https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3343-875X
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ABSTRACT
In this study, we revisit the status of English relative to the African languages in South Africa by analysing new national data on the main language spoken outside the home. These data, which derive from the General Household Surveys of 2017 and 2018, complement commonly collected data on the main language spoken within the home. Our analysis shows that only a small minority of ‘Africans’ report speaking English most often outside the home, and that the large majority speak the same African language both inside and outside the home. These findings suggest that the dominance of English must be distinguished from its prevalence, and they point to the continued vitality of African languages in the country. In the latter part of the study, we discuss various reasons for these language patterns, including the continuing salience of residential segregation by race, changes in the labour market and the accompanying rise of the African middle-class, and the significance of African languages as markers of identity and resistance to the importance of English in domains of power.
Acknowledgement
We thank the editor and reviewers for the insightful comments received on an earlier draft of the paper.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 Similar concerns were expressed about the future of Afrikaans because of the influence of English (see e.g. Posel and Zeller (Citation2016) for a review).
2 Apartheid's racial policy instituted four ‘racial’ categories that remain widely used in South Africa, including in the population census and all household surveys: (black) African (who comprise the majority population), Coloured (broadly mixed race), Indian/Asian and white. While recognizing that race is constructed, we use scare quotes lightly in order to enhance the readability of the article.
3 Because language questions are included in a more general census or survey, which collects information on a wide array of indicators and characteristics, they are typically restricted to only one or two questions.
4 If people over-report their language ability, then returns to English language proficiency are likely to be under-estimated (Casale and Posel Citation2011; see also Kahn, Branson, and Leibbrandt Citation2019).
5 In the GHS 2018, for example, 602 of 71 137 individuals (0.85 percent) of the unweighted sample did not have information on the language spoken most often outside the household, while 360 did not have information on language spoken most often inside the household. These individuals were not included in the samples analysed.
6 Own calculations using Supercross software provided by Statistics South Africa for the geographical area Umlazi.
7 Although scholarship in the late twentieth century predicted a decline in the relevance of ethnicity, ‘ethnic identities have come to the forefront of political debate’ (Lytra Citation2016, 131).
8 Fishman’s (Citation1977) conceptualisation of domains of language usage distinguished between ‘low’ domains, e.g. the family/social setting and ‘high’ domains, e.g. education, government.
9 https://businesstech.co.za/news/media/332691/top-20-most-popular-radio-stations-in-south-africa/ [2 April 2020].
10 PanSALB was established in 1996, as an independent statutory body, for the purposes of promoting all the official languages of South Africa.