INDEPENDENT NG
The Lagos State University (LASU) in her characteristic ever intellectually awake manner has swiftly converted into a brainstorming intellectual firework, the political outburst of Gbadebo Rhodes-Vivor on a Channels Television programme in the heat of the electioneering that heralded the just-concluded gubernatorial poll that saw to the re-emergence of Gentleman Babajide Sanwo-Olu as the governor of Lagos State.
The learned public would recall that while responding to a teaser from the anchor of a Channels Television political personality programme, Gbadebo Rhodes-Vivor (GRV) had, in a damning mien, retorted: “I don’t think in Yoruba”.
Though he might be assumably driving home a point to the effect that he doesn’t need to speak or understand the dialect of the masses before making policy decisions for them, however, what looked then like another erudite expression of a typical politician has snowballed into a serious intellectual discourse of a linguistic laboratory dimension in the gathering of hot brains and fertile minds that dot the Best State University in Nigeria and a Centre of Academic Excellence in Africa on Thursday, March 23, 2023.
Titled: Language, Thought And Identity, A Reflection Of Gbadebo Rhodes-Vivor’s Statement: “I Don’t Think In Yoruba”, the intellectual discourse gave birth to dispassionate, blunt submissions showcased language as a scientific art.
The intellectual dissecting of the GRV’s expression further exposed all that were present at the event to the axiom that Language is like a horse upon which the culture of the speaker rides; and that the way you think, behave and conduct yourself is a function of the language you speak.
Another take-home from the robust intellectual rapport was that the language and culture of a people are siamese twins of symbiotic existence.
This is even as the structure of the language affects the behaviour of the speaker.
