Abiodun Salawu is Professor of Journalism, Communication and Media Studies and Director of the research entity, Indigenous Language Media in Africa (ILMA) at the North-West University, South Africa. He has taught and researched journalism for over two decades in Nigeria and South Africa. Prior to his academic career, he practised journalism in a number of print media organisations in Nigeria. He has to his credit, scores of scholarly publications in academic journals and books. He has also edited/co-edited five books and authored one.

Anné Hendrik Verhoef is an associate professor in philosophy at the Faculty of Humanities at the North-West University’s Potchefstroom Campus. He studied at the University of Stellenbosch and at the Catholic University of Leuven in Belgium. In 2008 he received his doctorate with a thesis on the relation between time and the Trinity. His interests are in the philosophy of religion, metaphysics, the philosophy of Paul Ricoeur, hermeneutics, ethics, and the philosophy of happiness.

Emile Coetzee is a junior lecturer in History at the North-west University’s Mahikeng Campus. He is completing his MA degree at NWU Vaal focussing on the alleged corruption committed in the South African Defence Force and Department of Defence in 1964. He specialises in Crime and Incarceration History but also does research in Military history. Both fields are within Contemporary South African history (hence the 20th century). Coetzee is also a contributor for Eensgesind.com and is a frequent podcaster for this new “free media” initiative.

My research career started in 2009 when I began compiling the Historical Corpus of South African English, consisting of personal and business letters, news reportage, fiction and non-fiction from all over the country, and spanning from the 1820s to the present. I became more and more interested in the grammatical and semantic changes that occurred within this unique variety of English over time.

After completing my BA degree, I enrolled for a BA Honours degree in Language Practice at the NWU’s Vanderbijlpark Campus, which I obtained with distinction. I then enrolled for my masters degree at the same institution, under the supervision of Dr Ia Esterhuizen and Prof. Haidee Kruger. The dissertation sprouted from two subjects that I completed in my Honours degree, namely editing and text linguistics combined with my own curiosity as to how writers and readers interact through written discourse; more specifically study guides.

After completing a degree in Language Practice I worked as a classroom interpreter and freelance language practitioner. I started work at the NWU in 2007 as junior lecturer where I presented modules in Academic Literacy, Language Practice and English Linguistics. The modules that focussed on the influence of various linguistic theories on translation theory contributed to my interest in linguistics.

Johanita Kirsten, senior lecturer in Afrikaans Linguistics at the Vanderbijlpark Campus of the North-West University, is interested in recent and ongoing changes in Afrikaans language use. She completed her MA and PhD in Afrikaans and Dutch (Historical Linguistics) at the NWU under supervision of prof. Bertus van Rooy, and received the ABSA Bronze Medal for her MA dissertation.

I am a lecturer and researcher working in the field of linguistics, and a member of the UPSET research focus area, at the Vanderbijlpark Campus of the North-West University.

Werner started his academic career as a student assistant in the Sociology department in 1996, and is currently an Associate Professor in the School of Social Sciences at the North-West University. Werner obtained his PhD in Sociology in 2005 at the NWU, and completed a Master’s degree in Positive Psychology at the same institution in 2014. His main research field is the study of psycho-social well-being, especially in relation to religion and spirituality, as well as the natural environment.

Dr Ndlela's field of expertise is South African and African-American Literature.  He is currently working with Professor I.S. Mekoa: (Research Professor in the School of Research and Postgraduate Studies) in a Research Project titled: “Culture, Identity & Nation-Building in South Africa”.