This book is a thorough deconstruction and articulation of complex topics including language, decolonization, race, struggle, justice, Black bodies, and the role of language in judicial proceedings. The book has five chapters, which are presented in form of interviews between the authors, participants, and some of the editors.
In chapter 1, Kwesi Kwaa Prah underscores decolonizing education in African institutions as a process of dismantling colonial curricula in form and content, so that higher citadels of learning in Africa will have what he describes as ‘national character’ (14) and the capacity to respond to peculiar challenges and exigencies in African societies. To thread this conscious path of development and achieve emancipatory possibilities, he argues that African elites who are configured as ‘neocolonial creatures’ (16) must unsettle their inherited neocolonial mentality to encourage African languages, epistemology, and multilingualism in education. In chapter 2, Christopher Hutton centres the representation of linguistics and political ideology in the context of Nazi Germany and the integral connections between language and race. According to Hutton, ‘linguistics … is both the parent and child of race theory’ (27) because, while race theory is gradually lowering its potency, linguistics remains the instrument for categorizing people. Thus, the specificity of Nazi Germany, he notes, portends that mother-tongue advocacy and language rights have both positive and negative implications.
In chapter 3, Monica Heller & Bonnie McElhinny explicate diverging designations of hope as not just a conscious strategy that challenges colonial logics, but also a daily practice that allows us to envision a liberatory future. In doing this, these scholars argue that it is critical to centre the nature of sociolinguistics outside Euro-American geopolitical spaces and pay adequate attention to the marginalization of Black women theorists in the politics of citationality within the field of sociolinguistics. Considering chapter 4, Robbie Shilliam draws on the ‘Rhodes Must Fall’ Oxford movement to project the vibrancy of students’ protests and the configuration of Black bodies in hegemonic sites. As he points out, while students’ protests are an essential part of decolonial struggle, the practice of equity, diversity, and inclusion in academia must not be taken for granted, particularly in the cores of empires such as the UK and the US.
In chapter 5, John Baugh draws on his personal experience and research as an African American to delineate how linguistic proof helps to uncover ‘linguistic profiling’ (86) in accessing housing in the US. As Baugh elucidates, linguistic profiling is a racist practice where people of color in America are deprived of certain services and commodities because of their race and speech articulation. He further foregrounds the ways that forensic linguistics and expertise shed light on legal battles that involve allegations of murder, attempted murder, and terrorism. In essence, Baugh highlights the relevance of ‘linguistic evidence’ (84) in exposing and confronting racial, systemic, and social inequality, stereotype, and bias.
In conclusion, the book overall articulates the role and vitality of language and linguistics in decolonial struggle, legal battles, social justice, racial freedom, and epistemic survival.
