BAALA Conference 2025

Dr. Kea Seshoka

Dr. Kea Seshoka Is the Director of the Language Directorate at North-West University (NWU). She is known as an African language activist and policy and planning expert. She has been instrumental in developing African languages-related projects, such as establishing the Language Unit at Road Accident Fund, and terminology developments in various entities and government departments. On top of that, she has extensive experience as a language practitioner and language specialist in the different government departments in South Africa. She has also been instrumental in terminology verification as an expert. Furthermore, as a former linguist at the Parliament of South Africa, she has been instrumental in developing language-related innovations. Her work as the Director of the Language Directorate has entailed successfully reviewing the NWU Language Policy, which has enabled the adoption of the principle of functional multilingualism, which opens up for the use of English, Setswana, Sesotho, and Afrikaans as target languages of the NWU.

Prof Liqhwa Siziba

Prof. Sinfree Makoni

Sinfree Makoni was born in Zimbabwe. He holds a BA in English (Hons) with a specialty in Linguistics from the University of Ghana, Legon, Accra, and a PhD in Applied Linguistics from Edinburgh University, Scotland. He taught at several universities in southern Africa, notably the University of the Western Cape, Bellville, and University of Cape Town. He was a postdoctoral Fellow at the Centre for Afro-American Studies at the University of Michigan. He is currently a Professor in the Department of Applied Linguistics and Director of the African Studies Program at Pennsylvania State University, Extraordinary Professor at University of the Western Cape and North-West University, and a Visiting Professor at Nelson Mandela University. He was a Carnegie Diaspora Fellow at Laikipia University, Kenya. He has published extensively in the areas of Language and Aging, Language and Security, Language Policy and Planning, Southern Epistemologies, and Decoloniality. His most recent publications include Innovations and Challenges to Applied Linguistics from the Global South (co-authored with A. Pennycook; London and New York: Routledge Press, 2020); Integrational Linguistics and Philosophy of Language in the Global South (S. Makoni, D. Verity, & A. Kaiper-Marquez, eds.; London and New York: Routledge Press, 2021); The Languaging of Higher Education in the Global South: De-Colonizing the Language of Scholarship and Pedagogy (S. Makoni, C. Severo, A. Abdelhay & A. Kapier-Marquez, eds.; London and New York: Routledge Press, 2022); Language in the Global Souths S. Makoni, A., Kaiper-Marquez, & L. Mokwena, eds., London and New York: Routledge Press, 2022); and Decolonial Voices, Language and Race (S. Makoni, M. Madany-Saa, B. Antia, & R. Gomez, eds., Bristol, UK: Multilingual Matters, 2022). He is the architect of the African Studies Global Forum, which seeks to engage scholars in both the Global North and Global South, and the co-editor of the new Multilingual Matters book series Global Forum on Southern Epistemologies. He currently serves as Associate editor of Applied Linguistics.

Prof. Nobuhle Hlongwa

Prof Nobuhle Hlongwa is the Dean and Head of the School of Arts in the College of Humanities at the University of KwaZulu-Natal. She has had various leadership positions as the former Dean of Teaching and Learning in the College of Humanities (2012-2017); Acting Deputy Dean of the Undergraduate Studies in the faculty of Humanities, Development and Social Sciences (2010-2011); First Head of the School of isiZulu Studies (2005-2007). In addition to this, she is rated by the National Research Foundation (NRF) as a C2 social scientist. Hlongwa is an established researcher with many publications including research articles, books, book chapters and conference proceedings. Some of her publications are written in isiZulu thus contributing towards the promotion and intellectualization of isiZulu as a language of scholarship in Higher Education. Her book entitled “Ukuhlelwa Kolimi” translated as Language Planning, published in 2009 is still the only book written in isiZulu in the area of Sociolinguistics. She is the Assistant Editor for Alternation journal and has co-guest edited several special issues of Alternation Journal. Hlongwa is the member of the Board of Directors of the International Congress of Onomastic Sciences (ICOS). She is a representative of the University of KwaZulu-Natal in the Community of Practice for the teaching and learning of African Languages (CoPAL) which forms part of the devolved governance structure of Universities of South Africa (USAF). She has served as a member of the Ministerial Advisory Panel on the development of African Languages in Higher Education. She serves as a reviewer in various international and national academic accredited journals as well as the reviewer for the National Research Foundation (NRF) and the reviewer for a number of academic journals. She is also a member of the executive board of the African language Association of Southern Africa.

Prof. Vukosi Marivate

Prof Vukosi Marivate is a Professor of Computer Science and holds the ABSA UP Chair of Data Science at the University of Pretoria. He specialises in developing Machine Learning (ML) and Artificial Intelligence (AI) methods to extract insights from data, with a particular focus on the intersection of ML/AI and Natural Language Processing (NLP). His research is dedicated to improving the methods, tools and availability of data for local or low-resource languages. As the leader of the Data Science for Social Impact research group in the Computer Science department, Vukosi is interested in using data science to solve social challenges. He has worked on projects related to science, energy, public safety, and utilities, among others. Prof Marivate is a co-founder of Lelapa AI, an African startup focused on AI for Africans by Africans. Vukosi is a chief investigator on the Masakhane Research Foundation, which aims to develop NLP technologies for African languages. Vukosi is also a co-founder of the Deep Learning Indaba, the leading grassroots Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence conference on the African continent that aims to empower and support African researchers and practitioners in the field.

Prof. Elsabé Taljard

Elsabé Taljard is professor in the Department of African Languages, University of Pretoria, South Africa. Her language of specialization is Northern Sotho / Sepedi and her research interests are corpus linguistics, lexicography, terminology and human language technology. She has authored or co-authored 50 articles in accredited journals and regularly reads papers at national and international conferences. She has supervised a number of post-graduate students working on terminology related topics. She was one of the project leaders who compiled a multilingual Open Education Research Term Bank (OERTB) for South African university students. She is co-manager of the University of Pretoria Digitization node of SADiLaR, a government-funded project which has as its focus the creation of digital resources for the South African languages. She is also one of the editors of Lexikos, an accredited journal publishing articles with a focus on lexicography and terminology, and serves as on the board of the African Association for Lexicography (Afrilex). She currently serves as the chair of the Steering Committee responsible for the implementation of the Language Development Plan and revision of the language policy of UP.