Critical perspectives on language planning and policy in Africa: Accounting for the notion of multilingualism

Abstract

This paper draws on the notion of multilingualism as social practice (Heller 2007) to critique postcolonial language planning and policies in Africa. Drawing on illustrations from Ethnologue's (2009) languages of Africa, studies on language planning and policy in Africa, and recent developments in harmonisation of cross-border language research (Prah 1998; Banda 2008), the paper argues that there are distortions in the conceptualisation of multilingualism and what it entails in Africa's socio-cultural contexts. In turn, the paper faults monolingual biases in the notions and models used to describe and promote multilingualism in Africa, which mirror descriptions of the language situation in Western socio-cultural contexts. The paper argues for cross-linguistic and cross-border status and corpus planning to take advantage of multilingualism as a linguistic resource for socioeconomic development in Africa. The paper concludes by highlighting the prospects for linguistic
repertoire-based multilingual models for language planning and policy in Africa.

Keywords: multilingualism, language policy, linguistic repertoire, urbanization, postcolonial