The struggle to maintain identity in higher education among Zulu-speaking students

Abstract

The 2002 Language Policy for Higher Education (LPHE) identifies the currently dominant language of instruction – English – as being a possible barrier to many African students in accessing and successfully completing studies at higher education level. The LPHE thus requires that black African languages be developed at Higher Education Institutions for use as languages of teaching and learning, alongside English and Afrikaans. It is hoped that such a move would, among other things, enable South Africans to take pride in being bi/multilingual. Hence, this paper examines the relationship between language identity and bi/multilingual education. In conducting the study, the participants who are mostly isiZulu speaking in an educational institution in which their primary language (L1) dominates on campus and in the surrounding community were exposed to Zulu–English instructional material in their academic literacy and communication skills course. While the findings indicate a strong African pride among the majority of respondents about the use of their languages in education, concerns, however, are raised about the negative impact this might have on their development of proficiency in English and the practicality of bi/multilingual instruction on campuses with a diverse racial student population. This view indicates a struggle experienced by many Africans between maintaining their languages in education and developing English that is in high demand in education, commerce and as a common language of communication across ethnic and racial lines in South Africa and elsewhere.

Keywords:

• English dominance
• African languages
• higher education
• bi/multilingual education
• language identity

Acknowledgements

The information used in this paper is part of a Ph.D. thesis in Linguistics that was pursued at the University of KwaZulu-Natal (Howard Campus) under the supervision of Prof Heike Tappe. The research was also undertaken as an institutional project at Mangosuthu University of Technology registered with the research directorate and funded by the National Research Foundation from 2008 to 2009.