Language and Film Discourse in Africa

Africa is home to one of the biggest film industries in the world, Nollywood. In this course, we will watch and analyze selected scenes in films. We will also examine the language used in films to express speech acts (that is, an utterance considered an action) such as advice, apologies, compliments, gratitude, greetings, refusals, requests, and sympathies. Moreover, we will analyze the linguistic, contextual, and social phenomena in African films made in African languages within the past five years. In addition, we will consider language, context, power relations, proverbs, political discourse, and medical discourse in the African film ecology.