Conference, Workshop, or Colloquium

The International Linguistic Association (ILA) will hold its 67th annual meeting at the University of Zululand, KwaDlangezwa, KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, from 15 to 18 June 2023. The theme of the meeting is Rethinking Language and Linguistics for Liberatory Epistemologies and Ontologies. In keeping with the ILA tradition, we also invite individual papers or posters on other areas of linguistics. 

For registration details, please visit the conference website.

Renewed calls for the decolonisation of education from the #RhodesMustFall movement of 2015 and beyond have re-directed the attention of scholars and public commentators to the often-problematic roles of dominant European languages such as English in formal education, especially in formerly colonised countries. The debates, and contestations which that movement has animated over the past few years have invited closer scrutiny of what Pennycook and Makoni (2020) identify as “the complicities between applied linguistics, colonialism, and capitalism”. This foregrounds the immensely powerful impact – either negative or positive – of language policies and practices across social, cultural, economic, and political domains. In this regard, the enduring negative legacies of colonial misclassifications and mis-standardisation of indigenous languages continue to pose serious challenges today, to both linguists (applied, socio- and educational linguists) and language teachers in schools and universities at all levels.

This means that the need to rethink language and linguistics is urgent especially in terms of how they can contribute positively to ongoing debates on decolonisation of education in the formerly colonised world and also regarding language minorities in the so-called developed countries. There is an urgent need for alternative codes and an expanded conceptual repertoire to redress historical linguistic misconceptions and to promote language practices that recover and enhance African and Global South epistemologies and ontologies. This is critical to an understanding of knowledge production as “a territory” (Moetsi, 2016) to which marginalised, formerly colonised, historically disadvantaged, and excluded people have legitimate claims. New, liberatory approaches to language and linguistics would enhance the life chances of such populations by helping reclaim their “self-worth, power and creativity” in a world that is increasingly hostile to them.

This international multidisciplinary conference invites papers that explore such possible approaches from formal linguistics, sociolinguistics, and applied linguistics. We look forward to presentations that move beyond dominant monolingual and metalinguistic assumptions and examine new possibilities in multilingualism, language learning, languages of learning and teaching (LoLT) in education, literacies, and language rights. We are particularly interested in perspectives from/about the Global South and indigenous communities which complicate and question received ways of thinking about language, literacy, and linguistics. Themes include but are not limited to:

- Multilingualism and heritage language practices in Africa.
- The role of language in the decolonisation of the curriculum.
- Language and decolonisation of pedagogy.
- Digital and computational skills in languages and linguistics.
- English as LoLT in (South) Africa.
- Standardisation of indigenous languages.
- Growing use of English as LoLT in non-English speaking European universities.
- The political economy of tests such as IELTS and TOEFL.
- Grassroots language and literary studies.
- Language acquisition versus language learning.
- Local language/linguistic practices in global social media
- Liberatory/emerging language and linguistic epistemologies/theories

In keeping with the ILA tradition, we also invite individual papers or posters on other areas of linguistics. Each presentation should last no more than thirty minutes, including time for questions and discussion.

Guidelines for Proposals
A paper or poster title and abstract of between 300 and 400 words, excluding references, is required along with a summary abstract for the conference booklet of no more than 150 words. The author's name, institutional affiliation, mailing address, and phone number must also be included. Each presentation should last no more than thirty minutes, including time for questions and discussion.

Charles G. Häberl (President), Rutgers University, USA

Walter G. Petrovitz (Vice President), St. John’s University, USA

Cathy McClure (Recording Secretary), Lehman College, CUNY, USA

Josef V. Fioretta (Treasurer), Hofstra University, USA

Shoba Bandi-Rao, Borough of Manhattan Community College, CUNY, USA

Emanuele Banfi, University of Milan-Bicocca, Italy

Sheila M. Embleton, York University, Canada

Kathryn English, Université Panthéon-Assas, Paris II, France

Hermann W. Haller, Queens College & Graduate Center, CUNY, USA

Jo Anne Kleifgen, Columbia University, USA