Towards cultural diversification in sociolinguistics

• Authors: Dick Smakman , Sandy Barasa , Cassie Smith-Christmas , Nathan Albury-Garcés

Title variants

NL

Naar culturele diversificatie in de sociolinguïstiek

• Languages of publication: EN

Abstracts

EN

This paper takes as its point of departure the fact that the loci of many sociolinguistic theories originate from Western, industrial, and ideologically monolingual (and often Anglophone) societies such as the United States, the United Kingdom, and many of the European nation states. This fact leads to a theoretical bias. After an explanation of the problem, this paper proposes ways to decolonise biases in sociolinguistics in practical terms. In general, it is suggested that researchers reach out and collaborate in all kinds of ways. Specific solutions suggested include, amongst others, redetermining what ‘good’ academic English and research constitute, using translation as a tool, proactively soliciting manuscripts, stimulating writing and research cooperation between authors with various backgrounds, making introductions to sociolinguistics broader in their cultural/linguistic focus, providing writing help, and diversifying editorial boards of journals.

Keywords

EN

sociolinguistics; inequalities; publishing; Human Development Index; theoretical bias; solutions

Discipline

• PHILOLOGY_&_LINGUISTICS: PHILOLOGY & LINGUISTICS

• Publisher: Institute of the Czech Language, Czech Academy of Sciences
• Journal: Slovo a slovesnost: časopis pro otázky teorie a kultury jazyka (Slovo a slovesnost: A journal for the theory of language and language cultivation)
• Year: 2024
• Volume: 85
• Issue: 2
• Pages: 127-149
• Document type: ARTICLE

Contributors

author

Dick Smakman

• Slovo a slovesnost, redakce, Ústav pro jazyk český AV ČR, v.v.i., Letenská 4, 118 51 Praha 1, Czech Republic

author

Sandy Barasa

• Slovo a slovesnost, redakce, Ústav pro jazyk český AV ČR, v.v.i., Letenská 4, 118 51 Praha 1, Czech Republic

author

Cassie Smith-Christmas

• Slovo a slovesnost, redakce, Ústav pro jazyk český AV ČR, v.v.i., Letenská 4, 118 51 Praha 1, Czech Republic

author

Nathan Albury-Garcés

• Slovo a slovesnost, redakce, Ústav pro jazyk český AV ČR, v.v.i., Letenská 4, 118 51 Praha 1, Czech Republic