In our article, we investigate the complex dynamics of linguistic understandings and mis- or non-understanding within multilingual contexts. Through the lens of sociolinguistic exploration, we navigate the multifaceted landscapes of language use, applying a multi-perspective approach and the triangulation method to explore the depths of linguistic…

This research proposes "racioreligious linguistic ideologies" to conceptualize systems of belief that conflate categories of language, spirituality, and peoplehood, with implications for contemporary education. While theories on the semiotics of race (raciosemiotics) and on the interplay of language and race (raciolinguistics) are…

This study seeks to understand the role of family language policy (FLP) in the process of language shift from Bantu languages into Portuguese, the powerful and prestigious language in Mozambique. The study is based on thematic analysis of semi-structured focus group interviews with urban middle class parents of young citizens born after the…

Bilingual parents must often make difficult and complex choices about which languages to use with their children. While existing research has explored family language practices and attitudes within certain language communities, the experiences of African parents are conspicuously absent from the literature. This study explores factors influencing…

A substantial body of research has examined the role of English in South Africans' linguistic repertoires. Many of these studies have investigated whether a language shift towards English might be underway among first-language (L1) speakers of the indigenous languages. At the same time, the role of English in the repertoires of L1 English speakers…

Bilingual education that incorporates a local language alongside the official language has become an increasingly common approach in sub-Saharan Africa for improving literacy rates and learning outcomes. Evidence suggests that bilingual instruction is largely associated with positive learning and literacy outcomes globally. However, the adoption…

In recent (socio)linguistic research there is a growing awareness that rural, small-scale multilingualism as the most widespread communicative setting across the globe. Yet, literacy programmes accepting and incorporating this diversity are non-existent. LILIEMA is a unique educational programme currently based in Senegal that addresses the need…

The main focus of the article is on teachers' classroom language practices in eight primary schools in Oshana and Khomas school regions. Language ideologies and translanguaging practices were used as a theoretical framework to evaluate the language ecologies that were created by the language practices in the schools included in the research study.…

Since the World Health Organisation declared COVID-19 a global pandemic in 2020, universities worldwide have undergone unanticipated changes in how they operate and deliver the academic programme. Chief among these changes has been a wide-scale adoption of emergency remote teaching (ERT). This phenomenological study draws on critical pedagogy to…

This research, conducted at a major university in Tanzania, investigated the personal experiences of multilingual students vis-à-vis the government's language policy requiring Swahili as the language of instruction (LoI) at the primary level and English at the secondary level. The participants, who spoke 25 different languages as their L1, were…

The global spread and hegemony of English as a medium of teaching, learning and research has come to be closely associated with neoliberalisation of higher education in the universities across the world, and has negatively impacted on epistemic issues, especially in Global South universities. No permanent solution has been found on challenges of…

This study explored the unfreedom of Grade 10 isiXhosa learners, highlighting the complex language, teaching, and assessment dynamics in Afrikaans classrooms. The study draws on them Capability Approach (CA) of Sen (1999) to assess the unfreedoms of learners in Afrikaans Grade 10 classrooms. It underscores the experiences of isiXhosa learners and…

The aim of this scoping review is to investigate the language policy's ideological basis which mandates the learning of English as a foreign language in secondary schools all over the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). It also aims to reveal the current state of affairs with regard to English as a foreign language in the Congolese curriculum.…

This longitudinal inductive research unpacks the process of African post-secondary students' Chinese language identity (CLI) with the purpose of exploring a model of CLI development. We traced how 12 multilingual African students developed their CLI during the first year in a Chinese university. Data coded from three rounds of interviews conducted…

Background: South African literacy-as-social-practice theoreticians, language-in-education experts, educational linguists, and language policies advocate multilingual pedagogies to acknowledge and cater to diverse multilingual learners' literacy development. Universities purport multilingualism to provide for the multilingual norm, students'…