Language, Translation and Knowledge Production: A Framework for Intellectual Sovereignty and Epistemic Justice (Published)
Despite language and translation being fundamental to knowledge production, they have traditionally been understood primarily as instruments of communication, education, and knowledge transfer. This conceptual paper argues that persistent epistemic inequalities within contemporary global knowledge systems require a broader understanding of how knowledge is produced, legitimised, circulated, and transformed. Drawing on decolonial theory, translation studies, language policy, and epistemic justice scholarship, the study examines how colonial and postcolonial linguistic hierarchies continue to shape research, higher education, and knowledge production across the Global South. It contends that uncritical dependence on dominant international languages and externally generated epistemologies reinforces intellectual dependency while it marginalises locally grounded knowledge systems. The article proposes a Language-Translation-Knowledge Production Framework that reconceptualises language and translation as interconnected infrastructures of knowledge production rather than being just instruments of communication or linguistic transfer. Within this framework, language functions as a repository of cultural memory, cognitive diversity, and intellectual agency, while translation is conceptualised as a process of epistemic negotiation through which knowledge is interpreted, localised, and co-constructed across linguistic and cultural boundaries. The framework demonstrates that sustainable development depends not on choosing between local identity and global engagement but on fostering equitable conditions for reciprocal knowledge exchange among diverse epistemic communities. The paper concludes that transforming the structures through which knowledge is recognised, produced, and mobilised is essential for advancing multilingual participation, intellectual sovereignty, and epistemic justice. The framework offers a theoretical foundation for more inclusive, locally grounded, and globally connected knowledge systems.
Keywords: Language policy, decolonial theory, epistemic justice, intellectual sovereignty, knowledge production, linguistic diversity, translation studies
Language, Power, and Decolonial Futures: Rethinking Language Policy in Postcolonial Africa (Published)
Since UNESCO’s 1953 report The Use of Vernacular Languages in Education advocated mother-tongue education, language policy has been widely recognised as a critical factor in promoting equitable education, social inclusion, and cultural sustainability. Despite extensive policy commitments, pilot initiatives, and strong empirical evidence demonstrating the pedagogical and socio-political value of African languages, most postcolonial African states continue to privilege former colonial languages as the primary media of instruction and governance. Although existing scholarship has documented challenges in policy implementation, it has largely examined language policy failure through technical, economic, or administrative lenses, thereby overlooking the structural and political forces that sustain linguistic hierarchies. The present study adopts a decolonial theoretical framework informed by the concepts of (de)coloniality, linguistic capital, and epistemic justice to conceptualise language policy as a contested site of power rather than informed planning. The study uses a qualitative critical policy analysis of international declarations, national language policy documents, and selected empirical studies from sub-Saharan Africa to examine the persistent failure of language policy reforms. The findings reveal that the continued dominance of colonial languages is not primarily the result of linguistic planning incapacity but reflects enduring colonial legacies embedded in state institutions, elite reproduction, and global regimes of linguistic legitimacy. These dynamics systematically marginalise African languages and undermine the sustainability of multilingual education reforms. The paper argues that meaningful language policy reform requires re-centring African languages as legitimate instruments of education, governance, and knowledge production, with important implications for linguistic justice, democratic participation, and postcolonial transformation.
Keywords: African languages, Language policy, decolonial theory, linguistic legitimacy, multilingual education