Mr Justin Brown

Lecturer-Linguistics

Room 13, AC Jordan Building, UCT

Justin Brown is a lecturer in the linguistics programme in the Department of African Studies and Linguistics. His research focusses on language ideologies and language politics, language reclamation movements, discourses of language endangerment and revitalization, the colonial legacy in linguistics, as well as theories of language and the history of linguistic thought. He is involved in a broad range of teaching at both the undergraduate and postgraduate levels and has also supervised a wide range of research projects. These have included topics related to the history of Kaaps, to issues of heritage language, and to issues of language, gender and sexuality. He has presented his work at a number of conferences and workshops both in South Africa and abroad, including the 23rd Sociolinguistics Symposium in 2021. He has been a visiting scholar at the University of Cologne’s Institute for African Studies and Egyptology.

Areas of Supervision

Sociolinguistics and linguistic anthropology with a specific focus on language ideologies and/or language ideological debates; language activism and advocacy, including the debates and discourses connected to them; issues related to language shift, maintenance, endangerment and revitalization; the colonial legacy in linguistic description and language documentation, as well as in language planning and policy.

 

Courses taught 

ASL 1300F: Introduction to language Studies

ASL 1301S: Introduction to Sociolinguistics

ASL 2300F: Module on language and identity

ASL 3300F and ASL 3301S: co-taught modules on second language acquisition, historical sociolinguistics and theories of language.

Current research

At the moment I am researching the KhoeSan language reclamation movement with a particular focus on the learning and use of Khoekhoegowab in Cape Town and the language ideologies and discourses related to this. I have also started planning a follow-up and related project looking more broadly at language ideologies connected to Indigenous African languages and issues of multilingualism in South Africa.