These themes took centre stage at the 2025 Southern African Linguistics and Applied Linguistics Society (SALALS) Conference, held from 25 to 27 June at Nelson Mandela University’s Business School.
Professors Quentin Williams and Pamela Maseko, David Blignaut, Head of Department, Linguistics and Applied Linguistics and Prof Lynn Mario de Souza.
Under the theme “Traditions, Transformations and African Thought: Imagining Linguistics in Africa for the 21st Century,” the conference brought together linguists, educators, and language practitioners from across Southern Africa to interrogate how linguistic practices and policies can better reflect African realities and resist colonial legacies.
“This conference invites us to honour traditions while embracing necessary transformation — and to do so through the lens of African intellectual thought,” said the organising committee in the conference foreword.
“We ask: how can we imagine a linguistics in Africa that is rooted in the continent’s own frameworks of knowing and being?”
Hosted by the Department of Linguistics and Applied Linguistics, the conference featured keynote addresses from two globally renowned scholars: Professor Lynn Mario de Souza from the University of São Paulo, Brazil, and Professor Quentin Williams from the University of the Western Cape.
Challenging epistemic injustice
Professor De Souza introduced the concept of epistemic activism, critiquing the dominance of the Global North in knowledge production and calling for the recognition of Global South epistemologies.
“We cannot normalise the language of the colonisers,” he said. “Instead, we must embrace double consciousness.”
Prof De Souza challenged the tendency to view language as a monolingual, monocultural system – a perspective that, he argued, fails to reflect the complex, plural realities of African societies. “What we see as pluralism is often interpreted by the North as many monolingualisms,” he explained.
Central to his address was a call to resist this imposed linguistic framing and instead cultivate ways of knowing rooted in African pluralism and multilingual lived experience. He concluded with an invitation to embrace serendipity – the idea of accepting uncertainty and the ongoing nature of communication: “The process of communication is never complete. It’s about constant feedback, adjustment, and learning.”
Language, race and “In Difference”
In his keynote, Prof Williams reflected on the emergence of the non-racial tradition in South African sociolinguistics during the 1980s – a response to the weaponisation of language under apartheid.
While acknowledging the strides made since then, he argued that the field has yet to fully reckon with the legacy of apartheid-era linguistics and its ongoing influence on contemporary understandings of race and language.
To advance the field, Williams proposed the concept of “in difference” – a fluid, relational approach to understanding linguistic identity that moves beyond fixed racial or linguistic categories.
He illustrated this with a case study of the local pop group Woman2Woman, whose performance of a Beyoncé cover, blending Kaaps and South African English, sparked debate around linguistic authenticity. Through this example, Williams demonstrated how marginalised speakers use language to negotiate identity and challenge dominant norms.
In closing, he called for a sociolinguistics that embraces the contested, evolving nature of language and difference.
Reimagining humanities
The conference also featured vigorous panel discussions on the need to localise language policies to support meaningful inclusion across social institutions.
It also included a session titled “Promoting African Scholarship to a Global Academic Audience”, which offered insights into academic publishing, particularly for emerging researchers seeking to contribute to scholarly discourse.
In her address, Prof Pamela Maseko, Executive Dean of the Faculty of Humanities, noted the wide representation of institutions from South Africa and abroad – emphasising the global relevance of the conversations taking place.
Prof Maseko framed the conference as a critical space for both reflection and reimagination, especially in addressing epistemic injustices that continue to shape academia and society at large.
She spoke to the historical marginalisation of African languages and knowledge systems, posing the crucial question: Whose language and knowledge matters – and is allowed to be heard – in our academic spaces?
Calling for a truly Africa-purposed humanities education, Prof Maseko stressed the need for curricula that reflect the continent’s realities while advancing transformative societal goals.
In conclusion, she reaffirmed the significance of the conference as an extension of the Faculty's mission to build a Humanities curriculum that is Africa-centred, socially conscious, and ethically grounded.
Deputy Vice-Chancellor: Learning and Teaching, Dr Muki Moeng, noted that Southern African linguistics and applied linguistics are well-positioned to awaken African scholarship, epistemologies, and systems of thought.
Dr Moeng emphasised the importance of generating knowledge systems rooted in the global South. She concluded by highlighting that this conference reinforces the need for African scholarship that embodies African epistemologies, rather than relying solely on Western paradigms.