Critical Applied Linguistics

Abstract Within a sea of dominant and counter voices, applied linguistics experienced a surge in publications that express unease with the exclusionary practices of the discipline and indicate that declared values of diversity and inclusion were nothing but strategic hyperbole. Applied linguistics has seen a significant increase in publications that call out practices that sustain inequality within applied linguistics. Research in CAL also has grappled with voices of dissent from Global South scholars, which raises the question of whether it is possible to strive for equity and bring about equality in a discipline deeply entrenched in the structures of capitalist higher education. Decolonial approaches to CAL focus on “un‐silencing” the silenced voices by centering the contributions of Global South scholars and acknowledging the input of their contexts to scholarly theorizing.