanda Ajadi…………………………………………………………….307 Gendered Dichotomies in African Youth Language : A POSTSCRIPT Fiona Mc Laughlin……………………………………………………………..325
Acknowledgements I would like to acknowledge the support of the many scholars and colleagues who have either contributed chapters to this volume or have provided peer reviews for the chapters. Their contribution has no doubt enhanced the quality of the publication. Special thanks to Professors Mokaya Bosire and Fiona Mc Laughlin, both of whom spared the time needed to read the manuscript and provide the Foreword and Postscript respectively for the volume. The Alexander von Humboldt Foundation provided support for this publication in two ways, firstly in the form of a renewed fellowship stay granted to me as a George Forster Fellow in 2021, and which was actualised at the University of Chemnitz in Germany. This provided the needed time, environment and resources to work on the theoretical background to the publication. Secondly, the Foundation also offered publishing support in the form of some subsidy to the publishers. All this is well appreciated. I also appreciate the support of Prof. Josef Schmied who was my academic host during the fellowship period. The role played by the following editorial assistants is also acknowledged: Chris Lekan Olawale, Sam Akinmusuyi (University of Ilorin), and Oluwaseun Bamisaiye (Federal University Oye-Ekiti). Taiwo Oloruntoba-Oju, PhD Department of English, University of Ilorin George Forster Fellow, Alexander von Humboldt Foundation Catalyst Fellow, The University of Edinburgh
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Gendered Dichotomies in African Youth Language and Language Practices:
Foreword Mokaya Bosire (University of Oregon, USA) A man who lived on the banks of the Niger should not wash his hands with spittle. Chinua Achebe
In a continent where upwards of 2000 languages are spoken, one is constantly exposed to incredibly diverse ways and means of expressing oneself at home and at the marketplace, formally and informally, publicly and privately. From a young age, you are a member of a speech community and of discursive practices that construct and perform both contextualized and imagined identities that are both individual and collective. From using distinct languages (codes), to choosing dialects and variants of a particular language down to a particular accent, African peoples who live in these plurilingual realities may choose to use one code or mix and mesh codes in their utterances for effect. In many places on the continent, multi-lingual practices and language-contact outcomes like bilingualism, code-meshing, mixed languages, pidgins and creoles, “trans-languaging” and other extranormative discursive practices are therefore a common phenomenon. These diverse ways of using language find full expression in Youth languages, both rural and urban. Such was my experience growing up in Nairobi that eventually led me to research the expressive, novel and surprising vitality of Sheng, amid all the codes Kenya had to offer. Because languages track and index cultures and cultural change, the complex intricacies of language that can arise in such a language-rich place as Africa with rapid cultural and technological change are exciting and interesting to investigate. “Hot-button” issues of our time: politics, the economy, climate change and local controversies all jostle for discussion and expression with global issues and trends in food practices, style and fashion, gender and sexuality. In a young continent where the median age is less than 20 years in most places, where most young people are increasingly connected with the world through social media networks and the internet, the international is at once local and subject to interpretation and adaptation. Given their repertoire of codes, one basic question then becomes: in which
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codes are different African demographics discussing these issues? For example, are all genders using the same codes? The youth of Africa, both men and women, use language in the new, extra-normative and rich-in-metaphor youth languages. The chapters in this volume cover the gamut of African youth language practices, revealing that, across the continent, young people are constantly morphing their linguistic repertoires in surprisingly comparable ways in disparate areas – Kenya, Cameroun, South Africa and everywhere in-between. The volume not only shows that there are nuances in the issues that young men and women in Africa are speaking to, but also that the discursive ways in which they are utilizing available codes to bolster their positions and perform evolving identities are gender-sensitive. My own research on Sheng shows that language practices align with individual, cultural and global conceptualizations of gender as construed through local power dynamics and contestations. I have found, for example, that, while all genders speak Sheng, men may use particular expressions in Sheng to project street-wise masculinity, while women would use Sheng to project different identities, including transgressing taboo rules for women in every-day life and in genres like music and stand-up comedy routines. The authors of this volume, many of them accomplished researchers in youth languages and other extra-normative language varieties on the continent, have interrogated not just the different contemporary issues that young people in Africa are speaking to, but also the innovative ways in which language is performed by different genders. The volume is a must read for all African language researchers and youth language enthusiasts everywhere. Mokaya Bosire University of Oregon
1 Gender(ed) Dichotomies in Language, and Youth Usage in African Settings Taiwo Oloruntoba-Oju (University of Ilorin, Nigeria) “Let us forget our differences.” (Nnamdi Azikiwe) “No, let us understand our differences.” (Ahmadu Bello)1
1. Introduction The gender perspective has not received the deserved level of attention in youth language studies, especially in African settings. Indeed, the continent so far lacks a volume that is focused exclusively on gender issues or gendering patterns in “African youth language” and “language practices.”2 The objective of this volume therefore is to attempt to begin to fill this yawning gap, through a book level concentration on the subject. In doing so, contributors to the volume direct their investigative gaze on an obvious yet sometimes contentious phenomenon, the notion of difference or dichotomy between the genders, and between their respective languages or communication patterns. 1
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Nnamdi Azikiwe, first indigenous Governor General of Nigeria, was a politician from the South eastern part of the country, while Ahmadu Bello, the first Prime Minister of independent Nigeria, was a politician from the North western part of the country (see Paden 1986, 3 for an elaboration of the quoted exchange above). “Youth language” is generally regarded as language associated with young people, from adolescent years up on till early adulthood. The category “youth” is fairly fluid (Oloruntoba-Oju 2020, 4) – the United Nations has 18–24 years as the range, while the African Youth Charter of the African Union and other African regional groupings put the age range at 15–35 years (see also Adjeran and Atindogbe 2019 on some of the related arguments). However, the term “youth language” as used here has two senses: the generic sense of pertaining to the young or to youths in general, and the local sense as one of those languages that have developed within the context of urbanity and social stratification (Mc Laughlin 2009, 8), and whose names have become well-established over the years. Within the African continent, these youth languages include: Camfranglais in Cameroon, Indoubil in Congo, Lugha ya Mitaani in Tanzania, Luyaaye in Uganda, Nouchi in Ivory Coast, Sheng in Kenya, S’ncamtho in Zimbabwe, and Tsotsitaal in South Africa. On the other hand, the term “language practices” refers to forms of expression such as slang and “antilanguage” that are typical of, or recurrent in, established youth usage. 1
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There is a sense of conflict in this preoccupation, since, on the one hand, any notion of difference or dichotomy tends to echo that of gender binaries or a strict compartmentalization of genders in terms of sex and sexual categories (e.g., the man/woman-male/female binary, or the idea that “man” equals “male” and “woman” equals “female”), as well as the sexual (heterohomosexual) binary. Such binarization has long been discouraged on the grounds of the multiplicity and complexity of these categories, such as the existence of non-binarized (intersex; transsexual), and of homosexual, bisexual, pansexual or otherwise non-heterosexual individuals. Secondly, the idea of a strict dichotomy between the language of females and males, or other genders, has also been subject to considerable debate. Thirdly, the very idea of comparison tends to promote an exceptional, male-as-norm, femaleas-deviation, view and a possible denigration of the latter. However, and perhaps ironically, youth language studies have generally been carried out precisely on the basis of a clear difference or dichotomy between female and male language and communication practices. This is partly due to the general finding that the established youth languages, and classic youth language practices (such as slang and antilanguage), are male oriented. In African settings, youth usage samples have been described variously as being “predominantly by male youth” (Kießling 2005), a “predominant feature of male communication” (Hollington and Nassenstein 2018, 10), in use “primarily by male youth, although lingua franca claims are being made for some of the varieties” (Hurst-Harosh and Erastus 2018, 3; emphasis added), “a domain specific, identity forming and context driven male dominated discourse form” (Oloruntoba-Oju 2018, 198), or as representing “a male-dominated tendency” (Mensah 2016, 186). Correspondingly, usages elicited from the male subjects are projected universally as “youth language,” which tends to foreclose or at least mask the nature and extent of female contribution to the phenomenon and heighten the sense of a gender dichotomy within the domain. This research orientation is not necessarily an African phenomenon, as it accords with worldwide practice in the field. In many western contexts, for example, knowledge about male youth had been generalized to all “young people” (Phoenix 1997). Not only have gender-slanted representations of “youth language” persisted in these contexts, but also that negative cultural comments against the use of “male forms” such as slang by female youth have been reported in the settings (Nortier 2019). The notion of difference or dichotomy between the genders and their language therefore persists,
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reinforcing the idea that gender dichotomies truly and continually exist. Do they, or are they simply gendered in our perception and in certain behaviors? It should be noted straightaway that the authors in this volume acknowledge the diversity of sex and gender, and the right of individuals to adopt and proclaim sex or gender identities that appear suited to their individual psychological orientations. However, notwithstanding such identities, questions as to the existence or otherwise of gender dichotomies or of gender distinctions in the language of the different sexes continue to animate debates in Sociolinguistics, and in Sociology. From the outcome of various studies, it does seem the case that, at the very least, such dichotomies are part of the dynamics of gender and are frequently reinforced through gendered behavior. This brief introductory chapter attempts to link ongoing research on African youth language(s) and language practices to aspects of the debate on language and gender.
2. Gendering in language 2.1 Difference, Dichotomy, Subjectivity, Dynamism On a general level, the sociolinguistics of gender has been concerned with the manner in which gender as a social variable impacts language use in society, and especially the variations in language that occur either as a consequence of, or in relation to, gender. However, the reverse impact of language on gender has also been abundantly theorized (see Edley 2001, quite apart from the axiom that language does cognitively direct or redirect our views and our focuses). It is axiomatic that language not only reflects the state of gender in society but is also a gendering instrument in itself. Its impact on gender occurs through performative iteration, the dissemination of prejudices, reproduction of gender asymmetries and maintenance of the cultural status quo. Linguistic gendering describes the manner in which gender enters, or is manipulated into, social relations through language. The relationship between language and gender had traditionally been studied, within Sociolinguistics, in terms of linguistic variation and of situationally or stylistically determined differences in language use of, or between, women and men. Mary Bucholtz, in her article, “From ‘Sex Differences’ to Gender Variation in Sociolinguistics” (2002), notes that such an orientation leads to a focus on “linguistic variables.” It has however become axiomatic over time that language is not just an instrument of communication but also a vector of identity, ideology and power. The fields of Critical Sociolinguistics, Conversation Analysis, Correlational
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Sociolinguistics, Critical Discourse Analysis, Feminist Critical Discourse Analysis, Critical Stylistics and others have opened up lines of enquiry into the dissemination of power in discourse. Thus, the study of linguistic gendering demonstrates specific ways in which communities and individuals “do gender,” in the manner well elaborated by West and Zimmerman (1987), within specific contexts and domains, whether consciously or unconsciously; the sundry motivations for different performances of gender, as well as the various effects on gender relations. The critical issue for this volume is to examine such differences, if they exist, and such motivations within the specific context of youth language in general, specific youth languages, and sundry youth language practices in Africa (see note 2 above on the relevant definitions). The trajectory of attempts to codify the nature of gendering in language becomes germane in a discussion of the gender phenomenon in African youth communications. Of particular interest is the unravelling of causal or, at least, contributory links between language and gender within the domain of youth. Issues relating to socialization, ‘habituation,’ contextualization, life affordances, styles, and the self-motivated construction of identities are among regular fares in language and gender enquiry. Related theoretical perspectives have ranged across numerous disciplinary boundaries— feminism, linguistic anthropology, applied linguistics, especially sociolinguistics—and more. Central notions have included, initially, those of patriarchal power and gender imbalance (with the masculine gender domineering in the use of power forms of language, and the feminine gender employing apparently “weaker” or “submissive” forms), and, later, a postbinary focus on the diversity of social, gendered, sexual and crossover experiences (see Arber, Davidson and Ginn 2003; Cameron 1998, 2005; Coates 1993; Jespersen 2013 [1922]; Lakoff 1975; Mills 2012; Tannen 1996; West and Zimmerman 1987 on this trajectory). These perspectives, which I try to disarticulate below, also employ a variety of frameworks for exploring gender differences in language, including, for example, sociolinguistics (e.g., Lakoff 1975; Coates 1993), pragmatics (e.g., Cameron 2005), indexicality (Ochs 1992), intersectionality (e.g., Levon and Mendes 2015). Explorations such as the above have elaborated language use by women and men either according to some hierarchical configuration or differentiated language and discourse norms between the genders. These approaches have been summarized in terms of what may be referred to as the “four Ds” (“DDDD”): deficit, dominance, difference and dynamic approaches (see Coates 1993). Both “deficit” and “dominance” suggest the evaluation of male speech
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as the linguistic norm in society, and female speech as a somewhat deficient and subordinated category; for example, lacking in syntactic complexity or being less well-formed (Jespersen 1922, 273). While these approaches are typically traced to Jespersen’s (1922) chapter titled “The Woman,” they also represent traditional conceptions in many societies with patriarchal organizational patterns. Within the deficit/dominant approach, aspects of conversation such as interruption and direct forms of expression are seen as signaling male dominance (Zimmerman and West 1975), while the preponderant use of indirect forms, hedges, excessive politeness, emotivity, and “empty adjectives” by women (Lakoff 1975) tend to signal deficit and subservience, according to this view. Difference, on the other hand, disavows any hierarchical relationship between female and male languages; only that, the two derive their languages from different socialization norms leading to different forms of expression. In 1990, Tannen (1993) introduced the dimension of “misunderstanding” in or between female and male talk on account of different talk patterns, such as the female “rapport” forms that apparently exhibit empathy and emotivity, as against male “report” forms that apparently exhibit competition and emotional indifference. These variations are not analyzed or interpreted as deficient or dominant either way, but simply as different. Instructively, however, the same expressions associated with “feminine usage” and regarded as paradigms of subservience above are held up within the difference paradigm as indices of difference in socialization resulting in different strategies of discourse. As Tannen later clarified, “all the strategies that have been taken by analysts as evidence of dominance can in some circumstances be instruments of affiliation” (Tannen 1993, 173). More recently, Bucholtz (2009, 4) observes, with regard to slangs, that “terms ideologically associated with one gender or the other may in fact be shared in practice” by both genders. The critique of these two main approaches (deficit/dominance vs difference) has involved the theorization of an interface between both. These approaches may be seen as representing “reflexes of inequality” (Cameron 1998) on the one hand, and variation dynamics on the other. Each approach is invested with arguments that ironically expose their own weaknesses. For example, the difference approach ignores the political/ideological nuances involved in gender relations and the associated language(s), while the dominance approach ignores language representational dynamics other than ideology. The approach of dynamism, on the other hand, suggests that contextually relevant dynamics shape the specific conversational approaches of the different genders, and that people simply “do gender” based on
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contextual needs, affordances and related dynamics, rather than on intrinsic or essentialist sex-gender attributes. Eckert's (1989) “gender is not enough,” drew attention to other mediating variables such as age, class, ethnicity3 and sundry environmental factors. This dynamism also follows the established multifunctionality and potential ambiguity of linguistic strategies (Cameron 1998, 439), in which conversations and interpretations are based on the pragmatics of discourse or the assumptions that interlocutors make. A related term is “gendered subjectivity,” which again entails a movement away from the idea of innate and invariable identities (e.g., women/men– male/female) to a notion of sundry social exigencies that confer individual subjectivities on persons and groups (see Holloway 2014; Cott and Pleck 1979). Research in gendered subjectivity focuses on the “lived experiences” of women, rather than on apriori assumptions regarding structural or lingual differences between women and men. The former enables a more relevant probe into the manner in which gender contributes to the treatment of women, and also how women perceive the various meanings associated with womanhood (Cott and Pleck 1979, 9). The sum of these latter approaches is therefore to avoid a binary appreciation of gender in general and that of language and gender in particular, in favor of the “diversity of gendered and sexual identities and practices” (Cameron 2005, 482). How these notions impact the trajectory of difference or dichotomy in gender studies has also been elaborated. With difference, Cameron continues, “research presupposes the existence of two internally homogenous groups, ‘men’ and ‘women’ and looks for differences between them,” while, with diversity “research assumes an array of possible gender identities or positions, inflecting or inflected by other dimensions of social identity [and] intra-group differences and inter-group similarities are as significant as differences between groups.” The notions of “context dependency” (Eckert and McConnell-Ginet 1999; Cameron 1998, 2005), “relationality” (Cameron 1998) and “relativity” (Tannen 1993) can be employed in the service of both difference and diversity. The terms are, albeit in different ways,4 in keeping with the constructionist/postmodernist view that “identities are not fixed and stable attributes of individuals, but are 3
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The ethnicity factor is also important to the extent that there have been scholarly disputations regarding north-south dichotomies in regard to youth languages (see Kerswill 2010) and sexuality (see Arnfred 2004). Tannen’s “relativity” was meant to speak to the multifunctionality of discourse strategies, since, as indicated in her words quoted above, the same forms, e.g., indirectness, can be employed to achieve either dominance or solidarity. Ultimately, therefore, the term could also be seen as signaling context-dependency.
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constructed in particular contexts through particular practices” (Cameron 2005, 492).
3. Does Dynamism Invalidate Notions of Difference or Dominance? Linguistic asymmetries in the domain of sex and gender continue to appear in many relevant researches. Examples over time have included differences between male and female in politeness forms (e.g., Lakoff 1975), types and degrees of verbal aggression (Luther, Legg and Robert 2010), response patterns (whether minimal or maximal); listening orientation in terms of level of attentiveness (Tannen 1990); turn taking behavior (DeFrancisco 1991; Goodwin 1990), among others. Within the African setting, Mesthrie, Swann, Deumert and Leap (2009) found continued trends of dominance in the form of interruptions by males, and rapport forms, as well as the so-called submissive forms in the form of compliments, hedges and tag questions, by females. Kimani, Nyarigoti and Gatnigia (2018) also found a significant relationship between gender and language use in different domains, including a hundred percent differential in the use of the youth language, Sheng, by males compared to females within the sampled population. Boakye (2007) found a greater level of vagueness in the language used by females within the sampled population. Elsewhere, and even within the new approaches to language and gender, Soni-Sinha (2010) found substantial differences in the manner in which women and men constitute their subjectivities within the workplace. These findings suggest that the new approaches that emphasize diversity would not necessarily cancel out the reality of difference or dichotomy in the domain. The relationship between “difference” and “diversity” itself, from the semantic point of view, is one of mutual entailment and sometimes of synonymy,5 for which reason explanations of “diversity” invariably take a recourse to the notion of “difference,” or to cognate terms such as “varied” or “contrastive.” 6 It does seem a profound irony that discourse ‘against’ difference should be based precisely on the notion of diversity; that is, on a certain recognition of difference(s). 5
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“The words difference, divergence, and diversity are all nouns that indicate dissimilarity or variation, or a condition, state, or quality of not being alike, the same, or together” (The Britannica Dictionary. https://www.britannica.com/dictionary/eb/qa/differ ence-divergence-diversity). See, for example, such referencing in Cameron’s (2005, 491) conclusion that: “Masculinities and femininities come in multiple varieties […] gender identities may be constituted less by the contrast with the other [author’s italics] gender and more by contrast with other versions of the same gender.” (Cameron 2005, 491; italics added).
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The main issue, from the postmodern perspective, is not whether certain differences exist between the sexes, since they obviously do, but whether, as Cameron (2005, 486) phrased it, there should be any ontological status attached to these differences or, put differently, in terms advanced by Judith Butler, whether related perceptions have any grounding in “brute facts of biology.” What is in issue therefore is the pre-discursive status of gender, whether gender flows autonomously from biological facts, or is only realized discursively and socially constructed phenomenon relating only to norms of behavior entrenched by patriarchal societies and the associated cultures. Although postmodernism would answer the former in the negative and ascribe all perceptions to societal constructs, attempts to separate language use from “brute facts of biology” tend to flounder when such attempts actually come in contact with “brute facts of biology.” Sex and gender have long been organizing categories of society, and have inevitably influenced the assignment of roles and construction of values, based on observable differences. This has occurred in ancient societies long before any scientific evaluation or confirmation of biological and psychological (sex-gender) dimorphism. In other words, brute facts of biology led to what over time became a stereotypic assignment of societal tasks and functions in ancient societies; that is, the idea, given a cisgender orientation, that a dense muscularity should determine who chopped woods, went to war, or offered protection to the other,7 an ancient version of noblesse oblige, while fecundity determines who nurtured the young, tempered hostilities, etc.), with all the associated social and cultural values and gender biases. Still, further research continues to underscore a mean attribute between notions of biology and constructs of society. The notion of gender ultimately centers on “the premise that notions of men and women/male and female are sociocultural transformations of biological and social categories and processes” (Ochs 1992, 339). Without doubt these ancient societies also deconstructed gender by acknowledging diversity within the domain; they did not deny the existence of female masculinities, or of trans- elements such as the androgynous,
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Amazonian/Agojie peculiarities, and sundry female masculinities, occupy a class of their own, and have often been cited in support of the fluidity of gender classifications. On the other hand, the recognition of such categories has not prevented the parallel recognition of binaries within the different demographies, e.g., that individuals may perceive themselves as female or as male within heterosexual and homosexual groups alike (e.g., butch/femme within lesbian relations; see Oudshoorn 1995 on aspects of gender differentiation within homosexuality).
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masculine woman or feminine man 8 (for whom there are contemporary slang renditions such as tomboy, femboi), as well as non-heterosexual (LGBTQ) categories. In these cases, gender behavior would appear to not be in sync with observable body characteristics, triggering overt or covert resistance towards stereotype gender expectations on the part of the individuals concerned. The fact remains that a lot of language issues directly from the body, whether in terms of the partonomic principle (body parts and compositionality), the associated partonomic onomasis (naming of the body parts), and related activities, functions, and perceptions. 9 It also triggers complex psychological inferencing and the associated meaning constructs or meaning extensions of the body. Whether particular bodies adhere to gender norms and expectations or not, brute facts regarding the body continue to figure in linguistic appropriations of the body within the society, and especially among the youths of respective societies. The fact of language being intimately woven with the body has therefore become well established in linguistic theory. Of particular importance here is the work of Johnson and Lakoff, and others, on language and embodiment, especially the notion that “there is no severing, separation from, or bleaching out of the bodily dimensions of meaning. Mind is embodied, meaning is embodied, and thought is embodied in this most profound sense” (Johnson and Lakoff 2002, 249). Associated researches have over time provided evidence for “body-based meaning” (250). Work in neurology in particular has provided neural evidence for the notion of linguistic embodiment. Iconic linguistic items are “related to their meanings through physical resemblance” (Taub 2001, 8), while “embodiment fundamentally underlies human conceptualization” in general (Brenzinger and Kraska-Szlenk 2014, 2). Names relating body to behavioral characteristics were some of the earliest indications of the inseparability of language from the body (e.g., terms like “front,” “back” mimic anatomical characteristics; the “I” in English mimics the erect body, etc.). Cognitive metaphors deriving from the body (e.g., “artery” as a metaphor for critical 8
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In Yoruba, a Nigerian and African diaspora language, for example, the stock phrases obìnrin bi ọkùnrin (“a woman like a man”) and ọkùnrin bi obìnrin (“a man like a woman”). For example, different vocabularies develop around different perceptions of gender, different sexual activities associated with different sexualities, etc. In another context, in the field of semiotics, the naming of an object or phenomenon is consequent on the phenomenon’s “aptitude to be named” (Barthes (1988[1968], 140) —as one thing or the other in line with its observed feature, characteristic or behavioral orientation.