This paper explores the complexities of language and identity in contemporary South Africa. The on-going English-Afrikaans debate points to broader issues of power and identity. Several scholars have convincingly shown Afrikaans as inextricably linked to Afrikaner nationalism. During apartheid, Afrikaans was contentious as the language of the…

The role of English in Afghanistan has always been contentious, but in 2001 English acquired symbolic capital that provided people with a motive to invest in learning the language. To better understand this investment, this study employed Darvin and Norton's Model of Investment along with the notion of Linguistic Entrepreneurship to investigate…

The core objective of this article is to evaluate the progress made in linguistic development over the past three decades, with a specific focus on the role of language and its philosophical underpinnings in reshaping and decolonising South African higher education landscape. Linguistic imperialism as a conceptual framework alongside the Framework…

This study examines language planning as displayed in street names, advertising posters, billboards, and supermarket product displays in three Moroccan cities: Casablanca, Fes, and Rabat. The study reveals somewhat confusing language planning stemming from on-going political, economic, and social transformation in Morocco. More than 50 years after…

The evolution of Rwanda's language policies since 1996 has played and continues to play a critical role in social reconstruction following war and genocide. Rwanda's new English language policy aims to drop French and install English as the only language of instruction. The policy-makers frame the change as a major factor in the success of social…

Narrative research methodology embraces multiple ways of representing lived experience discursively, regardless of a participant's levels of literacy, education or formal occupation. This article explores some of the dilemmas of "doing" narrative research in comparative and international education, with particular emphasis on the…

The widespread perception amongst advocates for learners from oppressed communities that linguistics are incapable of addressing such issues as the unequal distribution of power in South Africa, or of making their discipline part of the process of democratic transformation is traced to the paucity of studies concerned with the role of language in…

A study examines the dynamics of cultural pluralism and language in the ethnic mobilization, and resulting dissolution, of the USSR. It first examines ethnic composition, dominant nationalities, language groups without separate nationalities, patterns of ethnic populations within nationalities, and the influence of this multiculturalism on…

Describes a Critical Language Awareness course developed in South Africa to open the minds of prospective teachers. Discusses how language may coerce people into accepting as given practices that can be changed. Emphasizes the relationship between language and power and the role of textbooks and official language in reinforcing the status quo of…