معرفی
Kathleen Heugh is an Adjunct Professor at UniSA Education Futures, University of South Australia. She serves as a Research Degree Supervisor and is available for media comment. Her scholarly work focuses on sociolinguistics, multilingual education, language policy, and decolonial approaches to language and education. She has extensive experience researching linguistic human rights, translanguaging, and transknowledging across diverse international contexts.
Professor Heugh's research centers on multilingual education, particularly mother tongue-based approaches in post-colonial societies. She examines language policy implementation across Africa, Southeast Asia, and Australia, with special attention to how linguistic diversity intersects with educational equity. Her groundbreaking work on decolonial approaches challenges dominant northern paradigms in sociolinguistics. She investigates the complex relationship between linguistic human rights and epistemic justice, particularly in contexts of English Medium Instruction (EMI) where she analyzes issues of cognitive capture and linguistic erasure.
Her publications demonstrate a consistent commitment to southern perspectives in language education research. She has pioneered concepts like transknowledging (reciprocal knowledge exchange across languages) and examines how multilingualism is positioned as either a resource or problem in educational settings. Her recent work explores the potential of translation technology to support multilingual pedagogies in higher education while challenging inequitable hierarchies that privilege monolingual English speakers.
Professor Heugh has led significant research projects including 'Using Human Language Technology to enhance academic integrity, inclusivity, knowledge exchange, student diversity and retention' at the University of South Australia. Her collaborative work extends across international contexts, with notable research in Northern Uganda on local languages and primary education in post-conflict settings. She has edited influential volumes including 'A Sociolinguistics of the South' (2021) and 'Multilingual Education Works: from the Periphery to the Centre' (2010), contributing substantially to decolonial scholarship in applied linguistics.
