Elshifa Elamin

Short Bio

Elshifa Elamin is an Assistant Professor at the English Language Department of Omdurman Ahlia University in Sudan. She has been the head of the English Department since July 16th, 2022, and has over 12 years of experience teaching Applied Linguistics and Discourse Analysis and supervising research. Previously, Elshifa worked as a part-time instructor for English Language courses at many Sudanese universities, including the Faculty of Geographical and Environmental Sciences at the University of Khartoum, the National Ribat University's Faculty of Language and Translation, and Sudan International University.

Elshifa's research interests include Sudanese Feminist Discourse, Multicultural Studies that address diversity in university classrooms, and Discourse in Sudanese Minority Languages in the Sudanese Educational Context. She is also interested in topics related to Sociolinguistics, such as Gender Identity and Feminist Discourse. Elshifa presented a scientific paper at the conference "Arabic in Africa: Historical and Sociolinguistic Perspectives", held at the University of Bayreuth from April 12th to 14th, 2023.

Selected Publications

• The Role of Group Discussion and Role-Play Techniques in Promoting Oral Communication: A Case of Second Year English Majors Students at Omdurman Ahlia University-Sudan published as Joint work with Dr. Gamar Albooni (Associate Professor, Department of English, College of Science and Arts, Jouf University – Department of English, Faculty of Arts, University of Khartoum (Published).
• The Standard Ideological Myth of Arabic as a No-Man's Land: The Case of Arabic as a University Prerequisite Course in Sudan-(unpublished).

Project Description

Sudan was under British colonial rule from 1899 to 1956, referred to as the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan or the Condominium. During this time, the British colonial system aimed to create new identities, including in Sudan and other parts of the Global South. The colonial regime restructured the precolonial social space and people into two ideologically and spatially opposed identities: the South and the North. To achieve this, they implemented a racialized apartheid system called the British Southern Policy. This system aimed to create language-based tribal units as a social and political administration tool, particularly in Southern Sudan. Language played a pivotal role in realizing this colonial project. This research project seeks to answer the following questions: - What is the nature of the language rights regime in Sudan, as articulated in colonial and postcolonial discourses about language (constitutions, language policies, peace agreements)? - How is social diversity conceptualized and managed by colonial and postcolonial regimes of language rights? - How does this language rights regime intersect with issues of subjectivity, inequality, racism, and gender? The research will examine the broader sociopolitical contexts of the language rights regime embodied in the peace agreements signed between the Sudanese armed movements and the governments of Sudan. Specifically, the project will focus on the language policy embedded in the Juba Peace Agreement. This research will engage with existing literature on language policies in peace accords between the South and the North before the separation of the South. The research will use a multi-model (historical-sociolinguistic) approach to address immediate colonial and postcolonial interrelated issues such as linguistic rights, language-based social inequalities, racism, conflict, and marginalization.