Baby steps in decolonising linguistics

Abstract

This chapter discusses the concerned with ‘youth languages’, ‘urban languages’, ‘contact languages’ or even what we might be tempted to call ‘pidgins’ or ‘creoles’. Recognising marginalised voices and enabling marginalised people to participate in the conversation that defines where linguistics will go next is only part of whatever the complex process is that we envision by ‘decolonisation’. One of the most significant forms of exclusion in the academy lies in our citation practices, since citation metrics have been elevated to a shorthand for merit in appointment shortlisting, promotion evaluations and performance reviews. In other domains, such as education, where the affordances of language choice are different than they are in the law, the process of decolonisation remains a topic of even more active debate. A notable aspect of the linguistic descriptions provided in this book is that – far from shying away from language variation – they treat it as a fact.