Institute for Philosophy and Social Theory’s Post

Today we will be engaging in an interesting topic regarding indigenous epistemologies with a focus on African languages.

📚 Excited to share my latest publication titled "Exploring the Populist Rhetoric in the Tunisian President's Speech of July 25th: A Path to Save Tunisia," featured in the book World Languages and Cultures in the Public Sphere: Selected Proceedings of the 25th Southeast Conference on Languages, Literatures, and Film. https://lnkd.in/dkZUs_kn This study examines the linguistic and discursive specificities of Tunisian populism in President Kaïs Saïed’s pivotal speech on July 25th, 2021, amid widespread protests against Tunisia’s political and economic challenges. Combining insights from Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) and Cognitive Linguistics, specifically Image Schemata Theory, this article analyzes the populist rhetorical lexicon employed by the President. Through a detailed CDA of the various image schemata used, this article reveals that the President’s oratory embodies key features of populist discourse, including a stark dichotomy between the ‘virtuous ordinary’ people (us) and the ‘nefarious corrupt’ elite (them), a condemnation of these elites, and the portrayal of Kaïs Saïed as a populist leader poised to save Tunisia, its state, and its society. In doing so, this article contributes to a nuanced understanding of populist language in contemporary political contexts in Tunisia and the broader Middle East and North Africa region. #Tunisia #PoliticalDiscourse #Democracy #CognitiveLinguistics #CriticalDiscourseAnalysis #PopulistRhetoric #AcademicPublishing

History Wednesday starts with the story of the modern Romanian language. Bucharest Bible is the first printed book in Romanian. It was translated on the order of the ruler Șerban Cantacuzino, and printed in 1688 in Bucharest, the capital of #Wallachia (modern-day Romania). The printing of the #Bucharest #Bible marked a significant milestone in Romanian literature and culture. Before its publication, religious texts in Romanian were primarily handwritten and limited in distribution, and everywhere in Eastern Europe these texts were the single ones that spread the culture. The printing press allowed for the mass production and dissemination of religious texts, making them more accessible to the general population. The Bucharest Bible played a crucial role in the #standardization and development of the Romanian language. Its publication contributed to the spread of literacy and the consolidation of Romanian identity. #EuropeanCulture #PrintedLegacy #BucharestBible1688 #LiteraryHeritage #CulturalIdentity #LanguageEvolution #CantacuzinoCastle

THE POLITICS OF LANGUAGE OPPRESSION IN TIBET by Gerald Roche is a crucial examination of the global crisis of linguistic diversity. Through the lens of the Manegacha language, spoken by just 8,000 people, Roche sheds light on how assimilatory state policies jeopardize unique cultures and languages in Tibet. A must-read for advocates of language diversity and cultural preservation! https://ow.ly/qNqc50TYToR

🔔 SSMEIC has revised its name! The French and Italian versions are now "cultures islamiques" and "culture islamiche," while the German and English versions remain the same. This change addresses the limitations of the previous expressions "civilisation islamique" and "civiltà islamica," which tend to overlook the internal diversity and contradictions within cultures and neglect the vital exchanges that shape them. The updated terminology aligns more closely with our member's perspectives, acknowledging Islam as a multifaceted and transnational phenomenon rather than restricting it to one particular cultural sphere. ➡️ Discover more of this significant update in French, German and English. https://lnkd.in/da_p3zam

If you're at the University of the Philippines Diliman and available, you can attend this! CRG Doctoral Research Fellow Frankie Cruz will present her insights on "Digital Migrations of Othering" in a forum organized by the University of the Philippines Department of European Languages. 📜"Migrations and Mobilities in Languages, Literatures, and Cultures" 🗓️ 2 December 2024, 🕑2:30-4:30 PM 📍CAL AVR, Palma Hall, UP Diliman This forum explores the entangled concepts of mobilities and displacements. “While the most obvious application is, perhaps, on migrant Filipino communities in places where European languages are spoken, what this forum seeks to emphasize are the many critical ways migration can be deployed as an analytic construct in understanding the movements of people across spatial, ideological, and discursive cartographies.” ( from the collaterals) To register, click here  https://lnkd.in/eP2wJzwv Frances Cruz Frances Cruz is a PhD student in the Department of Literature at the University of Antwerp and the Department of Conflict and Development Studies at the University of Gent. Her current project involves tracing the colonial and securitized roots of Muslim representation in the Philippines through the digital textual analyses of historical newspapers and contemporary print and social media. This project and her policy-related work as the co-convenor of the Decolonial Studies Program at the University of the Philippines’ Center for Integrative and Development Studies have driven her interest in decolonial, intercultural and linguistic policies. #europeanlanguages #migration #mobilities

#afrilex update This afternoon, Mrs. Mmasibidi Setaka, our Digital Humanities Researcher specializing in Sesotho, presented an intriguing talk titled "Corpus-based dictionaries for low-resource language." Well Done Team SADiLaR!!🤩 #digitalhumanities #languagedevelopment #multilingualism

Calls: 1st International Conference Of the Cameroon Association of Linguistics (CAL): Meeting Description: Africa, the cradle of a multitude of cultures and languages, stands out for the richness and diversity of its linguistic heritage. With over 2,000 spoken languages (Eberhard et al., 2022), the continent is a veritable linguistic kaleidoscope, where each language carries with it the history, traditions and world views of a particular human group. However, this linguistic mosaic faces complex challenges that jeopardize the survival and enhancement of many languages. Despite

Books: Beyond Language: Arpacık (2024): This ethnographic work examines both the colonial language governmentality imposed by the Turkish state and the Kurdish language activism as a response to this system. Through a genealogical study, it calls for a reconsideration of the linguistic condition in Turkey as being more than nationalist, highlighting its foundation in intertwined ideologies of racism, imperialism, and colonialism. It then provides an analysis of new possibilities and directions led by the actors of the Kurdish language