I-Dollar EYI One!1–Ethnolinguistic Fractionalisation, Communication Networks and Economic Participation–Lessons from Cape Town, South Africa

Abstract

The relationship between ethnolinguistic fractionalisation and development has long been of interest to economists and linguists. While econometric analyses have shown relatively stable interactions between high levels of fractionalisation and low indices of development, the mechanisms underlying this relationship are still unclear. This paper explores the importance of fragmented versus unified communication networks for socio-economic development, using data from Cape Town, South Africa. Like other cities in low-and middle-income countries, Cape Town shows growing linguistic diversity due to high levels of rural-urban migration. Two aspects of the city's economy will be discussed on the basis of specialised survey data and anthropological fieldwork: (a) the labour market, and (b) informal entrepreneurial activities. The analysis shows the importance of language as an explanatory variable in the study of economic life, and allows us to advance our understanding of human and social capital formation in ethnolinguistically fragmented societies. In the conclusion the authors discuss the policy implications of the study.Let say you uneducated now you are going to find a job, and there's a white man/woman in the office, and he/she ask you in English what do you want, let say is Xhosa, and the white ask what kind of job you want. The Xhosa person said, 'Nokuba unjani' ('Whatever you have'), and the white person didn't understand he/she. And the white person call security to get him/her out. And this Xhosa person and the end he/she didn't get a job because she/he uneducated, she/he didn't know English. (From a grade 10 essay by Andile S., I. A Tale of African UrbanisationConsider a boy, born in an African village. He rises early, helping his parents to cultivate the fields and looks after livestock before making his way to the local village school. Network structures are dense and interaction with extended kin and other villagers takes place exclusively through the local vernacular. Opportunities to acquire or practice languages of wider communication which allow exchanges across language groups in the multilingual nation do not exist; the local village school only teaches the rudiments of these languages, mostly through rote learning and oral repetition practices. Even the teacher does not speak these languages well. There is no paid work available anywhere nearby, and as he grows up he hears the stories of return migrants: stories of work and hope, of cars and houses, electricity and running water. Like most of his generation, one day he too will make his way to the city, to look for work and a better life, for himself and for those of his family who will remain in the village. But when he gets there, he not only sees shacks and long lines of men waiting patiently for work morning after morning, hears gunshots and experiences the violence characteristic of much urban poverty -he also encounters a world whose languages he does not speak, whose languages he has never learnt. These are the languages spoken by those who ...

Accessing the First Job in a Slack Labour Market: Job Matching in South Africa

“…We use the respondents' self‐reported level of confidence in speaking English as a proxy for this. Deumert and Mabandla () argued that English is still the dominant workplace language, specifically for hierarchical relationships between employer and worker as it reduces transaction costs. The interpretation of this variable is, however, difficult as it reports the confidence level of the respondent at the time of the survey, i.e., ex post of the recruitment experience.…”

Towards developmental world Englishes

“…In fact, although English is often the sole official language in post‐colonial nations, only a fraction of the population normally are competent speakers. As Deumert and Mabandla (2009: 433) explain for Cape Town, South Africa, ‘linguists estimate that only between 20 per cent and 50 per cent of South Africans have an adequate understanding of English, the language which reigns supreme in public and economic life’. Similarly, Michieka (2009) finds that the spread of English to rural Kisii in Kenya is very limited, despite the fact that Kenya belongs the Kachru's Outer Circle.…”

Dilemmas of race, register, and inequality in South Africa

“…Analyzing national data sets on language proficiencies and labor-market participation, Posel & Casale (2008) show that those who report having ‘good English’ skills also report better incomes and occupations, whether they are ethnically White or African. These findings should not be surprising—Afrikaans regionally and English nationally are the languages of the economically and politically dominant (Deumert & Mabandla 2009).…”

“…A class distinction is drawn, however, through reference to standard and vernacular registers of Afrikaans and English, and that distinction also racializes: In South Africa, as in the US, standard varieties lighten speakers, while nonstandard varieties darken (Urciouli 1996; Anthonissen 2013). These registers evoke in their cultural models of stereotypical speakers and activities a South African history in which racial domination, labor subjugation, and access to varieties of language were intimately connected (Deumert & Mabandla 2009; Mesthrie 2016).…”