Coloniality of language and pretextual gaps: a case study of emergent bilingual children’s writing in a South African school and a call for ukuzilanda

ABSTRACT

Framed by decolonial theory, this paper explores how language and literacy ideologies, including Anglonormativity, or the expectation that children should be proficient in a standardised version of English and are deficient if not, shape language and literacy practices in South African classrooms. While not legitimised, the use of fluid language practices in classroom discourse in the Global South is well documented. Less explored is the impact of language ideologies on children’s written text production. Using the tools of linguistic ethnography, I focus on the literacy practices emergent bilingual children are engaged with in a Natural Science lesson in year 4, the first year of their transition from ‘home language’ language of instruction (LOI) to monolingual English LOI. A close analysis of the practice of learners making notes in the lesson shows a pretextual gap between the expectations of the activity: that the children will be proficient in the ‘English’ used for note-making as well as orthography and layout conventions of written notes, and the heterographic writing they are able to produce. I examine the written products of note-making against a contested history of the use of African languages for writing fiction, and the exclusion of African languages from formal education, thus within a context of coloniality of language. I argue that the concept of ukuzilanda can inspire the expansion of literacies in African languages in education, enabling us to build from an existing literate and oral tradition.

KEYWORDS:

• Language ideologies
• English medium of instruction (EMI)
• Anglonormativity
• de/Coloniality
• emergent bilingualism
• writing

Acknowledgments

The author is deeply grateful to Xolisa Guzula and Robyn Tyler who conducted fieldwork for the Heteroglossia in Primary Schooling (HIPS) project and to Cathy Kell and Robyn Tyler for feedback on an earlier draft as well as the anonymous reviewers. The financial support of the National Research Foundation (South Africa) is also gratefully acknowledged. This acknowledgement does not imply NRF endorsement of the research findings.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by National Research Foundation [grant number 87726].