Multilingualism in South African Education: A Southern Perspective

doi:10.1017/9781108340892.011

Chapter 11 - Multilingualism in South African Education: A Southern Perspective

from II - Sociolinguistics, Globalisation and Multilingualism

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 07 November 2019

Kathleen Heugh and

Christopher Stroud

Edited by

Raymond Hickey

Show author details

Raymond Hickey: Affiliation:
Universität Duisburg–Essen

Book contents

Get access

Summary

In this chapter, we contextualise English within a decolonial perspective of multilingualism in sub-Saharan Africa, particularly South Africa. In so doing, we lay bare some of the historically invisibilised circuits of intellectual exchange flowing from the geopolitical South to the geopolitical north around multilingualism. After a short overview of the deep decolonial roots pertaining to discussions of African multilingualism, we move to a discussion of multilingual education with the circumstances of the early 1990s in which at least three views of multilingualism in education circulated. We conclude by drawing attention to two notions in particular with ‘southern’ origins – ‘functional multilingualism’ and ‘linguistic citizenship’ – that we believe contribute to serious discussions of North–South engagement on understandings of multilingualism and multilingual education.

Keywords

functional multilingualism language as resource linguistic citizenship decolonial southern

Information

Type: Chapter
Information: English in Multilingual South Africa
The Linguistics of Contact and Change
, pp. 216 - 238

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108340892.011 [Opens in a new window]

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Print publication year: 2019

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Book purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

Achebe, Chinua (1958). Things Fall Apart. London: Heinemann.Google Scholar

Achmat, Zachie (1992). Yo dude, cosa wena kyk a? The Multilingual Classroom. Documentary film (video). Directed by Zachie Achmat and produced by Jack Lewis for the National Language Project, Cape Town, www.youtube.com/watch?v=rhzhq46gLCo (last accessed 20 May 2019).Google Scholar

Agnihotri, Rama Kant (1992). ‘India: multilingual perspectives’, in Crawhall, Nigel (ed.), Democratically Speaking: International Perspectives on Language Planning. Salt River, Cape Town: National Language Project, pp. 46–55.Google Scholar

Agnihotri, Rama Kant (1995). ‘Multilingualism as a classroom resource’, in Heugh, Kathleen, Siegrühn, Amanda, and Plüddemann, Peter (eds.), Multilingual Education for South Africa. Johannesburg: Heinemann, pp. 3–14.Google Scholar

Akinnaso, F. Niyi (1991). ‘Toward the development of a multilingual language policy in Nigeria’, Applied Linguistics 12(1): 29–61.Google Scholar

Alexander, Neville (1989). Language Policy and National Unity in South Africa/Azania. Cape Town: Buchu Books.Google Scholar

Alexander, Neville (1992). ‘South Africa: harmonising Nguni and Sotho’, in Crawhall, Nigel (ed.), Democratically Speaking: International Perspectives on Language Planning. Salt River, Cape Town: National Language Project, pp. 56–68.Google Scholar

Anzaldúa, Gloria (1987). Borderlands/La frontera. San Francisco: Aunt Lute.Google Scholar

Bamgbose, Ayo (ed.) (1976). Mother Tongue Education: The West African Experience. London and Paris: Hodder and Stoughton, and UNESCO Press.Google Scholar

Bamgbose, Ayo (1987). ‘When is language planning not planning?’, The Journal of West African Languages 7(1): 6–14.Google Scholar

Bamgbose, Ayo (2000). Language and Exclusion: The Consequences of Language Policies in Africa, Vol. 12. Münster: LIT Verlag.Google Scholar

Blommaert, Jan (2005). ‘Situating language rights: English and Swahili in Tanzania revisited’, Journal of Sociolinguistics 9(3): 390–417.Google Scholar

Chakravarty, Kalyn Kumar (2011). ‘Introduction’, in Devy, Ganesh Narayan, Davis, Geoffrey V. and Chakravarty, Kalyn Kumar (eds.), Voice and Memory: Indigenous Imagination and Expression. Hyderabad: Orient BlackSwan, pp. xiii–xxv.Google Scholar

Chimbutane, Feliciano and Stroud, Christopher (eds.) (2012). Educação Bilingue em Moçambique: Reflectindo Criticamente sobre Políticas e Práticas [Bilingual Education in Mozambique: Critical reflection on Policies and Practices]. Maputo: Texto Editores.Google Scholar

Chumbow, Beban Sammy (1987). ‘Towards a language planning model for Africa’, The Journal of West African Languages 7(1): 15–22.Google Scholar

Chumbow, Beban Sammy (1990). ‘The place of the mother tongue in the National Policy on Education’, in Nọlue Emenanjọ, E. (ed.), Multilingualism, Minority Languages and Policy in Nigeria, Central Books in collaboration with the Linguistic Association of Nigeria, pp. 61–72.Google Scholar

Comaroff, Jean and Comaroff, John L. (2012). ‘Theory from the South: or, how Euro-America is evolving toward Africa’, Anthropological Forum 22(2): 113–31.Google Scholar

Connell, Raewyn (2007). Southern Theory: The Global Dynamics of Knowledge in Social Science. Cambridge: Polity Press.Google Scholar

Crawhall, Nigel (ed.) (1992). Democratically Speaking: International Perspectives on Language Planning. Salt River, Cape Town: National Language Project.Google Scholar

De Klerk, Gerda (1995). ‘Three languages in one school: a multilingual exploration in a primary school’, in Heugh, Kathleen, Siegrühn, Amanda, and Plüddemann, Peter (eds.), Multilingual Education for South Africa. Johannesburg: Heinemann, pp. 28–33.Google Scholar

De Klerk, Gerda (1996). The Power of Babel: Support for Teachers in Multilingual Classrooms. Cape Town: Project for the Study of Alternative Education in South Africa.Google Scholar

Department of Education (DOE) (1997). Language in Education Policy. Pretoria: Department of Education.Google Scholar

Dua, Hans R. (1994). Hegemony of English, No. 1. Mysore: Yashoda Publications.Google Scholar

Fafunwa, Aliu Babatunde and Aisiku, J. U. (eds.) (1982). Education in Africa: A Comparative Survey. London: Allen and Unwin.Google Scholar

García, Ofelia and Wei, Lionel (2014). Translanguaging: Language, Bilingualism and Education. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.CrossRef Google Scholar

Harries, Patrick (1988). ‘The roots of ethnicity: discourse and the politics of language construction in South-East Africa’, African Affairs 87 (346): 25–52.Google Scholar

Heller, Monica (1999). Linguistic Minorities and Modernity: A Sociolinguistic Ethnography. London: Longman.Google Scholar

Heller, Monica (2007). Bilingualism: A Social Approach. London: Palgrave Macmillan.Google Scholar

Heugh, Kathleen (1987). ‘Underlying Ideologies of Language Medium Policies in Multilingual Societies with Particular Reference to Southern Africa’, unpublished M Phil dissertation, University of Cape Town.Google Scholar

Heugh, Kathleen (1995a). ‘Disabling and enabling: implications of language policy trends in South Africa’, in Mesthrie, Rajend (ed.), Language and Social History: Studies in South African Sociolinguistics. Cape Town: David Philip, pp. 329–50.Google Scholar

Heugh, Kathleen (1995b). ‘From unequal education to the real thing’, in Heugh, Kathleen, Siegrühn, Amanda, and Plüddemann, Peter (eds.), Multilingual Education for South Africa, Johannesburg: Heinemann Publishers, pp. 42–52.Google Scholar

Heugh, Kathleen (1995c). ‘The multilingual school: modified dual medium’, in Heugh, Kathleen, Siegrühn, Amanda and Plüddemann, Peter (eds.), Multilingual Education for South Africa, Johannesburg: Heinemann Publishers, pp. 83–8.Google Scholar

Heugh, Kathleen (1999). ‘Languages, development and reconstructing education in South Africa’, International Journal of Educational Development 19: 301–13.CrossRef Google Scholar

Heugh, Kathleen (2003). ‘Can authoritarian separatism give way to linguistic rights? A South African case study’, Current Issues in Language Planning 4: 126–45.CrossRef Google Scholar

Heugh, Kathleen (2013). ‘Multilingual education policy in South Africa: constrained by theoretical and historical disconnections’, Annual Review of Applied Linguistics 33: 215-337.CrossRef Google Scholar

Heugh, Kathleen (2017). ‘Re-placing and re-centring Southern Multilingualisms. a de-colonial project’, in Kerfoot, Caroline and Hyltenstam, Kenneth (eds.), Entangled Discourses: South–North Orders of Visibility. New York and London: Routledge, pp. 209–29.Google Scholar

Heugh, Kathleen, Siegrühn, Amanda and Plüddemann, Peter (eds.) (1995). Multilingual Education for South Africa. Johannesburg: Heinemann Pearson.Google Scholar

Hirson, Baruch (1981). ‘Language control and resistance in South Africa’, African Affairs 80(319): 219–37.Google Scholar

Hoppers, Catherine Alum Odora (ed.) (2002). Indigenous Knowledge and the Integration of Knowledge Systems: Towards a Philosophy of Articulation. Claremont, Cape Town: New Africa Books.Google Scholar

Ianco-Worrall, Anita (1972). ‘Bilingualism and cognitive development’, Child Development 43(4): 1390–400.Google Scholar

Kerfoot, Caroline and Hyltenstam, Kenneth (eds.) (2017). Entangled Discourses: South–North Orders of Visibility. New York: Routledge.CrossRef Google Scholar

Kerfoot, Caroline and Simon-Vandenbergen, Anne Marie (2015). ‘Language in epistemic access: mobilising multilingualism and literacy development for more equitable education in South Africa’, Language and Education 29(3): 177–85.Google Scholar

Kusch, Rodolfo ([1970]2010). Indigenous and Popular Thinking in America. Duke University Press.Google Scholar

Lambert, Wallace (1975). ‘Culture and language as factors in learning and education’, in Wolfgang, Aaron (ed.), Education of Immigrant Students. Toronto: Ontario Institute for Studies in Education.Google Scholar

Letele, Gladstone Llewellyn (1945). A Preliminary Study of the Lexicological Influence of the Nguni Languages on Southern Sotho. Lovedale: Lovedale Mission Press.Google Scholar

Lo Bianco, Joseph (1987). National Policy on Languages. Canberra: Government Printer.Google Scholar

Makalela, Leketi (2005). “‘We speak eleven tongues’: reconstructing multilingualism in South Africa”, in Brock-Utne, Birgit and Hopson, Rodney (eds), Languages of Instruction for African Emancipation: Focus on Postcolonial Contexts and Considerations. Cape Town and Dar es Salaam: CASAS and Mjuti n Nyota, pp. 68–87.Google Scholar

Makalela, Leketi (2015). ‘Moving out of linguistic boxes: the effects of translanguaging strategies for multilingual classrooms’, Language and Education 29(3): 200–17.CrossRef Google Scholar

Makalela, Leketi (2017). ‘Translanguaging Practices in a South African Institution of Higher Learning: A Case of Ubuntu Multilingual Return’, in Mazak, Catherine and Carroll, Kevin (eds.), Translanguaging in Higher Education: Beyond Monolingual Ideologies. Bristol: Multilingual Matters, pp. 11–28.Google Scholar

Makhudu, K. Dennis (1995). ‘An introduction to Flaaitaal’, in Mesthrie, Rajend (ed.), Language and Social History: Studies in South African Sociolinguistics. Cape Town: David Philip Publishers, pp. 298–305.Google Scholar

Makoe, Pinky and McKinney, Carolyn (2014). ‘Linguistic ideologies in multilingual South African suburban schools’, Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development 35(7): 658–73.Google Scholar

Makoni, Sinfree (1998) ‘African languages as European scripts: the shaping of communal memory’, in Nuttall, Sarah and Coetzee, Carli (eds.), Negotiating the Past: The Making of Memory in South Africa. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 242–8.Google Scholar

Makoni, Sinfree (2003). ‘From misinvention to disinvention of language: multilingualism and the South African Constitution’, in Makoni, Sinfree, Smitherman, Geneva, Ball, Aretha and Spears, Arthur K. (eds.), Black Linguistics: Language, Society and Politics in Africa and the Americas. New York: Routledge, pp. 132–53.Google Scholar

Makoni, Sinfree (2016). ‘Romanticizing differences and managing diversities: a perspective on harmonization, language policy, and planning’, Language Policy 15(3): 223–34.Google Scholar

Malherbe, Ernst Gideon (1946). The Bilingual School: A Study of Bilingualism in South Africa. London: Longmans.Google Scholar

McKinney, Carolyn (2016). Language and Power in Post-Colonial Schooling: Ideologies in Practice. New York and London: Routledge.Google Scholar

Mignolo, Walter (2009). ‘Epistemic disobedience, independent thought and de-colonial freedom.’ Theory, Culture and Society 2(7–8): 159–81.Google Scholar

Nakata, Martin (2002). ‘Indigenous knowledge and the cultural interface: underlying issues at the intersection of knowledge and information systems’, IFLA Journal 28(5–6): 281–91.Google Scholar

Nhlapo, Jacob (1944). Bantu Babel: Will the Bantu languages live? The Sixpenny Library, No. 4. Cape Town: The African Bookman.Google Scholar

Nhlapo, Jacob (1945). Nguni and Sotho. Cape Town: The African Bookman.Google Scholar

Nomlomo, Vuyokazi (2003). ‘Accommodating diversity in the isiXhosa classroom’, in Brock-Utne, Birgit, Desai, Zubeida and Qorro, Martha (eds.), Language of Instruction in Tanzania and South Africa (LOITASA). Dar es Salaam, Tanzania: E & D, pp. 69–79.Google Scholar

Nomlomo, Vuyokazi and Desai, Zubeida (2014). ‘Reflections on the development of a pre-service language curriculum for the B Ed (Foundation Phase)’. South African Journal of Childhood Education 4(3): 87–102.Google Scholar

Ntshangase, Dumisani Krushchev (2002). ‘Language and language practices in Soweto’, in Mesthrie, Rajend (ed.), Language in South Africa. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 407–15.Google Scholar

Ntuli, P. Pitika (2002). ‘Indigenous knowledge systems and the African renaissance’, in Hoppers, Catherine Odora, Indigenous Knowledge and the Integration of Knowledge Systems: Towards a Philosophy of Articulation. Claremont, Cape Town: New Africa Books, pp. 53–66.Google Scholar

Organisation of African Unity (OAU)/Organisation de l’unité Africaine (OUA) ([1986]1987). The Language Plan of Action for Africa. Addis Ababa: OAU/OUA, www.bisharat.net/Documents/OAU-LPA-86.htm (last accessed 20 May 2019).Google Scholar

Pattanayak, Debi Prasanna (ed.) (1990). Multilingualism in India. Clevedon and Bristol: Multilingual Matters.Google Scholar

Plüddemann, Peter, Braam, Daryl, October, Michelle, and Wababa, Zola (2004). ‘Dual-medium and parallel-medium schooling in the Western Cape: From default to design’. PRAESA Occasional Papers, 17. Cape Town: Project for the Study of Alternative Education in South Africa.Google Scholar

Povinelli, Elizabeth (2011). Economics of Abandonment: Social Belonging and Endurance in Late Liberalism. Durham and London: Duke University Press.Google Scholar

Ranger, Terence (1984). Missionaries, Migrants and the Manyika: The Invention of Ethnicity in Zimbabwe. Johannesburg: University of the Witwatersrand, African Studies Institute.Google Scholar

Robb, Helen (1995). ‘Multilingual preschooling’, in Heugh, Kathleen, Siegrühn, Amanda, and Plüddemann, Peter (eds.), Multilingual Education for South Africa. Cape Town, South Africa: Heinemann, pp. 15–22.Google Scholar

Rubagumya, Casmir M. (1986). ‘Language planning in the Tanzanian educational system: problems and prospects’, Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development 7(4): 283–300.Google Scholar

Rubagumya, Casmir. M. (ed.) (1994). Teaching and Researching Language in African Classrooms. Clevedon and Bristol: Multilingual Matters.Google Scholar

Ruiz, Richard (1984). ‘Orientations in Language Planning’, NABE Journal 8(2): 15–34.Google Scholar

Santos, Boaventura de Sousa (2012). ‘Public Sphere and Epistemologies of the South’, Africa Development 37(1): 43–67.Google Scholar

Siatchitema, A. Kathleen (1992). ‘When nationalism conflicts with nationalist goals: Zambia’, in Crawhall, Nigel (ed.,) Democratically Speaking. International Perspectives on Language Planning. Salt River, Cape Town: National Language Project, pp. 17–21.Google Scholar

Smith, Linda Tuhiwai (1999). Decolonizing Methodologies: Research and Indigenous Peoples. London: Zed Books.Google Scholar

Stroud, Christopher (2001). ‘African mother tongue programs and the politics of language: linguistic citizenship versus linguistic human rights’, Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development 22(4): 339–55.Google Scholar

Stroud, Christopher (2009). ‘Towards a postliberal theory of citizenship’, in Petrovic, John (ed.), International Perspectives on Bilingual Education: Policy, Practice and Controversy. New York: Information Age Publishing, pp. 191–218.Google Scholar

Stroud, Christopher and Heugh, Kathleen (2004). ‘Language rights and linguistic citizenship’, in Freeland, Jane and Patrick, Donna (eds.), Language Rights and Language Survival: Sociolinguistic and Sociocultural Perspectives. Manchester: St Jerome Publishing, pp. 191–218.Google Scholar

Tadadjeu, Maurice (1975). ‘Language planning in Cameroon: toward a trilingual education system’, Working Papers in Linguistics 19. Ohio State University, pp. 53–75.Google Scholar

Taylor, Nick and Vinjevold, Penny (eds.) (1999). Getting Learning Right: Report of the President’s Education Initiative Research Project. Johannesburg: Joint Education Trust.Google Scholar

Tucker, Archibald Norman (1929). The Comparative Phonetics of the Suto-Chuana Group of Bantu Languages. London: Longmans, Green and Co. (Reproduced 1969 by Gregg International Publishers, Westmead).Google Scholar

Tripathi, Prayag D. (1990). ‘English in Zambia’, English Today 6(3): 34–8.Google Scholar

Van den Berghe, Pierre (1967). ‘Language and nationalism in South Africa’, Race 9(1): 37–46.Google Scholar

Versfeld, Ruth (1995). ‘Language is lekker: a language activity classroom’, in Heugh, Kathleen, Siegrühn, Amanda and Plüddemann, Peter (eds.), Multilingual Education for South Africa. Cape Town, South Africa: Heinemann, pp. 23–7.Google Scholar

Wa Thiong’o, Ngũgĩ (1986). Decolonising the Mind. London: James Currey.Google Scholar

Watson, Irene (2014). ‘Re-centring first nations knowledge and places in a terra nullius space’, AlterNative 10(4): 508–20.Google Scholar

Wee, Lionel (2005). ‘Intra-language discrimination and linguistic human rights: the case of Singlish’, Applied Linguistics 26(1): 48–69.Google Scholar

Westcott, Nicki (2004). Sink or Swim. Navigating Language in the Classroom. Cape Town: Tomix productions for the Project of the Study of Education in South Africa (DVD), www.youtube.com/watch?v=1bJt5FVJYis (last accessed 20 May 2019).Google Scholar

Accessibility standard: Unknown

Why this information is here

This section outlines the accessibility features of this content - including support for screen readers, full keyboard navigation and high-contrast display options. This may not be relevant for you.

Accessibility Information

Accessibility compliance for the HTML of this chapter is currently unknown and may be updated in the future.