An exploration of isiZulu L1 students’ attitudes toward Northern Sotho at a University in the Gauteng Province.
Mbatha, Nokuthula Gertrude
Mbatha, Nokuthula Gertrude
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Abstract
Many isiZulu L1 students enrol at a university of technology (UoT) in Gauteng on the Language Practice programme, because it offers a range of five indigenous African languages as subjects: isiZulu, Northern Sotho, Setswana, Tshivenḓa, and Xitsonga. Students who are not L1 speakers of these languages are expected to choose and study one of them for communicative purposes. However, when isiZulu L1 students are offered Northern Sotho as a choice of study, the perception was that they seemed to show great reluctance to engage in learning it. The focus of this study was to explore the reasons for this perceived reluctance, and to determine if the isiZulu L1 students sampled had negative attitudes toward learning this language, the language itself, and/or its speakers. A mixed methods approach (questionnaire, n=71; semi-structured interviews, n=10) was adopted in the survey. The study found that: the isiZulu L1 student respondents sampled evinced strong cultural pride; and, the majority were positive about learning Northern Sotho, and its speakers. In sum, the majority of the isiZulu L1students sampled were willing to study other South African indigenous languages and were in favour of multilingualism. The findings further revealed that they were not negative toward learning Northern Sotho, but experienced challenges with learning it as a new subject.
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Submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the Degree of Magister Technologiae: Language practice in the Department of Applied Languages Faculty of Humanities Tshwane University of Technology.
Date
2016-05-01
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Tshwane University of Technology
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Keywords
isiZulu L1, Attitudes, Northern Sotho, University, Gauteng