Full Title: Globalising Sociolinguistics (GloSoc4)

Date: 07-Feb-2026 - 09-Feb-2026
Location: The 3-day conference is held at three universities in Cairo: Ain Shams University, Helwan University, and Cairo University, Egypt
Contact Person: Nadia Shalaby
Meeting Email: [email protected]

Linguistic Field(s): Anthropological Linguistics; History of Linguistics; Language Acquisition; Philosophy of Language; Sociolinguistics

Call Deadline: 15-Sep-2025

Final Call for Papers:

After the successful and inspiring GloSoc 3 conference at Tallinn University, the theme of this fourth edition of the GloSoc series is the sociolinguistics of decolonisation. This theme should be interpreted very broadly. We are hoping for contributions from countries that have experienced (linguistic) colonisation. PhD students and young researchers are welcomed in particular. Some themes for your inspiration:

- The effects of colonisation on language use in a specific region or country
- Historical descriptions of how colonisation has affected language use
- Managing the presence and use of the language of the coloniser
- The need (or not) of decolonising language use
- Language learning and teaching
- Theoretical talks about the sociolinguistic mechanisms behind colonisation and decolonisation
- Codeswitching that includes the colonial language
- Nativisation of the colonial language (making it more culturally suitable)
- Theoretical bias in analysing sociolinguistic situations in postcolonial settings
- Effects of colonisation on local languages
- Personal experiences in multilingual situations that included the language of the former coloniser
- The protection of local languages
- The protection of multilingualism
- Multilingual language practices
- Language norms in multilingual settings
- The social status of the local and the colonial language
- The socially stratified roles of colonial and local languages

Keynote Speakers:
Sinfree Makoni, Pennsylvania State University, USA
Reem Bassiouney, The American University in Cairo, Egypt
Henning Radke, University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Dick Smakman, Leiden University, The Netherlands

Organisers:
- Mona Fouad Attia, Professor of Discourse Analysis, Department of English Language and Literature, Faculty of Arts
Helwan University
- Ola Hafez, Professor of Discourse Studies, Department of English Language and Literature, Faculty of Arts, Cairo University, Egypt
- Nihal Nagi Sarhan, Professor of Linguistics, Department of English, Faculty of Al-Alsun, Ain Shams University, Egypt
- Nadia Shalaby, Professor of Linguistics, Department of English Language and Literature, Faculty of Arts, Ain Shams University, Egypt
- Kapitolina Fedorova, Professor of Russian Studies, School of Humanities, Tallin University, Estonia
- Dick Smakman, Assistant Professor, Leiden University Centre of Linguistics, Leiden, The Netherlands

Abstract Submission Form: https://shorturl.at/R7JDM