4 July 2025
The South African Centre for Digital Language Resources (SADiLaR) is pleased to award a total of seven sponsorships in support of conferences and training events that are closely aligned with its vision to ensure a transformed participative digital future for South Africa’s official languages for people in all walks of life.
The call for conference support, which closed on 28 April 2025, invited applications from local organisers and academic societies planning academic conferences and dissemination events for the period of 1 June 2025 to 30 March 2026. Funding could be requested for typical core conference or events-related expenditure, such as support for keynote speakers, awards for best HLT (human language technology) or DH (digital humanities) related papers, and ICT-related support.
Applicants had to submit their sponsorship requests via an online application form, which required a detailed description of the sponsorship request and associated budget, as well as how the sponsorship request links to SADiLaR’s strategy.
SADiLaR is a national research infrastructure supported by the Department of Science, Technology and Innovation (DSTI) as part of the South African Research Infrastructure Roadmap (SARIR). Its strategic function is to create, manage, and distribute digital language resources and applicable software for all official languages in South Africa through its digitisation programme, while through its digital humanities programme, SADiLaR stimulates and supports computational research and development in the humanities and social sciences.
The seven successful awardees of this funding cycle are:
2025 SALALS Conference
Lidon Chauke, an associate lecturer at Nelson Mandela University’s Department of Linguistics and Applied Linguistics, received funding on behalf of the 2025 Southern African Linguistics and Applied Linguistics Society (SALALS) conference. The upcoming conference will be hosted by Nelson Mandela University from 25 to 27 June 2025, and Chauke is the chairperson of the local organising committee.
The annual SALALS conference brings together academics and students working in languages, linguistics, applied linguistics and language practice from across Southern Africa and abroad. The theme of this year’s conference is: ‘Traditions, transformations, and African thought: Imagining Linguistics in Africa for the 21st century’.
According to Chauke, many humanities scholars are still hesitant to embrace digital humanities, as they are under the impression that it is reserved for people with coding skills. “The inclusion and visibility of SADiLaR will help to market digital humanities, as well as the Escalator project which is aimed at making DH visible in South Africa. Additionally, the workshop on the use of data will assist attendees in understanding open sciences and the need for sharing research.”
SAALT 2025 Conference
DJ Cloete, a lecturer in languages and cultural sciences at Akademia and treasurer for the South African Association for Language Teaching (SAALT), was awarded a sponsorship for the SAALT 2025 Annual Conference, which will take place from 29 to 31 July 2025 in Skukuza. The theme ‘From Chalkboards to Chatbots: The Language Education Journey’ captures the evolution of language education from traditional methods to the latest technological advancements. The conference will highlight some of the opportunities and challenges higher and secondary education institutions face, especially in the South African context.
“We would like to present problems and possible solutions to these problems, for example the use of technology in the classroom that promotes language learning in a multilingual context,” says Cloete. “The aim is to share, explore, compare and improve research on language education and refine our understanding of traditional, current and future practices in the field of language education and applied linguistics,” says Cloete. “This is especially important within a multilingual context of South Africa and the technological advancements made with AI in the last few years.”
Through this conference, SADiLaR will act as an enabler of the activities related to language policy planning, development, and support and how the latest research in the field can contribute to a better understanding of our current practices in language education and applied linguistics.
17th Biennial Conference of IAFLL
Dr Zakeera Docrat researcher in forensic linguistics at the University of the Western Cape, received conference funding as a co-chairperson of the 17th Biennial Conference of the International Association for Forensic and Legal Linguistics (IAFLL).
The IAFLL conference will be hosted for the first time on the African continent from 30 June to 4 July 2025, in Cape Town. Themed ‘Transformative Justice Through a Forensic and Legal Linguistics Lens’, the track languages will be isiXhosa and Afrikaans, alongside English. The two languages were selected based on the regional language policy as well as the number of isiXhosa and Afrikaans speaking researchers and students in the area of forensic linguistics in South Africa.
“The conference will cover a wide range of themes, including themes on technology (as part of interpreting and translation), AI (as part of courtroom discourse, investigations and analysis) and cybercrime,” says Docrat.
“We believe that technology is key to improving access to justice. We have therefore placed an emphasis on language, interpreting and technology as a conference panel. There are several themes dedicated to AI and cybercrime. Given the international scope of cybercrime in the discipline of forensic linguistics, we are of the view that South African scholars will benefit immensely from the shared knowledge at various presentations.”
SASL Training Workshops
Ben Nkhumane, a principal language practitioner at the North-West Department of Arts, Culture and Recreation, has been awarded sponsorship for a series of SASL (South African Sign Language) workshops.
“Starting on the 20th of October 2025, the SASL workshops are aimed at empowering North-West municipal workers with SASL capabilities. Frontline workers, such as security guards, receptionists, data capturers and field social workers, will acquire the skills to assist and communicate with citizens from the deaf community in their respective wards,” says Nkhumane.
South African Sign Language enjoys the special status of being one of the 12 official languages of South Africa since 2023. SADiLaR recognises the importance of developing and promoting SASL as a language and to ensure its preservation by supporting the creation, management and distribution of digital language resources.
Workshop Series for Pre-Service Teachers
Dr Sanele Nsele, principal investigator and researcher at the University of the Witwatersrand, has been awarded funding for a series of workshops that aim to equip pre-service teachers with the necessary knowledge and skills to implement bi/multilingual policy in Foundation and Intermediate phases in the digital age.
“Starting on the 17th of October 2025, the series of workshops will seek to disseminate knowledge from a previous research project conducted with in-service teachers; and to prepare and ensure the readiness of pre-service teachers to implement bi/multilingual (isiZulu and English) policy in the Foundation and Intermediate phases,” says Nsele.
“We would also like to establish an e-resource where pre-service teachers can find the relevant learning and teaching materials. This will include a bilingual support guide (in isiZulu and English), with resources, such as lesson plan templates and more.”
The 29th International Afrilex Conference
Prof Elsabé Taljard, a researcher at the University of Pretoria’s Department of African Languages and treasurer of the African Association for Lexicography (Afrilex), received funding on behalf of Afrilex for the upcoming 29th International Afrilex Conference.
Themed ‘The Role of Artificial Intelligence and Digitalisation in the Future of Lexicography’, the conference will be held at the University of the Western Cape from 1 to 5 July 2025.
“The conference focuses on the dissemination of research results on lexicography. There will be a strong focus on artificial intelligence (AI) and its implications for lexicographic theory and practice – it is important that the South African lexicographic community takes note of the impact of the digital revolution on lexicography,” says Taljard.
The conference will also feature a pre-conference workshop on digitisation, with two special sessions: a publishers’ session and a session which provides the National lexicography Units (PanSALB) to present their ongoing projects. The workshop is also a training opportunity for those interested in digitisation.
The SASRIM 19th Annual Conference
Dr Carina Venter, senior lecturer in musicology at Stellenbosch University and Chair of the SA Society for Research in Music (SASRM), was awarded funding for the 19th Annual SASRIM Conference to be held from 26 to 28 September 2025 at Stellenbosch University.
According to Venter, the annual SASRIM conference provides the only regular opportunity to think about, perform, and share the most recent research done on the music of the country and continent.
“The conference attracts scholars and students who perform and research African and South African music, with a focus on jazz, indigenous music, popular, and art music. As part of the 2025 conference’s focus on aesthetic education, we invited future-oriented papers through a special interest topic that grapples with the opportunities, uncertainties, and risks posed by the staggering acceleration of advancements in computing technologies. In doing so, the conference has attracted a number of contributions that deal specifically with artificial intelligence and machine learning in the cultural sphere. This theme speaks to issues shared by both music and language scholars, given the common signal processing infrastructure used in natural language and audio data applications.”
*Interested in applying for conference or event funding? The submission process opens twice per year, during November and April. The next call is in November 2025.
SADiLaR’s rigorous evaluation process for sponsorship applications takes cognisance that funding is limited; therefore, applications are selected strictly based on the criteria that reflect alignment and support of SADiLaR’s mission and strategy.
Read here for more information about the application and evaluation process or contact info@sadilar.org or contact info@sadilar.org.
(Written by Birgit Ottermann)