Rethinking the Perspective of African Linguistics : Histories, Epistemologies, Cosmologies, and the Social Rhizome

This book offers a critical examination of the institutional forces that have shaped African linguistics and the evolving relationship between organisational and individual actors in the field. Grounded in an exploration of the philosophical foundations, historical development and community-of-practice dynamics within African linguistics, it argues for a reassessment of how the discipline understands its own scope and responsibilities. The book foregrounds the importance of historiography, historicity and storytelling as essential heuristics for a more socially attuned linguistic practice.
At its core, the book contends that the institutional structures guiding linguistic scholarship have drifted from the social awareness that originally underpinned the idea of a linguistic society. Revisiting Leonard Bloomfield’s call for ‘professional consciousness’, it shows how the discipline’s pursuit of scientific authority fostered a methodological formalism that often sidelined society as an integral component of linguistic inquiry. This emphasis on technical expertise contributed to a professional isolation that reinforced narrow understandings of language and limited the field’s engagement with broader publics.
By interrogating this longstanding tension between scientificity and social relevance, the book makes the case for a more holistic, historically grounded and socially accountable African linguistics – one that attends not only to the ‘whats’ and ‘hows’ of language but also, crucially, to its ‘whys’.