Decolonizing Linguistics

Overview & Synopsis

Decolonizing Linguistics, the companion volume to Inclusion in Linguistics, is designed to uncover and intervene in the history and ongoing legacy of colonization and colonial thinking in linguistics and related fields. The volume’s introduction theorizes decolonization as a process of centering Black, Native, and Indigenous perspectives, describes the extensive dialogic and collaborative process through which the volume was developed, and then lays out key principles of decolonizing linguistic research and teaching. The 20 chapters cover a wide range of languages and linguistic contexts (e.g., Bantu languages, Creoles, Dominican Spanish, Francophone Africa, Zapotec) as well as various disciplines and subfields (applied linguistics, communication, historical linguistics, language documentation and revitalization/reclamation, psycholinguistics, sociolinguistics, syntax). Contributors address such topics as being transparent about the political nature of all linguistic research; exposing colonial and racist thought in psycholinguistics; refusing settler-colonial practices and centering community goals in research on Indigenous languages; amplifying the liberatory tradition of Caribbean linguistics; confronting minoritization as a racialized applied linguist in Europe; anti-Blackness in French linguistics; teaching linguistics and communication through a decolonial and antiracist lens; decolonizing research partnerships between the Global South and the Global North; envisioning anticolonial Open Methods in linguistics; decolonizing research on Creoles; prioritizing Black Diasporic perspectives in linguistics; and challenging deficit approaches to linguistic variation in communication curricula. The volume’s conclusion lays out specific actions that linguists can take through research, teaching, and institutional structures to refuse coloniality in linguistics and to move the field toward a decolonized future.