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The interaction between multilingualism and emotions has so far mostly been researched in Northern contexts. The findings obtained suggest that the first language is typically preferred for emotional and mental activities (i.e. ‘first language primacy’). In this article, we extend this area of investigation to Africa. We use the Bilingualism and Emotions Questionnaire to probe first language primacy in South Africa, employing a novel analytical approach – multiple correspondence analysis – that allows us to examine the relationship between particular languages and their order of acquisition. Our findings, in part, do reflect favouring of the L1, but with two important qualifications. First, English is also widely used for emotional expression in non-intimate domains. Second, L1 isiXhosa speakers prefer English for mental calculations, and isiXhosa is generally not associated with positive emotional characteristics. We explain these trends in relation to the multilingual context of South Africa, which, like many postcolonial countries, uses a former colonial language extensively in formal institutional spaces. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article centres multilingualism in relation to gender, sexuality, culture, and race, presenting the narrative of one participant, Samson, who self-identifies as a black, queer, man and refers to several linguistic varieties that he has some proficiency in. The narrative emerged from an interview conducted in which Samson discussed his language portrait, a multimodal biographical method. Thematic analysis was used as a starting point in interpreting how Samson discursively constructs language in relation to gender, racial, sexual, and cultural positions. To unpack Samson's constructions of self and others we bring decolonial feminist theoretical approaches in conversation with linguistic citizenship. We argue that Samson is trying to undo the normative conceptions of a range of identity categories and that he narrates several different discursive and social strategies to develop new subjectivities for himself and to create new relationalities. In his decolonial project of being, he tries to queer the norm and norm the queer. Samson's story provides us with the possibility of living and languaging outside of colonial structures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]