Performance practices as a laboratory for shaping language ideologies

This presentation conceptualises performance practices as a laboratory for not just looking at how language ideologies shape interaction, but how performance shapes language ideologies. Drawing on two theatre projects from Johannesburg - Micia de Wet’s Father, my Father (2017) and my collaborative project Languaging (2021) with Sibusiso Mkhize - I show how dramaturgies and pedagogies including language-ideological consciousnes-raising and improvisation, reshape standardised and institutional language ideologies. Across two filmed episodes of interactions within each of the projects, I trace shifts in indexed ideologies: From English as the ‘correct’ and separable language of performance and schooling, to institutionally ratified, negotiated varieties in which translanguaging becomes acceptable for interaction and artistic work. Methodologically, I combine interactional sociolinguistics with performance studies, analysing indexical cues, metapragmatic commentary, and moments of uptake/ratification that take into consideration subject-object embodiment within the semiotic or phenomenal body. I conclude by proposing a transferable way to study how framed and performative interaction within an accumulative process can function as ideological ‘workshops’ for standard language ideologies. The talk draws on my forthcoming monograph (Making Multilingual Performance, Routledge, 2026) and the Horizon Europe project Dramaturgies for Languaging (2024–2026).