(Unofficial) Multilingualism in desegregated schools: Learners’ use of and views towards African languages

Abstract

South Africa has a progressive Language in Education Policy (LiEP) advocating multilingualism, but the policy has been widely criticised for its lack of implementation. Notable is the hegemony of English in many schools, and in ex-Model C schools in particular. Some have argued that the choices of middle-class African parents in sending their children to English medium schools is threatening the survival of African languages and leading to language shift (De Klerk, 2000; Kamwangamalu, 2003a; 2003b). Drawing on observation and interview data from two desegregated co-educational ex-Model C high schools in Johannesburg, this paper focuses on the language practices and views towards indigenous South African languages of African learners. It captures their perspectives on the schools’ language policies as well as their views on the use of indigenous languages in the classroom and in other domains in the school. The paper shows that learners often use African languages in the school space, frequently through code-switching and code-mixing. This paper argues that claims of language shift are not appropriate, since multilingual language behaviour points to some degree of language maintenance of African languages. The use of African languages by learners enables them to insert new identities into this space and interrupt the exclusive power of English.

Southern African Linguistics and Applied Language Studies 2010, 28(1): 61–73