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This book, which combines scholarly articles with interviews, seeks to imagine a decolonized sociolinguistics. All the chapters are firmly grounded in southern approaches to knowledge production, focusing not only on epistemology but also on the complex relationship between epistemology and ontology. The chapters address issues ranging from author positionality to the central theorists of a southern sociolinguistics, and roam from the language classroom to the church, in ways which invite us to begin to decolonize ourselves and rethink normative assumptions about everything from academic writing to research methods and language teaching. The book provides scholars and teachers with inspiration for how to teach linguistics in ways that challenge colonial hegemonies and that allow one to 'do' sociolinguistics otherwise. It also makes a powerful argument that debates about decolonization, southern theory and social justice are not just academic pursuits: what is at stake is our future and how we imagine it.
About the author
Ana Deumert is Professor of Linguistics at the University of Cape Town. Her research program is located within the broad field of sociolinguistics and has a strong transdisciplinary focus. Her current work explores the use of language and art, especially sound and music, in global political movements as well as the contributions decolonial thought can make to sociolinguistic theory. Recent publications include Colonial and Decolonial Linguistics - Knowledges and Epistemes (2020, with Anne Storch and Nick Shepherd), and From Southern Theory to Decolonizing Sociolinguistics (2023, with Sinfree Makoni). She is a recipient of the Neville Alexander Award for the Promotion of Multilingualism (2014) and the Humboldt Research Award (2016).
Sinfree Makoni is Director of African Studies, Liberal Arts Professor of African Studies and Applied Linguistics, The Pennsylvania State University, USA.
