‘When I hear Afrikaans in the classroom and never my language, I get rebellious’: linguistic apartheid in South African higher education

Abstract

Language policies in South African education have historically been inextricably woven within the fabric of larger sociopolitical realities and have supported the interests of those in power. With the dismantling of the apartheid regime and subsequent Constitutional statements addressing the importance of promoting the status and use of indigenous languages, progressive linguists and educators envisioned the possibilities of ushering in a new era of linguistic equality. However, especially at the tertiary level, educational practice continues to privilege the colonial languages, at the particular expense of Black South African students. In contrast with previous research that highlights more supportive sentiments among Black students regarding this hegemonic condition, this study incorporates 'deep interviewing' to identify the presence of more covert negative attitudes that have profound implications for educational performance. Implications for further scholarly work as well as plausible strategies for reform are considered.

Implicit Language Attitudes Toward Historically White Accents in the South African Context

“…English, on the other hand, has experienced the opposite progression. The aforementioned Bantu Education Act enhanced the status of English as the language of advancement (Greenfield, 2010; Kamwangamalu, 2003). English came to dominate in the parliament, media, government institutions, and, in general terms, in intergroup interactions with speakers of different language backgrounds (Kamwangamalu, 2003; Mesthrie, 2006).…”

Language Policy as a Sociocultural Tool: Insights from the University of Cape Town

“…This clause, however, was repealed when the 1999 policy was being developed, for in the post-apartheid South Africa the Afrikaans language, closely associated with the oppressive regime, could not be granted status or functions that are not given to other African languages. Given socio-political circumstances, the withdrawal of the 'Afrikaans clause' was an understandable decision (see e.g., Mabokela, 2001;Greenfield, 2011). What it resulted in, however, was an 'English-only policy'.…”

Transformative interviewing and the experiences of multilingual learners not labeled “ELL” in US schools

“…In all cases, only the mothers (and sometimes younger siblings) attended. In order to better understand language beliefs of participants (and in essence, their habitus regarding language and schooling) and help them gain agency to alter them, we adopted Denzin's (2001) transformative style (as modeled and re-framed as "deep interviewing" or "transformative interviewing" in Greenfield, 2010). This type of interviewing technique reengages qualitative research "as a form of radical democratic practice" (Denzin, 2001, p. 23), and holds that words and language have a material presence in the world and that words matter, including the way that we use the language in interviews to learn about the world.…”

“…Adapting a transformative interview framework (Greenfield, 2010), we aim not only to find out about multilingual learner perspectives regarding their multilingualism and schooling, but to raise participant awareness about their own agency in utilizing their home languages for learning. Although our focus is on the multilingual learners, we occasionally included input from their mothers in order to provide a richer understanding of the learning contexts of the participants and because they chose to participate along with their child in the interviews.…”