Decolonising Multilingualism in Africa
14 days return policy
Shipping & Delivery
Product details
- ISBN 9781788923354
- Weight: 394g
- Dimensions: 148 x 210mm
- Publication Date: 16 Jul 2021
- Publisher: Multilingual Matters
- Publication City/Country: GB
- Product Form: Hardback
- Language: English
Secure
checkout
Fast Shipping
Easy returns
This book interrogates and problematises African multilingualism as it is currently understood in language education and research. It challenges the enduring colonial matrices of power hidden within mainstream conceptions of multilingualism that have been propagated in the Global North and then exported to the Global South under the aegis of colonial modernity and pretensions of universal epistemic relevance. The book contributes new points of method, theory and interpretation that will advance scholarly conversations on decolonial epistemology by introducing the notion of coloniality of language – a summary term that describes the ways in which notions of language and multilingualism in post-colonial societies remain colonial. The authors begin the process of mapping out what a socially realistic notion of multilingualism would look like if we took into account the voices of marginalised and ignored African communities of practice – both on the African continent and in the diasporas.
Finex Ndhlovu is Associate Professor of Language in Society at the University of New England, Australia. He is the author of Language, Vernacular Discourse and Nationalisms: Uncovering the Myths of Transnational Worlds (2018, Palgrave Macmillan).
Leketi Makalela works in the Wits School of Education, University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa. His research interests include translanguaging, African multilingualism and African languages and literacies.
