The impact of English on African language speakers in a post-apartheid multilingual south Africa: a study in Gauteng Secondary Schools.
Maluleka, Jabulile Cynthia
Maluleka, Jabulile Cynthia
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Abstract
It has been observed that in almost twenty-two years into South Africa’s democracy there are Black children, the born-frees (who were born during and after the end of apartheid) who no longer speak their home languages at all. Those who try to speak it, speak a watered down version and cannot read or write it properly or at all. This raises concern about the future of the South African indigenous languages. The objective of this study was to investigate and establish the attitude of the born-free children towards their home languages and to investigate the reasons why English seems to have become the language of choice for them. It was also to find out why English has become the dominant language in Gauteng secondary schools. The study further looked at the possible future of the South African indigenous languages. The mixed method approach was utilised to gather data. A quantitative and qualitative formative evaluation was conducted among a sample of secondary school learners, parents and educators in Gauteng Province District D4. The data were gathered from three secondary schools in Gauteng province, one township school and two former Model C schools. Questionnaires were given to all respondents and a face to face interview was conducted to assess attitudes towards Black learner home language use as opposed to English use. Quantitative data were analysed using percentages and means, and qualitative analysis was used for the rest. The findings reveal that respondents feel that their home languages are almost as important as English. However, they feel that it is more practical for English to be used in school as this will have an impact on the future career of the learners. According to respondents, English should be a school language and Black South African languages such as Sepedi, Setswana, Sesotho, isiNdebele, siSwati, Tshivenda, isiXhosa, isiZulu, Xitsonga should be languages that are used by learners at home.
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Submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the Degree Magister Technologiae: language practice in the Department of Applied Languages Faculty of Humanities.
Date
2016-12-05
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Tshwane University of Technology
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Keywords
Language Shift, Multilingualism, Language Identity, Educational Access, Linguistic Marginalization