Subaltern Linguistics

Subaltern Linguistics challenges the goals and theoretical foundations of colonial linguistics, academia, and education and provides alternative approaches and practices. The goal of subaltern practice is to create economies, projects, and resources that can be made and used by community members and leaders to develop and promote community beneficial projects in their own language (or a language of their choice). In doing subaltern and CREDIBLE work, we need to develop a new array of tools and resources. This book provides a broad introduction for how this can be done along with examples of multiple CREDIBLE projects carried out by students and members of the broader community.

Part I establishes the need for this work, introduces some concepts that the CREDIBLE approach draws on, and explains CREDIBLE projects. Part II delineates what can be done while adopting a CREDIBLE approach, including several examples of student projects across a range of areas such as education, environment, healthcare and economic development. Part III provides detailed guidelines and instructions on how to develop CREDIBLE projects with worksheets and activities that can be used to conceptualise, plan, and develop CREDIBLE projects. Finally, Part IV includes four CREDIBLE project reports as examples of how this work can be written up for wider dissemination.

This text is an essential guide to a new way of doing linguistics, reflecting the diversity and richness of today’s world.

Ahmar Mahboob, also known as Sunny Boy Brumby and Prof Nomad, is Associate Professor in the Faculty of Social Sciences at the University of Sydney, Australia. They were recognised as field leader in English language and literature by the Australian Magazine in 2019 and their poetry was inducted into the Australian Poetry Hall of Fame, Guyra, NSW, in 2021. They are the founding Editor- in- Chief of the upcoming Routledge Resource Online: English in the Real World.

Aurelie Mallet holds a PhD in Linguistics from the University of Sydney. She has a focus on medical discourse, in particular public health discourse. Her PhD utilised the principles of Positive Discourse Analysis to deconstruct and analyse Australia’s successful National Tobacco Campaign, leading to the proposal of a new campaign targeting excessive sugar. Aurelie currently works for NSW Health in the training and education of health staff.

Lee Cheng Koay holds a Master of Crosscultural and Applied Linguistics and a Master of Health Communication. With a background in educational writing and health communication, Lee Cheng is currently conducting her PhD studies to integrate CREDIBLE into the development of a health campaign, specifically on endometriosis in Malaysia.