Students’ Perceived Language Competence and Attitudes Towards Multilingualism at a South African University

Abstract

South Africa is well-known for the implementation of multilingual language policies at various educational levels which are upheld by its Constitution. Higher education institutions in the country strive to comply with the call to bolster multilingualism, but the number of research studies that have focused on students’ language proficiency and language attitudes is remarkably low. To analyse these issues, the current study relied on a questionnaire that was filled out by 789 university students from an institution whose language policy promotes the use of three languages, namely Afrikaans, English, and Xhosa. The statistical analyses performed revealed that English proficiency is perceived as high and attitudes towards this language are very favourable; however, this is not the case with Afrikaans and, above all, Xhosa, which was not well known by the majority of students at the university and attitudes towards it were far from positive.

Keywords:

• Afrikaans
• English
• Xhosa
• multilingualism
• language competence
• language attitudes
• South Africa