Rajend Mesthrie is Professor of Linguistics in the Department of English at the University of Cape Town, holding an NRF research chair in the area of Language, Migration, and Social Change. He served two terms as President of the Linguistics Society of Southern Africa. He has published widely in the fields of sociolinguistics, with special reference to language contact in South Africa. Among his publications are Introducing Sociolinguistics (2nd edn. 2009, with Joan Swann, Ana Deumert, and William Leap), Language in South Africa (Cambridge, 2002, ed.), and World Englishes (Cambridge, 2008, with Rakesh M. Bhatt).