This study explores orthographic challenges in Afan Oromo, with specific focus on digraphs, prompted by observed difficulties among students at Fitche Secondary School. Using mixed methods, data were collected via questionnaires, document reviews, and teachers’ interviews. The findings revealed widespread struggles in distinguishing geminated digraphs, attributed to unclear orthographic rules, insufficient textbook guidance, and limited practice. Contributing factors included writing anxiety, time constraints, and inadequate teacher emphasis. The study proposes revising Afan Oromo’s orthography to clarify gemination and recommends structured student training with teacher mentorship. These measures aim to improve digraph representation and enhance literacy in Afan Oromo.

Sociolinguists argue that language is a reflection of identity, suggesting that the language individuals use and the way they use it signal the kind of identity they project. Accordingly, we hypothesised that the linguistic identity of bi/multilinguals could have a predictive effect on language shift/maintenance. To validate this assumption, we gathered data from university students in Nigeria and Ghana. A multigroup partial least squares structural equation modelling analysis was performed to test this theoretical assumption. The findings indicate that while the desire to construct an “elite identity” predicted students’ language shift tendencies in both formal and informal domains, “cultural identity” contributed to language maintenance. The significant association between identity and language shift/maintenance was the same for Nigerians and Ghanaians. We conclude that bi/multilingual African students make distinct identity choices that tend to determine whether they will maintain their native language or shift to a foreign language in a communicative context.

The current Namibian Language in Education Policy (NLiEP) document was first introduced in 1991 immediately after the country gained its independence. Even though this document has been in existence for more than 30 years, it has never been formally assessed or modified despite the changing socio-economic and language practices. Using four criteria (authenticity, representativeness, meaning, and credibility) suggested to evaluate documents for relevance, the article seeks to establish the relevance of the current NLiEP document. The findings suggest that the NLiEP document is out of touch with the developing multilingual realities of Namibians and the current debates on multilingual pedagogies in postcolonial Africa and the Global South generally. The article concludes with a discussion of an ideal prospective language policy document for Namibian schools.

Linguistic landscape (LL) studies rely on approaches and theories from diverse disciplines. However, LL studies, especially those that adopt classificatory approaches, have favoured languages that have colonised other languages in geopolitical contexts. Arguably, these studies have been less critical in their approaches. This study, therefore, adopts a more critical approach to classify the languages employed in automobile graffiti, or automobilescape, in Ghana. Combining top-down and bottom-up approaches, the study gathered 2350 inscriptions on automobiles in Ghana. The study relied on the theories of decoloniality and indigeneity to propose a classificatory model of the languages, involving inner, next, and remote circle languages. This model confronts the hegemony, dominance, and monopoly of exogenous languages to advance linguistic democracy, rights, and justice. The article argues that the languages employed are underpinned by ideologies and identity politics. This study contributes to critical approaches to studying LLs in the African context.

Most South African higher education institutions (HEIs) employ English as their de facto language of learning and teaching (LoLT) in most lectures and learning material. Despite the ongoing rise in student enrolment, most HEIs do not offer written materials to meet the literacy demands of students who speak Kaaps. In the context of engineering, these students struggle to solve “real-life” engineering problems and complete projects. This article adopts a qualitative research design to harvest rich data through interactive reading-writing activities while reading an English engineering text. The article focuses on how the participants recreated student-authored content by negotiating meaning with an English engineering text based on its linguistic, knowledge-, and text-based features to promote learning. A translanguaging literacy framework was adopted as a critical lens to engage the data. The article demonstrates how reading-writing exercises improved the participants’ literacy experience and recall, as well as their pedagogical and non-pedagogical skills.

This article reports Obiageli Ezekwesili’s voices on the #BringBackOurGirls protest. Fusing Du Bois’s stance theory and Ochs’s theory of context as theoretical model, this study articulates Ezekwesili’s stances on the kidnapping of the Chibok schoolgirls. Data were sourced through purposive sampling from six prominent Nigerian online newspapers (Punch, Vanguard, Tribune, The Guardian, The Nation, and Daily Trust). Over 100 of Ezekwesili’s comments on the Chibok kidnapping were adopted as the study population. However, 20 comments were selected for analysis. The tenets of Du Bois’s stance theory and Ochs’s theory of context were engaged. Interior and exterior indexical stances are adopted through the deployment of lexical, pronominal, nominal, and verbal choices to reveal the collectivism, determination, power struggle, and resoluteness of the #BringBackOurGirls protesters. The study surmises that the language of protest is imbued with emotion-evoking stances that articulate the agitations of specific social actors in protest.

Native speakers’ learning of dialects is often hampered where a standard language is used. Most learners in Umzimkhulu are members of the Baca people, who use Baca as a home language. Baca is regarded as a dialect of Xhosa, which is the only subject for learners to choose as a home language. The study investigated teachers’ experiences in teaching Xhosa as a home language to Baca-speaking learners from Umzimkhulu. Semi-structured interviews were administered to eight Foundation Phase Xhosa teachers who were purposively selected from three schools. A qualitative case study design was used. The theoretical framework for the study was sociocultural theory, and content analysis was used to analyse the data. The findings showed that learners’ conceptualisation of and expression in Xhosa was not up to standard. The authors propose that the government revisit the issue of learners who speak dialects but have to take standard languages as a home language in schools.