Volume 2014, Issue 225 - Language Capital and Development

This position paper presents language capital as an alternative theorization to linguistic capital. It applies to the development and multilingual postcolonial contexts, especially in Africa. It argues that Bourdieu's “linguistic capital” is more applicable to the analysis of the access that is granted or denied on the basis of possession of one rather than another variety of a language. Using demographic statistics made up of human and economic development data from the Human Development Index, the World Bank and the World Development Report, the paper demonstrates the relationships that exist between language and the economy and how the alternative language capital model may be useful for development analysis in subSaharan Africa.

In recognizing 11 official languages, the 1996 South African Constitution provides a context for the management of diversity with important implications for the redistribution of wealth and power. The development and implementation of the language-in-education policies which might be expected to flow from the Constitution, however, have been slow and ineffective. One of the casualties of government procrastination has been African language publishing. In the absence of well-resourced bilingual education, most learners continue to be taught through the medium of English as a second language. Teachers are reluctant to use more innovative pedagogies without the support of adequate African language materials and publishers are cautious about producing such materials. Nonetheless, activity in this sector offers many opportunities for African language speakers. This paper explores the challenges and constraints for African language publishing for children and argues that market forces and language policy need to work in mutually reinforcing ways. Further progress is necessarily dependent on the political will to implement language-in-education policies that promote additive bilingualism and, in the process, guarantee sales for risk-averse publishers.

Countries throughout the Sub-Saharan (SSA) region have a complex linguistic heritage having their origins in opportunistic boundary changes effected by Western colonial powers at the Berlin Conference 1884–1885. Postcolonial language-in-education policies valorizing ex-colonial languages have contributed at least in part to underachievement in education and thus the underdevelopment of human resources in SSA countries. This situation is not likely to improve whilst unresolved questions concerning the choice of language(s) that would best support social and economic development remain. Whilst policy attempts to develop local languages have been discussed within the framework of the African Union, and some countries have experimented with models of multilingual education during the past decade, the goalposts have already changed as a result of migration and trade. This article argues that language policy makers need to be cognizant of changing language ecologies and their relationship with emerging linguistic and economic markets. The concept of language, within such a framework, has to be viewed in relation to the multiplicity of language markets within the shifting landscapes of people, culture, economics and the geo-politics of the 21st century. Whilst, on the one hand, this refers to the hegemony of dominant powerful languages and the social relations of disempowerment, on the other hand, it also refers to existing and evolving social spaces and local language capabilities and choices. Within this framework the article argues that socially constructed dominant macro language markets need to be viewed also in relation to other, self-defined, community meso- and individual micro-language markets and their possibilities for social, economic and political development. It is through pursuing this argument that this article assesses the validity of Omoniyi's argument in this issue, for the need to focus on the concept of language capital within multilingual contexts in the SSA region as compared to Bourdieu's concept of linguistic capital.

In spite of being home to many treasured raw materials and natural resources, West Africa harbors some of the poorest countries in the world. In fact, about half of the poorest countries in Africa are located in West Africa, and most of her citizens are afflicted by poverty, hunger, disease and illiteracy. Several economic intervention schemes by international financial institutions (such as the World Bank, IMF, ADB) have failed because of a lack of understanding and interpreting of such schemes by a majority of West Africans. Although indigenous West African languages have been central to the processes of production and distribution in the informal sector of the economy, they are excluded in the formal economy. Even more fundamentally problematic is that knowledge and skills are almost exclusively imparted in European languages. The continued use of the ex-colonial languages (namely, English, French and Portuguese in the formal economy, which are understood by less than 20 percent of the population), amounts to economic exclusion for the majority of the people. Since language capital itself is an economic resource that can be harnessed to provide employment opportunities particularly for translators, interpreters, teachers and publishers, there is a need for the development of the indigenous language capital in order to spread resources beyond the few West Africans who are literate in the ex-colonial languages. The present study highlights the role of micro language planning in poverty alleviation within the West African sub-region through the development of the indigenous language capital and the reduction of illiteracy and disease. It does this against the backdrop of the Millennium Development Goals.

This article critically explores the classical notion of the concept of diglossia in order to re-examine its role in the study of language shift and attrition, particularly in terms of the role English is playing as part of national development and 21st century globalization. It draws on Fishman's extended definition of “diglossia” and adds to it (a) a critical perspective from the Sociolinguistics of Periphery and (b) Omoniyi's (this issue) distinction between linguistic capital and language capital. This partially allows for a reconceptualization of diglossia into “critical diglossia” that foregrounds the hegemonic “historical-structural” arrangements in language planning and policy in the study of language shift and attrition. As a further extension, the proposed concept also incorporates the role of agency and argues for development of diglossia from below, in addition to being imposed from above. The new theoretical conceptualization is then empirically applied to understand the linguistically significant generalizations of patterns of linguistic practices in a small nation state in Southeast Asia that correlate strongly with language shift and attrition. It is argued that both majority and minority indigenous languages are experiencing attrition in form and function under the pressure of modernization and contemporary forces of globalization, amongst which English is one significant factor. This language attrition is explained with the help of another proposed concept “lifestyle diglossia” which has emerged from the data. This new concept reveals that a critical appraisal of people's everyday practices highlights an asymmetrical relationship between traditional and modern lifestyles as well as associated identities which explains the attrition in the dominant local language. English is only one of the attributes of what is perceived and followed as the modern lifestyle. The data set for this article is drawn from a long-term ethnographic study of macro and micro sociolinguistic issues in a nation state in Southeast Asia collected as part of a series of research projects.

This study aims to comprehend the intersections between African languages and information communication technologies (ICTs) and African development and the ensuing opportunities and gaps. First, it presents the theoretical model underpinning this article. Second, it analyzes some initiatives aimed at addressing social and economic hardships whilst strengthening the African indigenous languages. Third, it points out the shortcomings in using ICTs devices to mainstream the African languages into development programs. In conclusion, we argue that the African languages and the ICTs should be in the heart of development policies in Africa.

This article considers human, economic and social capital, and considers the relationship between these and linguistic and language capital in the context of development in Sub-Saharan Africa. Evidence is adduced concerning the negative effects of the policy of employing English as a medium of instruction in schools. It is claimed that the policy adds nothing of value to linguistic or language capital, and therefore fails to generate significant human, economic and social capital.

This article examines the concepts of “linguistic capital” and “language capital” in the light of existing sociolinguistic and economic situations, and in the wider context of the link between language and development. Are these new concepts more operational than the previous paradigm that equated monolingualism with economic development? Is “linguistic capital” or “language capital” an objective determinant of economic growth? The article concludes that, besides other more complex historical and economic factors, there is no objective evidence of a connection between these concepts (i.e. “linguistic capital” and “language capital”) and the purported economic relevance of any given language.