Professor Tope Omoniyi

 

Job Title: Professor (English Language & Linguistics) Telephone: +44 (0)20 8392 3416 Email Address: T.Omoniyi@roehampton.ac.uk

Career background & philosophy

My career in the academy has been a journey literally and metaphorically. Literally it has spanned three continents; Africa, Europe and Asia where I have held teaching and research positions during the last two decades. In addition to these three continents, I have had conference engagements and research collaborations in North America over the same period. I started out in 1981 as a Graduate Assistant in the Department of English at the University of Lagos. I was appointed Lecturer Grade II in 1986 upon completion of my MPhil (English) degree. From 1988 to 1990, I was the Coordinator of the Centre for the Use of English. I took a PhD from the University of Reading in 1994 and commenced a three-year lectureship contract at the National Institute of Education, Singapore which finished in May 1997. In September 1997 I went to Trinity College Dublin as a Research Associate to conduct a study of language issues in education and identity in the new and growing immirant community in Ireland. In October 1998 I was apppointed Senior Lecturer in English in the School of English Education, Thames Valley University in London. In February 2000 I joined the English Language and Linguistics programme at the then University of Surrey Roehampton becoming Reader in September 2004 after the University's rechristening as Roehampton University. In June 2007 I was granted a personal chair and became Professor of Sociolinguistics.

Metaphorically, my career has been an exploration of the vast contours of humanity’s soul across these three continents even as they have marked my own soul. The world has been my classroom and I’ve been both a learner and a teacher in every single career post and relationship I’ve had to date. I believe that my students are my life force and therefore my personal career fulfillment depends on the extent to which I successfully explore their talents and latent energies. Most obstacles to this can either be overcome or side-tracked. I thrive on the camaraderie of those I work with and in that regard I strive to give as much as I get.

My teaching at Roehampton

My academic home (since February 2000) has been in the School of Arts, on the English Language and Linguistics Programme where I teach the undergraduate modules, Language Issues in Multilingual Settings, Language in the Media, Child Discourse, and Discourse and Conversation Analysis. I convene the Master of Research in Sociolinguistics programme. I also have my share of doctoral research supervision.

Potential areas of research

As my publications (below) show, my research has covered broad areas of sociolinguistics, applied linguistics and the sociology of language and religion. I shall welcome applications from research students wishing to investigate topics in aspects of Sub-Sahara African language policy and development, language and identity especially of youth, hip-hop cultural identity, media (including film, music) and Black and African diasporic identities and translocality, hybridity, borderlands, and the sociology of language and religion. I shall however be particularly delighted to supervise research students wishing to apply my hierarchy of identities model to a context of their choice.

My research interests

I have diverse research interests which to date have been determined by or been in response to circumstances in which I find myself on my academic journeys. This diversity is reflected in the range of work that I have undertaken and/or published so far. Broadly, I have published in the areas of borderland sociolinguistics, language politics and education, language and identity, language and popular culture, and Project Global English. More specifically, I have undertaken and published research on the Nigeria-Benin, Singapore – Malaysia and Nigeria - Cameroon borders. I have done small scale investigations of refugee and recent immigrant communities in Dublin (1997-1998) and West London (1999). I have recently begun to research abstract notions of borders by investigating translocal communities and diasporas, and identities constructed by West African rap and hip-hop artistes. Since 2002, I have been part of an international research network on globalization, identity politics and social conflicts (GIPSC). Currently, my collaboration with the Open University's Ferguson Centre for Asian and African Studies is on the Nollywood and African Diaspora Project. I coordinate an international research network on EU accession and identity, as well as an international network on the sociology of language and religion.

Service to the discipline & society

• I serve on the editorial board of a number of journals and regularly participate in the peer review process of several other journals. I am on the Boards of Sociolinguistic Studies, Journal of Language, Identity and Education, and the Lagos Review of English Studies. In addition,
• Member of the International Advisory Board of the Centre for Multiple Languages and Literacies, Teachers College Columbia
• Reviewer for a number of book publishers
• I have served on the panel of judges for the NCCRI since 2005
• I gave talks in prison, and sixth form colleges

Creative endeavours

Like everyone else, I have multiple lives. In another life I am a poet with a published volume to my name and a couple of manuscripts awaiting publication. My work has also appeared in poetry magazines/journals and anthologies in Singapore, the USA, the UK, South Africa, Norway and Nigeria. I do some closet short story writing and scriptwriting.

Publications

Vaidehi Ramanathan and Brian Morgan (2007) ‘Alternative contexts of language policy and planning in sub-Saharan Africa.’, TESOL Quarterly, 41: 3, 533-549.

(2007) Cultures of Economic Migration, Eds. Suman Gupta and Tope Omoniyi. , Ashgate..

(2007) 'Outsourcing and migrational anxieties in discourse perspectives', Gupta, S. and Omoniyi, T. (eds.) Cultures of Economic Migration: International Perspectives. London: Ashgate, 210.

Jan Blommaert (2006) ‘Email fraud: language, technology and the indexicals of globalization’, Social Semiotics.

(2006) ‘West African Englishes’, In The Handbook of World Englishes. Kachru, B., Kachru, Y. and Nelson, C. (eds.), Oxford: OUP.

(2006) Explorations in the Sociology of Language and Religion, Tope Omoniyi and Joshua Fishman (eds.), John Benjamins Pub Co..

(2006) 'Hierarchy of Identities, In Tope Omoniyi and Goodith White (eds.) Sociolinguistics of Identity. London: Continuum Books.

(2006) 'Hip-hop through the WE lens', In World Englishes and Global Popular Cultures, Kachru, Y. and Lee, J. (eds.), Oxford: OUP.

Goodith White (2006) The Sociolinguistics of Identity., .

Sinfree Makoni, Nkonko Kamwangamalu, Anne Pakir, Sohail Kamani, Lynn Mario de Souza (2005) 'Towards a retheorization of codeswitching’, In Challenging Ethnocentricism in Applied Linguistics and English Language Teaching: A Symposium. S. Makoni and S. Canagarajah (eds.) TESOL QUARTERLY, 39: 4, 729-734.

(2004) ‘Identity Constructs in a Contested Borderland: The Bakassi Peninsula’, In In Duro Oni, Suman Gupta, Tope Omoniyi, Efurosibina Adegbija and Segun Awonusi (eds.) Nigeria in the Age of Globalization: Contemporary Discourses and Texts. Lagos: CBAAC.

Oni, D., Gupta, S., Omoniyi, T., Awonusi, S. and Adegbija, E. (eds.) (2004) Nigeria and Globalization: Discourses on Identity Politics and Social Conflict. , Lagos: CBAAC.

(2004) The Sociolinguistics of Borderlands: Two Nations, One Community. , Trenton, NJ., Africa World Press..

(2003) 'Culture and identity shifts in the era of globalization: digitalisation, diaspora, and other concerns', India in the Age of Globalization: Contemporary Discourses and Texts. Delhi: Nehru Memorial Museum & Library, Eds. Gupta, Suman, Tapan Basru, and Subarno Chattarji, 353-398.

John Benjamins (2003) 'Language Ideology and Politics: A Critical Appraisal of French as Second Official Language in Nigeria', Africa and Applied Linguistics, AILA REVIEW, Eds. S. Makoni and U.H. Meinhof, 16, 13-25.

(2003) Local policies and global forces: Multiliteracy through Africa’s indigenous languages, Language Policy, 2:2, 133-152.

(2001) Farting Presidents and Other Poems, Ibadan: Kraft Books, 1-104.

(2000) 'Coming in From the Heat: Refugees and Citizenship Education in Britain', The School Field, XI: 1 & 2, 41-58.

(2000) 'Island Identities: A Theoretical Perspective', International Journal of the Sociology of Language, 143, 1-13.

(2000) Islands and Identity in Sociolinguistics: Hong Kong, Singapore and Taiwan, Tope Omoniyi (ed.) International Journal of the Sociology of Language. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter , 143.

(2000) 'Language, education, citizenship, and refugees: When the shelter becomes home', In Gozdziak, E. and Shandy, D. (eds.) Rethinking Refuge and Displacement: Selected Papers on Refugees and Immigrants. Arlington VA: American Anthropological Association. , Vol. VIII.

(1999) 'Afro-Asian Rural Border Areas', In J.A. Fishman (ed.) Handbook of Language and Ethnic Identity. New York: OUP, 369-381.

(1999) 'Bilingualism, Biliteracy, Classrooms and Identity Politics in Sub-Saharan Africa', Eric Document Reproduction Service No. ED434530 Chicago, IL, 1-20.

(1999) 'Native Holes and Alien Pegs: LAP/LSP as Tools in Immigrant and Refugee Children's Socialisation', Baoill, Donall P. O. & Ruane, Mary (eds.) Integrating Theory and Practice in LSP and LAP, Teanga , 19, 61-73.

(1995) ''Song-lashing' as a Communicative Strategy in Interpersonal Conflicts in Yorubaland: A Sociolinguistic Appraisal', TEXT: An Interdisciplinary Journal for the Study of Discourse, Berlin/New York: Mouton de Gruyter, , 15: 2, 299-315.

Research Projects Undertaken

1. Narratives of identity in Contested Borderlands: the Bakassi Peninsula (2003): British Academy Grant SG-36820.

2. Nollywood and the African Diaspora Project [in collaboration with the Open University's Ferguson Centre for Asian & African Studies]

Membership of professional bodies

British Association for Applied Linguistics & AILA;
Nigerian English Studies Association;
British Association for Literacy in Development

Qualification Details

B.A. (Hons.) English, University of Lagos (1981);
M.Phil (English), University of Lagos (1986);
PhD (Linguistics), University of Reading (1994)

Examining Experience

External examiner, University of Leeds' BA TESOL Oman Programme (2004 - 2006);

Consultancies Undertaken

Manuscript reviewer for Kluwer Pub., Palgrave Macmillan, Routledge Pub.

Undergraduate courses taught at Roehampton:

English Language & Linguistics

Postgraduate courses taught at Roehampton:

Linguistics
Sociolinguistics