Taiwo Oloruntoba-Oju

Youth language data provides interesting perspectives on gender dynamics and gendered usage in society. However, the gender perspective has not received the deserved focus in youth language studies in Africa. This is partly due to the general perception that youth languages and classic youth language practices, such as slang and anti-language, are male-oriented. This collected volume focuses on gender dynamics and gendered usage in African youth languages and youth language practices, against the backdrop of urbanity as well as rurality. With representations from different parts of Africa, the volume examines sundry youth usage in different contexts and domains. While avoiding strict binarizations and potentially flawed dichotomies, the contributing scholars observe some of the motivations for different gender performatives and how these manifest in a variety of language forms and through predominated categories of use. Data samples were obtained through sociolinguistic and anthropological instruments, ranging from questionnaires and structured interviews to street-based observations and corpus analyses. On the whole, the volume engages the literature and debate on language, youth, and especially on gendering dynamics in African youth language practices.

Taiwo Oloruntoba-Oju studied English and Applied Linguistics at the Universities of Ilorin, Ibadan and Reading, UK. Since 2007, he is Senior Lecturer of English and Applied Linguistics, Language and Society and Stylistics (language, literature, and culture) in the Department of English at the University of Ilorin in Nigeria. Previously, Oloruntoba-Oju has been a George Forster fellow of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation and a visiting scholar at the Universities of Bayreuth and the Technical University of Chemnitz. Currently, he is a Catalyst Fellow of the University of EDINBURGH.

His previous books include Culture and the Contemporary African (Recito/Nordic Africa Institute, 2013); African Youth Languages: The Rural-Urban Divide (Cuvillier, 2017); Pragmatics, Linguistics, Language and Literature (Cuvillier, 2019). His papers have been published by, among other outlets, Linguistics Vanguard, Language and Style, Sexuality Monographs, Canadian Journal of African Studies, Research in African Languages and Literatures, Stichproben: Vienna Journal of African Studies; Africa World Press; African Regional Sexuality Resource Centre.