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Ana Deumert

Position
Professor of Linguistics, University of Cape Town

Ana Deumert is Professor of Linguistics at the University of Cape Town. Her research program is located within the broad field of sociolinguistics and has a strong transdisciplinary focus. She has worked on the history of Afrikaans (The Dynamics of Cape Dutch, 2004), co-authored Introducing Sociolinguistics (2009, with Rajend Mesthrie, Joan Swann and William Leap), the Dictionary of Sociolinguistics (2004, with Joan Swann, Rajend Mesthrie and Theresa Lillis), and published on mobile communication from a global perspective (Sociolinguistics and Mobile Communication, 2014).

In addition, she is the editor of four collections: Germanic Standardizations – Past and Present (with Wim Vandenbussche, 2004), Structure and Variation in Language Contact (with Stephanie Durrleman-Tame, 2006), The Sociolinguistics of Everyday Creativity (with Joan Swann, 2018, special issue of Language Sciences), and Colonial and Decolonial Linguistics - Knowledges and Epistemes (2020, with Anne Storch and Nick Shepherd). Her current work explores the use of language in global political movements as well as the contributions decolonial thought can make to sociolinguistic theory. She was co-editor of IMPACT – Studies in Language and Society (2002 to 2018) and is current co-editor of Edinburgh Sociolinguistics and Cambridge Approaches to Language Contact. She is a recipient of the Neville Alexander Award for the Promotion of Multilingualism (2014) and the Humboldt Research Award (2016). In addition, she is a regular columnist for diggit magazine.