Volume 2015, Issue 234 - Special Issue: (New) Social dynamics of multilingual practices in the post-independent South Africa: between marginalization and harmonization, Issue Editor: Leketi Makalela

This article reports on multilingual adolescent youth’s negotiation of identities in a languaging South African environment. Focus group dialogues of 17 Grade 11 multilingual students from the South Western Townships (Soweto) in Johannesburg were analysed using conversational analysis techniques from a selected data pool that was generated over a period of three hours. The results of the study show a rift between classroom language and out of school language practices. We demonstrate that (i) the Soweto youth have a wide range of linguistic flexibility that indexes the new socio-linguistic status of South Africa in the post independent era and (ii) that monolingual classroom language are no longer adequate spaces for creativity and plural identity formation. Adopting a mathematical reasoning of approximates, rather than fixed sets, we coin the concept “fuzzy languaging logic” to argue that indigenous African languages are embedded in one another and that the respondents use this hybrid language space to identify and ethnify – choosing who they want to become beyond traditional linguistic and exact ethnic affiliations. Considerations for language in motion and social change as key features of globalization are made at the end of the article.

Place renaming constitutes a linguistic and highly symbolic change in the Linguistic Landscape (LL) in post-apartheid South Africa. While for opponents toponymic changes hasten the erasure of their heritage and constitute a form of reverse discrimination, for supporters they consolidate transformative processes in a “new” South Africa. In this article, I examine both sides of the argument, taking as a case in point the street renaming in a small area of Pretoria, the administrative seat of the national government. Drawing insights from existing literature in the LL, geosemiotics and geography, notably Scollon and Scollon’s (2003) interpretation of language in the material world, theories about the interrelatedness of language, place, identity, culture and textuality (e.g. Lou 2010; Rose-Redwood et al. 2010), I stand in sympathy with these odonymic changes. Indeed, I argue that they reflect a legitimate remaking of place by conflating components of group identity (ethnic, culture, history, memory) with language (odonyms). Reshaping a new cityscape is an act of restorative justice after a long period of linguistic marginalization of the majority. Being part of language policy, these changes are also seen as politicking in the sense that they involve power struggle. The inclusive policy pursued by the government of the day stands as a fair precaution.

This article argues that the education crisis in South Africa stems largely from a literacy problem. The prediction that use of the primary language is beneficial in formal schooling is not unambiguously met in the South African context when examining evidence from large-scale literacy assessments. Understanding the reasons for this is critical for improving the use of African languages in early schooling. This article examines the Zulu and English reading literacy skills of a Grade 4 cohort of learners after three years of schooling in their home language. The research reveals low reading levels in both languages, suggesting a mismatch between language policy and literacy accomplishment. It is suggested that one of the primary reasons for the poor results in schools that have African languages as initial LoLT lies in the oral orientation to classroom practices in these schools. A more fully specified language in education model is proposed where an emphasis on literacy in the primary language may help to shift the focus where it belongs.

The speech behaviour in which at least two distinct languages are used in the same conversation (code-switching) is a pervasive feature found in the language produced by fluent bilinguals, particularly when the speakers engage in informal conversation. The multilingual context of South Africa ensures that code-switching is not only a common phenomenon, but that it is probably the most natural speech pattern for presenting multiple identities of self. This study explored the language practices of isiXhosa learners at different stages of an English-medium grade school to determine (a) the stage at which code-switching between isiXhosa and English emerges as a feature of informal speech and (b) the extent to which increased competence in English affects the nature of code-switching which may in turn serve as an indicator of language shift from isiXhosa to English. The study revealed that as early as the Foundation Phase code-switching seems to be a prominent feature of informal speech in certain contexts. More importantly the study revealed that, contrary to expectations, increased competence in English does not necessarily lead to language shift from isiXhosa to English, but rather it leads to more integrated usage of both English and isiXhosa.

This article reports on a study of pre-service teachers’ literacy narratives in a South African institution of higher learning. Literacy self-narratives of 57 students were collected and analysed for categories and themes under narrator and sponsor identities through the use of AtlasTi software. The results of the study show the role of historical, cultural and political contexts in shaping literacy identities of student teachers. The results also show huge disparities of literacy experiences among different racial and gender groupings, which highlight social and educational opportunities. Using New literacies and Multiliteracies frameworks, I consider how these literacy challenges may be transformed to facilitate a just and equitable society. Particular implications of the students’ constructions of literacy identities are considered at the end of the article.

Whereas the use of discursive linguistic resources among multilingual speakers has been closely scrutinized in recent years, highly complex multilingual spaces have not been adequately documented in research. This article reports on new sociolinguistic developments in post-Apartheid South Africa and explores how people mobility and integration of a historically divided society produces hybrid ways of identifying and making sense of the world. Analysis of self-recorded student interactions from five townships in Johannesburg shows that traditional language boundaries have blurred and given way to a complex and multilayered variety, referred to as kasi-taal . The results also show that there is a high degree of mutual inter-comprehensibility that cuts across Sotho and Nguni language clusters. Using notions of sociolinguistics of mobility and translanguaging, I draw insights on these language developments to predict future directions of language use in a manner consistent with the “discontinuous continuity” processes that characterize the twenty-first century. Recommendations for further research are considered for super-diverse contexts at the end of the article.

It is widely acknowledged that different communities, such as language groups and socio-economic status (SES) families, practice literacy in different ways. Certain language communities of low SES observe literacy interactions differently from the traditional “schooled literacy”, which may influence learners’ reading literacy. However, the link between language communities, SES and reading literacy has not been extensively researched, especially in the South African context where there are 11 official languages and wide socio-economic disparities. This article examines students’ social literacy in relation to their reading literacy levels, and reveals that the literacy gap between indigenous South African language (ISAL) speakers, a number of whom are from low SES families, and speakers of English and Afrikaans is further widened at the tertiary level due to the mismatch between the social literacy practices of the different language groups and the education system that operates in the country. Recommendations are made on how educators could employ strategies such as social relevance and culturally sensitive teaching to bridge the academic literacy gap among the language groups.

This study offers an on-the-ground perspective on the multi-layered process of the Ashéninka and Asháninka state-initiated standardization reform, with the Upper Perené Ashéninka of Peru being a case in point. The reform is carried out in the context of the dramatic decline in the Ashéninka Perené language use due to the community-wide shift to the national language, Spanish. Presented within the ethnographic framework, the analysis focuses on the community’s own view of the national language policy, revealed in the speakers’ language allegiances and attitudes to its own language and literacy, and that of the competing Tambo Asháninka variety, chosen by the government actors to be the written standard. On the basis of a comprehensive video and audio corpus, the ethnography considers conflictive discursive histories of the policy-makers including those of language consultants, bilingual teachers, tribal and political leadership and educational policy agents. The on-the-ground implementation of the standardization reform is supported by the younger generation of speakers who generally have a passive knowledge of the Upper Perené language. Older policy-makers, organized into a language consultant team, have launched resistance projects including the production of Upper Perené books and dictionaries which use the language community’s own spelling conventions.