Decolonizing Linguistics

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Decolonizing Linguistics, the companion volume to Inclusion in Linguistics, is designed to uncover and intervene in the history and ongoing legacy of colonization and colonial thinking in linguistics and related fields. Taken together, the two volumes are the first comprehensive, action-oriented, book-length discussions of how to advance social justice in all aspects of the discipline.

The introduction to Decolonizing Linguistics theorizes decolonization as the process of centering Black, Native, and Indigenous perspectives, describes the extensive dialogic and collaborative process through which the volume was developed, and lays out key principles for decolonizing linguistic research and teaching. The twenty chapters cover a wide range of languages and linguistic contexts (e.g., Bantu languages, Creoles, Dominican Spanish, Francophone Africa, Zapotec) as well as various disciplines and subfields (applied linguistics, communication, historical linguistics, language documentation and revitalization/reclamation, psycholinguistics, sociolinguistics, syntax).

Contributors address such topics as refusing settler-colonial practices and centering community goals in research on Indigenous languages; decolonizing research partnerships between the Global South and the Global North; and prioritizing Black Diasporic perspectives in linguistics. The volume’s conclusion lays out specific actions that linguists can take through research, teaching, and institutional structures to refuse coloniality in linguistics and to move the field toward a decolonized future.

Anne H. Charity Hudley is Associate Dean of Educational Affairs, Stanford Graduate School of Education, the Bonnie Katz Tenenbaum Professor of Education and Professor of African and African American Studies & Linguistics, by courtesy. She is also director of the Stanford Black Academic Development Lab.

Christine Mallinson is the 2023-24 Lipitz Distinguished Professor of the Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences, Professor in the Language, Literacy, and Culture Program, and Affiliate Professor in the Department of Gender, Women’s, and Sexuality Studies, where she is also Director of the Center for Social Science Scholarship and Special Assistant for Research & Creative Achievement in the Office of the Vice President for Research at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County.

Mary Bucholtz is Professor in Department of Linguistics and Director of the Center for California Languages and Cultures at the University of California, Santa Barbara, where she is also affiliated with the Departments of Anthropology, Education, Feminist Studies, and Spanish and Portuguese as well as the Programs in Latin American and Iberian Studies and in Comparative Literature.