Artificial intelligence and the future of sociolinguistic research: An African contextual review.

The article discusses the intersection of artificial intelligence (AI) and sociolinguistics in an African context, highlighting the challenges and opportunities presented by AI technology. It emphasizes the importance of human sociolinguists in interpreting data and the limited representation of African languages in AI technology. The text also explores the impact of AI on accents, voice modification, and the authenticity of sociolinguistic data, calling for more inclusivity and ethnographic research in tech innovations. Additionally, it addresses the influence of AI on multilingualism in African contexts, emphasizing the need for collaboration between sociolinguistic researchers, computational linguists, and tech innovators to navigate the evolving human-machine relationship. [Extracted from the article]