Language, Culture and Society - Volume 7, Issue 2, 2025

Disease names are words that exist in the lexicon of a language, and constitute part of the native speaker’s linguistic intuition. In some African contexts, disease names are often constructed to reflect symptoms or conditions of diseases. This article explores the linguistic strategies of naming diseases among the Efik people of south-eastern Nigeria. The study is anchored on the socio-onomastic theory which focuses on the social, cultural and situational contexts in which names are given and used in everyday interaction. Drawing of ethnographic approach involving semi-structured interviews with twenty-five research participants, I discovered that varying linguistic strategies such as phonological adaptation, transliteration, non-euphemistic neologism, personal (and ethnic) naming, compounding, and colour terms are deployed in creating names of diseases in the Efik language. The study concludes that language influences the conception of disease as it provides vital knowledge and local understanding of health conditions behind disease names and experience of illness.

In this paper, we engage with the concept of translanguaging, situating it as a potentially transformative approach within linguistics, particularly in contexts where the limitations of monolingual and monoglossic frameworks are not only misaligned with, but also detrimental to, the complex realities of language use. However, while translanguaging challenges these frameworks, it risks becoming another form of universalism if not critically examined, and if unthinkingly applied across all contexts. Instead, we advocate for a conception of language as inherently multiple: a simultaneous multiplicity. We propose that language exists in a dynamic, varied array of forms, contingent on its enactment and context. We emphasise the importance of recognising linguistic diversity in its full complexity, moving beyond binaries and attempting to perceive language as it is conceptualised, practiced and performed. This approach calls for a rethinking of linguistic theory, encouraging us towards a more grounded, open and curious understanding of what language is, or might be.

Good communication in multilingual healthcare settings is vital to delivering patient-centered care. This study investigated the communication experiences of physicians’ and patients at Zamboanga City Medical Center (ZCMC), a public hospital in a multilingual city in the Philippines, focusing on the linguistic dynamics among Chabacano, Bisaya, and Tausug speakers during medical consultations. Employing a qualitative-ethnographic design, the study utilized direct observations to analyze interactions guided by the Calgary-Cambridge Model. The study showed that the physicians’ and patients’ communication experiences were marked by their multilingual reality through the use of translanguaging — a dynamic use of multiple languages — tailored to accomplish specific communicative tasks during consultations. Physicians and patients used translanguaging, regardless of whether they shared a common language, to facilitate better comprehension and engagement. The study highlights the critical need for integrating multilingual competencies into healthcare and recommends transforming health institutions such as ZCMC into a patient-centered space, by providing policies for inclusive communication. In doing so, health institutions can improve patient communication experiences, advancing health equity and universal healthcare goals in linguistically diverse regions.

This study explores Iranian “Blind Date” YouTube shows as discursive spaces where subjects navigate the tensions between patriarchal-Islamist values and global liberal-consumerist ideologies. Drawing on Bakhtin’s (1981) concept of chronotopes and expanded through the frameworks of scales and polycentricity (Blommaert, 2015), the article analyses how participants construct hybrid identities in a liminal social condition, marked by the overlapping and often conflicting discourses shaping contemporary Iranian society. Through qualitative content analysis of ten highly viewed episodes, including coding of conversations, gestures, and aesthetics, the study reveals how everyday performances reflect deeply embedded gender norms, economic expectations, and cultural contradictions. The shows function as hybrid chronotopic spaces where traditional matchmaking rituals intersect with globalized reality TV formats, exposing scalar tensions between micro-level interactions, meso-level societal norms, and macro-level ideologies. This study argues that these online dating programs not only represent the sociopolitical dynamics of post-revolutionary Iran, but also actively reproduce and negotiate the discursive struggles around modernity, tradition, gender, and agency. Ultimately, Iranian blind dates offer insight into the evolving modes of subjectivity and power in an ideologically divided yet interconnected society.

The Malayalam Hip Hop genre of music has experienced an extraordinary surge in popularity in the past decade; a shift in the musical culture in India, particularly Kerala. Malayalam Hip Hop brings forth a heteroglossia in terms of the use of language(s), dialects and the identities indexed. As common in bilingual and multilingual Hip Hop contexts, extensive code-switching techniques are employed in Malayalam rap. In addition to Malayalam-English code-switching, the songs use and intersperse Malayalam dialects, including marginalized ones. The paper analyses select popular Malayalam Hip Hop songs, exploring the extent of language choice, code-switching and its linguistic, discursive, poetic, and sociopolitical functions. The use of English signals participation in a global genre, and the dialects localize the genre, negotiate identities, and reclaim certain values, artistic styles, and memory. While the multidialectal counter-public localizes the genre linguistically, rap in standard Malayalam addresses contextually relevant socio-political themes and this is an alternate strategy of localization.