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In this book different aspects of language and aging are discussed. While language spoken by and language spoken with elderly people have been treated as different areas of research, it is argued here that from a dynamical system perspective the two are closely interrelated. In addition to overviews of research on language and aging, a number of projects on this topic in multilingual settings are presented.

This paper explores the discursive history of 'language-making' in the context of the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, focusing on a significant colonial moment of standardisation: The Rejaf Language Conference (RLC) of 1928. Through inspecting the report of the proceedings of the RLC, the paper contends that this institutional event contributed to the construction of racial and regional differences by, then: (1) being informed by scientific theories of racial categorisation as an epistemological basis for creating a stratified local sociolinguistic system; (2) with a Eurocentric audience design, inventing 'technical versions' of 'local vernaculars' and 'language groups' imbued with specific indexical values, anchored to specific localities and social identities; (3) relationally, vernacularising Arabic by reworking its ideological load and orthographic order determined by a colonial economy of education; (4) artefactualising a pluralistic image of the society as an effect and function of institutional linguistic classification of forms tied to specific localities and people; and (5) resulting in the planned absence of a perceived 'indigenous' lingua franca in the Southern Sudan. The RLC as a relatively regimented format, characterised by a rationalised absence of the 'local voice', was one of the significant contexts in which the very disciplinary identity of linguistics was rationalised, resisted, and maintained.

My goal in this article is to analyze gerontological discourses in Africa using articles in this collection as a spring board. The broad intention is to explore the possible areas of intersection between research in African aging and other social science disciplines such as history, politics and linguistics as a way of demonstrating how gerontology may contribute to scholarship in other disciplines.

This book questions assumptions about the nature of language and how language is conceptualized. Looking at diverse contexts from sign languages in Indonesia to literacy practices in Brazil, from hip-hop in the US to education in Bosnia and Herzegovina, this book forcefully argues that a critique of common linguistic and metalinguistic suppositions is not only a conceptual but also a sociopolitical necessity. Just as many notions of language are highly suspect, so too are many related concepts premised on a notion of discrete languages, such as language rights, mother tongues, multilingualism, or code-switching. Definitions of language in language policies, education and assessment have material and often harmful consequences for people. Unless we actively engage with the history of invention of languages in order to radically change and reconstitute the ways in which languages are taught and conceptualized, language studies will not be able to improve the social welfare of language users.

Enslavement, forced migration, war and colonization have led to the global dispersal of Black communities and to the fragmentation of common experiences. The majority of Black language researchers explore the social and linguistic phenomena of individual Black communities, without looking at Black experiences outside a given community. This groundbreaking collection re-orders the elitist and colonial elements of language studies by drawing together the multiple perspectives of Black language researchers. In doing so, the book recognises and formalises the existence of a \"Black Linguistic Perspective\" highlights the contributions of Black language researchers in the field. Written exclusively by Black scholars on behalf of, and in collaboration with local communities, the book looks at the commonalities and differences among Black speech communities in Africa and the Diaspora. Topics include: * the OJ Simpson trial * language issues in Southern Africa and Francophone West Africa * the language of Hip Hop * the language of the Rastafaria in Jamaica With a foreword by Ngugi wa Thiong'o, this is essential reading for anyone with an interest in the linguistic implications of colonization. Sinfree Makoni is Associate Professor in Linguistics, Applied Language Studies and African American Studies at Penn State University, USA. Geneva Smitherman is University Distinguished Professor of English at Michigan State University, USA, and Director of My Brother's Keeper Program in Detroit. Arthur K. Spears is Professor of Anthropology and Linguistics at the City University of New York, USA. Arnetha Ball is Associate Professor of Education at Stanford University, USA. 'This book will be of interest not only to people whose focus is language varieties used by Blacks, but also to those concerned with a critical history of linguistics, to anthropologists and sociolinguists, particularly those working on language policy and planning, variation, and language in education.' - Kay McCormick, University of Cape Town

Finally, it is important to consider critical applied linguistics within a global context. The principal concern here is whether the sort of critical applied linguistics I discuss here has sufficient relevance for a diversity of contexts. Is it perhaps just an Anglo‐American view of the world? (Pennycook, 2001, p. 171)

This article analyzes the reasons for and the effects of the language shift in Zimbabwe represented by the increasing use of pan-ethnic lingua francas, or urban vernaculars, of local origin. It is suggested that essentialist/primordialist assumptions about “indigenous” languages that feature prominently in current accounts of language endangerment should be made more complex by understanding their historical and social origins. In Zimbabwe, this means understanding the origins of Shona and Ndebele during the colonial period as the product of a two-stage process: codification of dialects by missionaries, and creation of a unified standard by the colonial regime. In the postcolonial context, these languages and the ethnic identities they created/reified are giving way to language use that indexes not ethnic affiliation but urbanization. The article adduces data showing that as Zimbabweans move with relative ease across language boundaries, urban vernaculars express their shared social experience of living in postcolonial urban environments.The authors would like to thank Xingren Xu for his technical support during the writing and revision of this article.

Brutt-Griffler and Makoni comment on Jim Cummins's A Proposal for Action: Strategies for Recognizing Heritage Language Competence as a Learning Resource within the Mainstream Classroom (2005). They first analyze the notion of heritage language and subsequently explore to what extent the notion of heritage language can be generalized to other contexts.

This project is a study of the discourses of militarisation in Sri Lankan academia. Since 2010, Sri Lankan universities have been the site of turbulent events, including a state-initiated military-led undergraduate orientation programme; appointments of allegedly unsuitable individuals to higher administrative positions in universities; infringements of student rights and unions. In parallel, a dynamic trade union campaign has generated discussions on the role of state universities and the functions of higher education. I study the discourses of academics on militarisation in this environment, in its public and individual aspects. The research questions are: a) What are the discourses of militarisation in Sri Lankan academia, as formulated publicly and individually? b) What changes are evident in individual discourses of militarisation amongst Sri Lankan academia over a long duration of time? The study uses a methodological framework that includes an ethnographic approach and discourse analysis. It uses interviews as instances of individual voice, and texts produced by FUTA, the academic trade union, as the public (and collective) voice of academics. These texts include policy documents and press releases by FUTA as well as posters and pamphlets. Conversation analytic methods are adapted for transcription of the interviews, and discursive strategies of stance, narrative and voice for analysis. Even though literature on militarisation of higher education continues to grow, few locally specific studies exist outside North America and Europe. In addition, research from a person-oriented or discourse analytic approach is rare, as is research focusing on academic institutions. This dissertation contributes to multiple disciplines investigating militarisation, including education and discourse studies.