Conference PROGRAMME

Day 1

Day 2

Day 3

Day 4

DAY 1 Monday 13 July 2026

Day 1: Monday 13 July 2026
07:30 – 08:30	Registration
08:30 – 08:45	Opening Ceremony • Opening address by Dr Nthabi Taole-Mjimba, Acting Vice Chancellor, University of Fort Hare • Message of support by Professor Monwabisi Ralarala, Deputy Vice Chancellor (Academic) University of the Western Cape • Message of support from Rhodes University
08:45 – 09:45	Keynote #1: Prof Kathleen Heugh, Adelaide University, Australia A sociolinguistics of Africa – southern conviviality, reciprocity, and scholarship
09:45 – 10:15	Tea Break
	Plenary: Conf Room 1	Conf Room 2	Conf Room 3	Regency 1	Conf Room 4	Conf Room 5	Conf Room 6
	DECOLONISING	DECOLONISING	DIGITAL	POWER	POWER	POWER	LANGUAGE POLICY
	COLLOQUIUM	Session Chair: Dr L. Mantashe	COLLOQUIUM	COLLOQUIUM	COLLOQUIUM	COLLOQUIUM	Session Chair: Dr J. Lepheana
10:15 – 10:40	Multilingualisms in Education: Conversations among Southern and Northern Scholars • Dion Nkomo, University of Stellenbosch, South Africa • Ritu Jain, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore & Kathleen Heugh, Adelaide University, Australia Multilingualism, Identity and Being Indian: Decolonial Perspectives from Singapore Dr Josh Prada, Groningen University, Netherlands Heritage Language Programs as Borderlands within Western Universities: Translanguaging, Transknowledging, and Transpositioning	Silvia Quattrini, Adelaide University, Australia Agency, ancestrality and relationality in Indigenous Amazigh women language activists’ discourse and memory work in Morocco	Linguistic Colonialism 2.0 – Machine Learning, Surveillance Technologies and Data Practices, and New Forms of Sociolinguistic Order • Britta Schneider, Vienna University, Austria & Bettina Migge, University College Dublin, Ireland Continuations from European colonialism to AI: The material making of language as practice of global domination and control • Helen Kelly-Holmes, University of Limerick, Ireland AI as an opportunity to rethink sociolinguistic theory and practice? • Rafael Lomeu Gomes, University of Copenhagen, Denmark AI in academia: Dissent and dissonance	Mapping “sacrifice zones”: The semiosis of coloniality in waste discourse • Crispin Thurlow, University of Bern, Switzerland Framing the global south in waste exhibitions • Charmaine Kong, University of Bern, Switzerland Raciolinguistic othering in Hong Kong waste work • Laura Wohlgemuth, University of Bern, Switzerland Colonial imaginaries in Swiss domestic waste discourse • Alessandro Pellanda, University of Bern, Switzerland Switzerland’s hygienic enclosures and waste externalities	Translanguaging into Decolonial Futures • Nelson Flores, University of Pennsylvania, United States of America A Raciolinguistic Genealogy of Latinidad • Corinne Seals, Te Herenga Waka \| Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand Te keteparaha to dismantle the oppressor's house: Adding translanguaging to practices of linguistic resistance • Dr Xolisa Guzula, University of Cape Town, South Africa & Prof Carolyn McKinney, University of Cape Town, South Africa Constructing and disrupting the coloniality of language: radical translanguaging as decolonial pedagogy • Ingrid Beiler, Oslo Metropolitan University, Norway Translanguaging in a Context of Racial and Colonial Innocence	What does Marxism have to do with sociolinguistics? • Christian W. Chun, University of Massachusetts Boston, United States Going against your classed interests in a capitalist society? (online) • Ana Deumert, University of Cape Town, South Africa & Nkululeko Mabandla, University of Cape Town, South Africa Towards a sociolinguistics of dispossession • Alex Luke, University of Sydney, Australia The subsumption of language and semiosis (online) • Alberto Bruzos, Princeton University, United States Liberty against the linguistic law	Paul Berger, Université de Strasbourg - LiLPa, France French as a foreign language: reframing a colonially-disseminated language through Plural, Multinlingual and Pluricentric perspectives
10:40 – 11:05		Annika Labrenz, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Germany Colonial traces in the linguistic landscape of present-day Namibia					Seyyed-Abdolhamid Mirhosseini, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong The policy discourse surrounding pre-school English-medium education in Hong Kong
11:05 – 11:30		Nico Nassenstein, Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, Germany Antonia Fendt, Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, Germany Folk linguistic judgements of variation in Lingala (Central Africa): Revisiting perceptual dialectology through a decolonial lens					Rajend Mesthrie/Tandzile Shongwe, University of Cape Town, South Africa Bridging morphemes, bridging languages – pluriverses and third spaces in siSwati-English bilingualism
11:30 – 11:55	Pamela Maseko, Nelson Mandela University, South Africa Multilingualism for an African University: Beyond Compliance and Towards Epistemic Transformation	Bulukia Abdullah, University of Melbourne, Australia Reimagining Multilingualism and Superdiversity - Decolonising Linguistics from a Global South Perspective in Tema, Ghana					Nicolas Femia, University of Gothenburg, Sweden Navigating the postmonolingual paradox: the case of unmarked multilingualism in a Swedish suburban school
11:55 – 12:20	Prof Nokhanyo Mdzanga, University of the Western Cape, South Africa Negotiating Pedagogic Authority Through Reciprocal Multilingualism: A Conceptual Framework for Multilingual Teacher Education	Rahel Beyer, SIL Cameroon, Cameroon Cultural aspects of using language portraits in multilingualism research: Case studies from Cameroon	Dr Catherine Tebaldi, Universite du Luxembourg, Luxembourg & Evelin Szgeti & Anne Virgili,, University of Luxembourg DigiTrad: Social Media and Youth Politics in Luxembourg and Switzerland	Philip Freestone, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Hong Kong Discourses of diversity in Hong Kong Universities: belonging, identity & ideology in a cosmopolitan, Confucian & Christian city			Firdous de Villiers, University of the Western Cape, South Africa The Transformative Potential of Bi/Multilingual Pedagogies in South African Higher Education
12:20 – 13:20	Lunch and networking with exhibitors
	Plenary: Conf Room 1	Conf Room 2	Conf Room 3	Regency 1	Conf Room 4	Conf Room 5	Conf Room 6
	DECOLONISING	POWER	DIGITAL	IDENTITY	LANGUAGE POLICY	DECOLONISING	ONLINE
	COLLOQUIUM	Session Chair: Prof. B. Ntombela	Session Chair: Dr NG Gqeba	Session Chair: Dr M. Ganiso	Session Chair: Dr I. Johnson	Session Chair: Ms T. Sambo	Session Chair: Mrs S. Dayimani
13:20 – 13:45	Southern perspectives and experiences of multilingual education: ideologies, policies and innovating with teachers • Carolyn McKinney, University of Cape Town, South Africa Documentary: 'Free to Learn: Soze ungayibambi' • Xolisa Guzula, University of Cape Town, South Africa & Soraya Abdulatief, University of Cape Town, South Africa Crossing the frontier from oral to written translanguaging for epistemic access in a Natural Science classroom • Monica Hendricks, Rhodes University, South Africa & & Soraya Abdulatief, University of Cape Town & Simthembile Xeketwana, Stellenbosch University, South Africa Balancing Act: Examining Translanguaging and bi/multilingual practices in the English First Additional (EFAL) classroom • Robyn Tyler, University of the Western Cape, South Africa Reimagining school language policy through a bilingual science intervention • Brian Ramadiro, University of Fort Hare, South Africa Bilingual Pedagogies in Initial Teacher Education	Jessica Grieser, University of Michigan, United States of America Negation Without Stigma: Toward Anti-Bias in Experimental Methodology	Didem Leblebici, European University Viadrina Frankfurt (Oder), Germany Living with Voice Assistants: Multilingual Practices at the Online-Offline Nexus	Anette Briksdal, University of Oslo, Norway The role of parenthood in Indigenous language reclamation: From insecurities to resilience	Michael M Kretzer, University of the Western Cape, South Africa Reclaiming Schoolscapes: Decolonising Education through Multilingual Linguistic Landscapes (LL) in Southern and Eastern Africa	Finex Ndhlovu, University of New England, Australia Decolonising the Discourse on Pan-African Integration: Language, Publics, Culture	Mary Alyousef, Utrecht University, Netherlands Fieldwork practices vs institutionalized research frameworks (online)
13:45 – 14:10		Jens Christian Borup Green Jensen, University of Copenhagen, Denmark Exploring the use of AI in research practices – some methodological reflections	Kinga Kozminska, University of London, United Kingdom Who is heard by voice AIs? Automatic speech recognition and multilingual talk	Natalie Braber, Nottingham Trent University, United Kingdom Mining Heritage Tours: Identity and Community in the East Midlands (UK) and the Ruhr Area of Germany	Julia Putsche, University of Strasbourg, France Aspects of Global Citizenship Education of teaching and learning the neighbouring language in a European border region	Gerald STELL, UNIL, Switzerland Imagining English in Namibia: Scholarly myths and Namibian perspectives	Mugiho Kojima, Mie University, Japan Evolving COVID-19 Narratives: How Did Young Japanese Women Adapt and Stop Talking about COVID-19 Impact? (online)
14:10 – 14:35		Uyanda Sade Vela, University of the Western Cape, South Africa Language Policy Implementation, Court Documentation, and Linguistic Justice in South African Courtrooms	Riitta-Liisa Valijarvi, University College London, United Kingdom Meänkieli Online: Linguistic Ideologies and Pluriversal Practices	Daniela Carvalho, University of São Paulo, Brazil Topics of language and culture in an English for Specific Purposes Journalism course	Yinchun PEI, University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong EMI with Chinese Characteristics: Evolving Policy Ideologies and Discourses in Higher Education	Nkululeko Mabandla, (Ana Deumert), University of Cape Town, South Africa Exile as linguistic-semiotic assemblage – A sociolinguistic analysis of the South African liberation struggle	Lotte Remue, Ghent University, Belgium ‘We don’t know what it means in Pashto’ : Multilingual memory and the disclosure of past experiences in interpreter-mediated interaction (online)
14:35 – 15:00		David Garcia Leon, University of New Brunswick, Canada & Javier Garcia Leon, University of North Carolina at Charlotte, United States Language, Power, and Racialized Privilege: Unpacking Ideologies in Colombian Bilingual Policies and (Social) Media Discourses.	Gary Ao Ieong, University of Macau, Macau The digital raciolinguistic commodification of an Asian persona: The stylistic bricolage of Uncle Roger and indexical meanings of a generic Asian Englishes	Ryota Ishii, Institute of Science Tokyo, Japan Who Produces the Signs? Authorship and the Production Process of the Shop Façades in Yokohama Chinatown	Jonathan White, Dalarna University, Sweden Instructors’ Views of Varieties for Languages other than English	Simangele Mashazi, Stellenbosch University, South Africa “I try, I try”…: navigating and creating inclusive multilingual spaces through vulnerability and Linguistic Citizenship	Chiara Facciani, University for Foreigners of Siena, Italy Reflective Diaries as Tools for Investigating Teachers’ Engagement with Plurilingual Pedagogies (online)
15:00 – 15:25		Richard Hallett, Northeastern Illinois University, United States of America The online linguistic landscapes (OLL) of South African and United States universities: The dissonance of languages other than English (LOTEs)	Andreas Baumann, University of Vienna, Austria The impact of digitalization on global linguistic diversity	Gavin Furukawa, Sophia University, Japan ‘Forcing Pidgin’: Indexes of Ownership in Pidgin Comedy Posts on Instagram	Quynh-Giang Dang , University of Pennsylvania, United States of America Internal vs. External Relations: Role Division Among Educators of Mông Students	Annika Labrenz, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Germany Unity in Diversity? Exploring language ideologies, ownership, and values in mono- versus multilingual societies	Sarah Josefine Schaefer, University of Limerick, Ireland Envoicing the planet in a pluriversal world: A posthumanist framework for examining climate communication practices in Irish and German media (online)
15:25 – 16:00	Tea Break
16:00 – 17:00	Keynote #2: Prof Stef Slembrouck, Ghent University, Belgium The interactional activity-specific take on sociolinguistic enquiry. Situatedness and its language-policy contingencies
17:00 - 17:15	Day's closing
19:00 – 21:00	Welcome cocktail • Book launch: Language Policy across Continents: Decolonisation, Language Rights and Multilingualism in Education

DAY 2 Tuesday 14 July 2026

Day 2: Tuesday 14 July 2026
08:00 – 08:15	Registration
08:15 - 08:30	Welcome and message of support from Dr Zola Wababa, Eastern Cape Department of Education
08:30 – 09:30	Keynote #3: Dr Mbude-Mehana, South Africa Mother Tongue-based Bilingual Education (MTbBE): The unfinished consonance in a Dissonant Architecture: DBE's struggle to tackle Foundational learning through MTbBE
09:30 - 10:30	Keynote #4: Prof Marcelyn Oostendorp, Stellenbosch University, South Africa Refiguring the languaging human
10:30 – 11:00	Tea Break
	Plenary: Conf Room 1	Conf Room 2	Conf Room 3	Regency 1	Conf Room 4	Conf Room 5	Conf Room 6
	POWER	POWER	DIGITAL/DECOLONISING	IDENTITY	LANGUAGE POLICY	LANGUAGE POLICY	ONLINE
	COLLOQUIUM	Session Chair: Prof. Jo Angouri	Session Chair: Dr K. Onyenankeya	Session Chair: Ms A. Mndende	Session Chair: Dr Bettina Migge	Session Chair: Mr X.Plaatjie	Session Chair: Dr L. Van Der Rede
11:00 – 11:25	Counterspaces in Pluriversal Contexts: Language, Power, and Social Negotiation • Anne Schluter, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong “We go give una wotowoto [merciless thrashing]": Trash talk and multimodal stance taking in the counterspace of a Hong Kong-based diaspora football rivalry • Dariush Izadi, Western Sydney University, Australia Material acts of belonging: Language, agency, and everyday counterspaces [Online] • Jackie Lou, University of London, United Kingdom The spatial re-enregisterment of an urban dialect in Shanghai • Daniel N. Silva, Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina, Brazil From deixis to counterspace: Reimagining place and security in a Rio de Janeiro favela • Ana Deumert, University of Cape Town, South Africa	Giovana Martins de Castro Marchese, University of São Paulo, Brazil A Dialogue Between Brazil and South Africa on Gender-based Violence	Joseph Sung-Yul Park, National University of Singapore, Singapore Rethinking commodification of language in times of artificial intelligence	David Hanks, Pennsylvania State University, United States of America “I’m not enjoying this”: Identity, conflict, and surplus-enjoyment in the production of the tourist language learning commodity	Sithembele Marawu, University of Fort Hare, South Africa Translanguaging as a pedagogical resource and reflection of real-world linguistic experiences	Berrington Ntombela, University of Limpopo, South Africa Unsettling the monolingual mindset in English offering	Lei Xia, Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand Navigating ideological tensions in language portraits: A translanguaging lens (online)
11:25 – 11:50		John Scott Daly, Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong Amplification or appropriation? Mediatized voices in Andres Serrano’s Sign of the Times	Kasper Engholm Jelby, University of Copenhagen, Denmark Socializing with AI: Academic literacy in the age of generative artificial intelligence	Jason Richardson, University of the Western Cape, South Africa The Sound of Openness: Language, Disability Laughter and Linguistic Citizenship	Anesipho Tshisani, Rhodes University, South Africa Multilingual Academic Subtitling for Higher Education Opportunities and Challenges in South Africa.	Lamla Notshulwana, Nelson Mandela University, South Africa Language Policy Meets the Learner: Humanising Pedagogy in South African Higher Education Institutions	Upeksha Jayasuriya, Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand Rethinking epistemologies: Thovil as ‘spiritualscape’ in the linguistic landscape of Aragalaya protests, Sri Lanka (online)
11:50 – 12:15		Koki Kapa, University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa Three Women: Of Corporeal Landscapes, Affect and Agency	Jens Yanzhi Peng, Chengdu Wenjiang 21st Century International School, China Legitimacy Across Scales: AI and the Online–Offline Nexus in Transnational Classrooms	Pedro Alvarez-Mosquera, University of Salamanca, Spain Unpacking Implicit Attitudes Toward English Varieties in South Africa: The Use of the Implicit Association Test on Young White L1-Afrikaans speakers	Bulelwa Nosilela, Rhodes University, South Africa From SANTED to BAQONDE: Multilingualism, Epistemic Access, and Language Policy Transformation at a South African University	Sikhumbuzo Sibanda, Rhodes University, South Africa Leveraging Language in Education Policy: African Languages as catalysts for equitable learning outcomes in multilingual classrooms.	Shaila Shams, Simon Fraser University, Canada ‘Wretched of the Earth’: A Linguistic-Semiotic Analysis of the Graffiti of Bangladesh July 2024 Movement (online)
12:15 – 12:40		Mateja Lasnik, National Taiwan University, Taiwan Inequality in Conceptual Metaphors for Unmarried Women and Men: A Cross-Linguistic Study of English, German, and Slovene	Prof Russell Kaschula, University of the Western Cape, South Africa A comparative study of forensic linguistics and linguistic prejudice in South Africa and the United States of America with reference to selected case law	Suiling Zuo, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong Ideological Insights into Chinese Students’ Journeys with English	Quynh-Giang Dang, University of Pennsylvania, United States of America Growing Up During the English Boom in Vietnam: A Reflection on English Hegemony and Neoliberalism	Pethias Siame, Kwame Nkrumah University, Zambia Case Study of Domain Loss and Intergenerational Erosion in the Lala Language of Serenje District, Zambia	Qizhu Zhao, University of Nottingham, United Kingdom Multilingual Reality in British Universities – Staff and International Chinese Students’ Language Attitudes and Practices at British Universities (online)
12:40 – 13:05		James Fong, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong Rethinking Chinese privilege: The semiotics of multilingualism in Singapore’s state-regulated signage	Atrimecia Hass, Central University of Technology, South Africa Analysing the Prayer of Masks as a Space of Silenced Knowledge: A Decolonial Lens	Gwen Payi, Rhodes University, South Africa When Language Matters: Complex Linguistic Dynamics in Multilingual Student Counselling	Leona Claasen, University of the Western Cape, South Africa Teacher Disposition and Linguistic Ideologies in Multilingual Classrooms: Insights from three studies on code-switching and translanguaging practices in multilingual grade 6 and 7 classrooms	Aleksandra Olszewska, University of Oslo, Norway Critical Scholarship of Hope: Cultivating Equitable Language Teacher Education and Schools in Poland	Mohammad Alkhair Abdalla, Prince Sattam bin Abdulaziz University, Saudi Arabia Sociolinguistics of Sudanese ‘TESOL’ Teachers’ War-Forced-Mobilities into Chad: Traumas, Multiple Marginalities and Entanglements (online)
13:05 – 14:05	Lunch and networking with exhibitors
	Plenary: Conf Room 1	Conf Room 2	Conf Room 3	Regency 1	Conf Room 4	Conf Room 5	Conf Room 6
	DECOLONISING	POWER	IDENTITY	RESEARCH/ENVIRONMENT	LANGUAGE POLICY	MIGRATION	ONLINE
	COLLOQUIUM	Session Chair: Dr J. Grieser	Session Chair: Dr K. Kozminska	COLLOQUIUM	Session Chair: Dr A. Briksdal	Session Chair: Dr P. Berger	Session Chair: Dr B. Schneider
14:05 - 14:30	Dehumanization and genocide in Palestine: Do we need a more human(e) sociolinguistics? • Krause-Alzaidi, Leipzig University, Germany “I kill two khamas”: Material-discursive iconization and the justification of genocide • Kristina Hultgren, The Open University, United Kingdom & Jaspal Naveel Singh, The Open University, United Kingdom Universities’ silencing of Palestine activism • Julia Molinari, The Open University, United Kingdom What makes academic writing human(e): a sociolinguistic, political, and decolonial call to action	Marte Monsen, University of Inland Norway, Norway Precarization Through the Introduction Programme for Adult Migrants: A Critical Approach	Francesco Sinatora, The George Washington University, United States of America Ethnicity, Race, and Desire: Performances of Arab Masculinity in Contemporary Brazil	Researching ‘Otherwise’: Developing Approaches for a Sociolinguistics of Potentiality • Jackie Lou, University of London, United Kingdom Visualising Voids: Creativity as 'Space of Otherwise' • Jade Engel, University of the Western Cape, South Africa & Amiena Peck, University of the Western Cape, South Africa Vulnerable motherhood: investigating agency and voids of refugee mothers in South Africa • Dr Natalia Volvach, University of Gothenburg, Sweden Knowledges in the shadows: Sensing the In/visible through an ethnography of ghosts • Sean P. Smith, Tilburg University, Netherlands Towards a sociolinguistics of attention: from semiotic ideology to attunement in spaces of otherwise	Bronwyn Witbooi, University of the Western Cape, South Africa pedagogy in higher education: Facilitating epistemic access and student success through multimodal classroom activities	William Sipho Nkabinde, University of Zululand, South Africa Whose Child Must be Taught in a Vernacular Language: The Case of South African Schools	Chiara Facciani, Università per Stranieri di Siena, Italy Plurilingualism, identity, and educational transformation in the Ladin Valleys (Online)
14:30 – 14:55		Giovana Martins de Castro Marchese, University of São Paulo, Brazil Revenge Porn and Dehumanization: Civil Law Responses to Online Gender Violence at the Superior Court of Justice	Tomasz Wicherkiewicz, Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznan, Poland Decolonizing Multilingual Consonance and Dissonance: Latgale (Eastern Latvia) as a Pluriversal Sociolinguistic Landscape		Aleksandra Olszewska, University of Oslo, Norway Radical multilingual and multicultural spaces of hope for refugee- background students in Poland	Guri Steien, University of Inland Norway, Norway Indexicalities Shaped in War Zones: Family Language Policies in Refugee Families	Alexander De Soete, Ghent University, Belgium Students use of Facework strategies as an indicator of interactional competence: Findings from the EMI classroom (Online)
14:55 – 15:20		Ian Johnson, University of the Western Cape, South Africa Transformation Discourse and the Politics of Inequality in South African Higher Education: Evidence from a South African University	Patrick Sibanda, University of Free State, South Africa Motivations behind South African Sign Language Descriptive Toponyms		Alfred Mapfumo, Walter Sisulu University, South Africa University Science Teachers' Language Awareness (TLA) and the Multilingual Ecology of EMI Classrooms in South Africa	Valentina Del Vecchio, Tilburg University, Netherlands Beyond self-reports: real language use as a window into immigrants’ psychological well-being	Romeo De Timmerman, Ghent University, Belgium Negotiating authenticity and appropriation: Linguistic genre conventions in the contemporary New York City blues scene (Online)
15:20 – 15:45		Airi Kawakami, Sophia University, Japan ‘I’m above you’: Gendered normativity and hierarchies in the discursive practice of maunto in Japanese YouTube animated series and online discussion	Jannah Abdelaziz, American University in Cairo, Egypt Performance and Perception of the Tagamo3 accent: Sociolinguistic perspectives on Dialect, Identity, and Translanguaging in Urban Egypt		Beatha Set, University of Namibia, Namibia Silencing of bilingual learners’ power of voices: Monolingual Policy and its implications	Alyssa Vratsanos, University of South Africa, South Africa Inscribing Greekness through food in Johannesburg	Chiara Facciani, University for Foreigners of Siena, Italy Multilingual texts as migrant landscapes (Online)
15:45 – 16:15	Tea Break
	COLLOQUIUM	Session Chair: Dr J. Grieser	Session Chair: Dr K. Kozminska	Session Chair: Dr B. Schneider	Session Chair: Dr A. Briksdal	Session Chair: Dr P. Berger	COLLOQUIUM
16:15 – 16:40	Dialogues and collaborations between sociolinguists and activists: Politics and epistemes of purposeful research • Joana Plaza Pinto, Universidade Federal de Goiás, Brazil Biographical Workshops in Feminist Research Methodology • Daniel N. Silva, Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina, Brazil Mediating Allyship: Reverse Ethnography and the Politics of Interpreting the Periphery	Naiara Santos Felipe Costa, Universidade Federal da Bahia, Brazil Plurilingualism, afro-diasporic repertoires, and the monolingual limits of English teaching in the Global South	Thandile Ntumba, Rhodes University, South Africa Lexicographical Dissonance and the Marginalization of isiMpondo in isiXhosa Dictionaries	Michael M Kretzer, University of the Western Cape, South Africa Recentring Environmental Knowledge: African Languages, Indigenous Epistemologies, and Environmental Education in Kenya	Johannes Funizwe Magwaza, North West University, South Africa Beyond symbolic multilingualism: The dilemma of language policy implementation	Magdalena Karolak, Zayed University, United Arab Emirates Branding Belonging: Power and Multilingual Inequality in Dubai’s Development Naming Practices	Ontologies of language • Justin Brown, University of Cape Town, South Africa If languages do not exist, why do we feel so strongly about them? • Tlalane Lekhanya-Tshikare, University of Cape Town, South Africa Towards a Sociolinguistics of Ho Bothofatsa • Pule KaJanolintji, University of Cape Town, South Africa A morphosemantic argument for Isintu as a practice of discursive ontology [Online]
16:40 - 17:05		Abulele Mapukata, University of the Western Cape, South Africa Negotiating Power Through Language: Sociolinguistic Consonance and Dissonance in Pluriversal African Contexts	Prof H Steve Ndinga-Koumba-Binza, University of the Western Cape, South Africa Motivations and Processes for Linguistic Change in the Construction of Gabonese French Locutions and Collocations	Pethias Siame, Kwame Nkrumah University, Zambia Sociolinguistic Innovation and Identity Politics: The Rise of Kwenyu and Nyuu in Zambian Political Discourse	Jimmy Yukun Chen, Shanghai International Studies University, China Governing Translation in a Multilingual City-state: A Multi-layered Analysis of Singapore’s Translation Policy	Clemens Mayer, University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa, Hawaii Attitudes, identities, revitalization, and the making of place in the Woleaian migrant diaspora
17:05 – 17:30	Prof Luvuyo Wotshela, Rhodes University, South Africa	Dr Kevin Onyenankeya, University of Fort Hare, South Africa Voices of Belonging: Indigenous Language Radio as a Tool for Language Preservation and Identity Negotiation.	Poster session: Jianxuan Zhang, Curtin University, Australia Teaching in the diaspora: Teacher identities in Chinese community language schools in Australia	Poster session: Balczesak, Valentin, Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB), Belgium Belonging on Trial: Purism and Anti-Multiculturalism in Contemporary France [online]	Patrick Sibanda, University of Free State, South Africa Ethical Research with Deaf Communities by Hearing Researchers: Methodological Challenges and Possible Solutions
17:30 – 18:30	Keynote #5: Prof Lynn Mario T. Menezes de Souza, University of São Paulo, Brazil Southern Sociolinguistics, Potentiated Double Consciousness and the Politics of Locus of Enunciation: Toward a Decolonial Ethics of Language
18:30 - 18:45	Day's closing
20:00 – 24:00	Gala dinner

DAY 3 Wednesday 15 July 2026

Day 3: Wednesday 15 July 2026
08:15 – 08:30	Registration
08:30 - 08:45	Welcome and housekeeping
08:45 – 09:45	Keynote #6: Prof Shaila Sultana, BRAC University, Bangladesh Chronotopic Rapture in Pursuit of Desperate Hope for a Reimagined Nation: July 2024 Student Uprising in Bangladesh
09:45 – 10:15	Tea Break
	Plenary: Conf Room 1	Conf Room 2	Conf Room 3	Regency	Conf Room 4	Conf Room 5
	RESEARCH	DECOLONISING/POWER	IDENTITY	POWER	POWER	MIGRATION
	COLLOQUIUM	Session Chair: Ms L. Notshulwana	Session Chair: Dr. Nkabinde	Session Chair: Dr M. Kretzer	Session Chair: Ms T. Shongwe	Session Chair: Dr X. Guzula
10:15 – 10:40	A Sociolinguistics of the Spectre: Language, Space and Memory • Natalia Volvach, University of Gothenburg, Sweden Sociolinguistics and Its Specters: Absent Presences in the Study of Violence • Lara Krause-Alzaidi, University of Leipzig, Germany Ghosts at the crossroads: Linking the Southern with the Spectral turn in sociolinguistics through an interdisciplinary conversation • Andreas Nuottaniemi, Stockholm University, Sweden The Ghost in the Green Machine: On the Fetishisation of Labour and Language in the Green Transition	Lauren Van De Rede, Stellenbosch University, South Africa Methodological Lessons from Memorials of Genocide in Rwanda and Namibia: Guarding against Denial	Jo Angouri, University of Warwick, United Kingdom Achieving ‘sounding young’ in older age	Sibongile Dayimani, University of Fort Hare, South Africa Bridging the Language Gap: Negotiating Power and Inequality through English Medium Instruction in Translingual Rural Early Childhood Classrooms in Alice, Eastern Cape	Ass Prof Nozuko Zukiswa Gxekwa, University of Fort Hare, South Africa When everyday life becomes language: The sociolinguistics of emerging IsiXhosa idioms and proverbs	Aleksandra Olszewska, University of Oslo, Norway “Refugee is the name we have, that’s what they call us”: Refugee-background students’ response to the refugee term
10:40 – 11:05		Athenkosi Mndende , Rhodes University, South Africa Critical analysis of versioning in mother tongue-based bilingual assessment: A case study of piloted schools in the Eastern Cape	Pumela Chitani, University of South Africa & Rhodes University, South Africa Igama Lakho Ungubani? The Symbolic Significance of Amagqirha Names	Fiona Severiona Ferris-Leone, University of South Africa, South Africa A Multisemiotic Appraisal Analysis of the Representation of Jonathan Moyo in four newspapers from 2000-2018	Anesipho Gqozo, Rhodes University, South Africa Translators’ Experiences and Perceptions of Machine Translation and Artificial Intelligence in the Translation of Academic Materials into isiXhosa and Sesotho in South African Higher Education	Busani Maseko, Rhodes University, South Africa Negotiating family language policy online: Affordances of WhatsApp among digital families
11:05 – 11:30		Sindiso Zhou, University of Fort Hare, South Africa Deconstructing English Hegemony in South African Higher Education through Innovative Multilingual Practices	Arlene Archer, University of Cape Town, South Africa Traces of trauma and hope: A social semiotic analysis of commemorative practices on the landscape	Jeremia Lepheana & Dr Nokuzola Gqeba, University of Fort Hare, South Africa The use of the isiXhosa dialects in the foundation phase for epistemic advancement	Abram Mashatole, University of Limpopo, South Africa Who decides what counts as a problem? A Critical Discourse Analysis of policy framing	Prof H Steve Ndinga-Koumba-Binza, University of the Western Cape, South Africa A Sociolinguistic Theory Investigation of Students’ English Language Deficiency in Namibia
11:30 – 11:55	Dr Catherine Tebaldi, Universite du Luxembourg, Luxembourg & Evelin Szgeti & Anne Virgili, University of Luxembourg Strong Language, Strong Schools: Reactionary (language) ideologies in Swiss and Luxembourgish education reform	Miriam Nosiphiwo Ganiso, University of Fort Hare, South Africa Sociolinguistic Factors Affecting isiXhosa-speaking Grade 1 Learners in Afrikaans Medium Primary Schools in the Eastern Cape	Jo Angouri, University of Warwick, United Kingdom Does that sound like [a ↑plan?]: negotiating agency and commitment in dispatch decision-making	Lunga Mantashe, University of Fort Hare, South Africa A Gramscian critique of English hegemony in South African higher education: Conceptual and political pathways	Sisonke Mawonga, Rhodes University, South Africa From Dissonance to Dialogue: Theorising Multilingual Tutorial Practice through the UCDP Language Development Project at Rhodes University	Anomusa Magwa, Rhodes University, South Africa Becoming “My Friend”: Language, Identity and Integration of Pakistani Immigrants in South Africa
11:55 - 12:10	SS27 Host announcement and presentation
12:10 – 12:45	Stellenbosch University Workshop
12:45 - 13:45	Lunch and networking with exhibitors/Stellenbosch workshop lunch event

DAY 4 Thursday 16 July 2026

The buses will depart from the East London International Convention Centre (ELICC) at 08:00 on 16 July. The estimated travel time from East London to Alice is approximately two hours.
In Alice, we will meet an expert guide who will lead us on a walking tour of the campus. Sites to be visited include the old fort, Fort Hare and its historical significance, heritage buildings, archives, and other notable landmarks. We will also visit the monument erected on the hill overlooking the university.
The tour on campus will take approximately 2 hours.
The total travel plus tour will be approximately 6 hours. Please take this into consideration when making travel plans.

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