French Linguistic Imperialism and Epistemic Sovereignty in West African Higher Education: A Critical Theoretical Study

The persistent dominance of French as a medium of scholarship, prestige, and academic gatekeeping in West African francophone higher education has been theorised as a form of linguistic imperialism that constrains indigenous epistemic production, yet the specific mechanisms through which French reproduces academic power asymmetries in the West African regional higher education space, including its effects on Anglophone Nigerian scholars seeking francophone academic engagement, have not been rigorously theorised. This study develops a critical theoretical account of French linguistic imperialism in West African higher education, drawing on Phillipson's linguistic imperialism theory, Quijano's coloniality of power, and Mignolo's decolonial epistemology. A critical theory methodology combining systematic literature review, discourse analysis of ECOWAS higher education policy texts, and in-depth interviews with 36 scholars navigating English-French bilingual academic contexts in Nigeria, Ghana, Senegal, and Cameroon provides the empirical grounding for theoretical elaboration. The study identifies three novel mechanisms of French epistemic dominance in the West African academic field: bibliometric gatekeeping through French-medium journal prestige hierarchies; institutional credentialling asymmetry in which Paris-based degrees carry systematically higher symbolic capital than Nigerian or Anglophone equivalents; and discursive frame imposition in which French analytical categories shape what counts as legitimate knowledge in francophone African scholarship. An original counter-hegemonic model of epistemic multilingualism for West African higher education is proposed. Keywords: linguistic imperialism, French language, epistemic sovereignty, West Africa, decolonial theory