Language policy and linguistic landscapes at schools in South Africa

ABSTRACT

Language policy and Linguistic Landscapes (LL) are a highly contested area in South Africa. Due to Apartheid, the education system constitutes the core of such contestation. In Post-Apartheid South Africa the new Constitution of 1996, the South African Schools Act (SASA) and recent political initiatives such as the Use of Official Languages Act of 2012 form the foundation of language policy at schools. The Constitution declares 11 official languages on a macro-level. Nevertheless, English dominates the LL in South Africa. African Languages are significantly underrepresented in the public sphere. The vast majority of research emphasises the urban or semi-urban areas. This research tries to close the existing research gap with a broad comparative study in three research provinces. With data from over 300 schools, the aim was to analyse language policy and LL and see how language policy documents regulate the LL at public schools. Fieldwork included an ethnographic approach and semi-structured interviews. Results revealed that significant inter- and intra-provincial differences exist. The quality of school language policy documents vary. There are also differences between school mottoes, information leaflets and the LL in classrooms and administrative buildings.

KEYWORDS:

• South Africa
• school governing bodies (SGBs)
• linguistic landscape (LL)
• African languages
• school mottoes

Acknowledgements

The authors would firstly like to thank the participating teachers in Limpopo, Gauteng and North West and the three provincial DBEs for granting permission for this research. Thanks also to Keagile Molotsi for her support during the data collection. A special thanks also to the two anonymous reviewers who helped to improve the original manuscript. Nevertheless, all remaining mistakes are solely the responsibility of the authors. Opinions expressed and conclusions arrived at are those of the authors and are not necessarily to be attributed to the NRF.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 Rosenbaum, Nadel, Cooper and Fishman analysed language usage in Jerusalem as early as 1977, but they did not use the term LL.

2 Due to a word limit and the focus of this article, pre-colonial and colonial historical developments cannot be described here and developments under Apartheid only very briefly. For further reading, the authors recommend Kretzer (2018), Holmarsdottir (2005) and Thompson (2001).

3 Although Bantu languages are the linguistically correct term for the nine indigenous South African languages, due to Apartheid the term ‘Bantu’ is highly stigmatised. Therefore, the authors prefer the term African Languages instead of Bantu Languages. Languages are all named according to the South African Constitution.

4 To ensure a total anonymity all names were changed and the names used here are fictitious.

5 All interviews were slightly edited regarding formulations or repeating of words to ensure a better reading of these interviews.

Additional information

Funding

The financial assistance of the National Research Foundation (NRF) towards the publication of this research is hereby acknowledged.