Truncated Multilingualism or Language Shift? An Examination of Language Use in Intimate Domains in a New Non-racial Working Class Township in South Africa

Abstract

The dominance of English in particular domains of language use in South Africa, such as higher education and the economy, has led to the fear that other languages may be threatened by an increasing shift to English in all domains, especially among the young. However, this paper reveals the strong vitality of the mother tongues in the intimate domains and increasing multilingualism becoming the norm in new shared spaces.

Keywords:

• domains
• multilingualism
• space
• marginalisation
• South Africa

Acknowledgements

The Wesbank research was made possible with the financial assistance of the Culture, Language and Identity Project in the faculty of Arts at the University of the Western Cape. I would also like to acknowledge the valuable assistance of the principal, teachers and pupils of Wesbank High School.

Notes

1. In 1994, the first democratically elected government came to power in South Africa after 300 years of colonial rule and 40 years of separate development dominated by White South Africans.

2. For the purpose of this paper, I shall use the racial categories of pre-democracy South Africa, as these categories continue to be used by the current dispensation. These categories are: Black to refer to indigenous South Africans, White to refer to those of European descent, Coloured to refer to those of mixed descent, and Indian, to refer to those descended from the Indian subcontinent.

3. South Africa has 11 official languages: English (8.2%), Afrikaans (13.3%), Xhosa (17.6%), Zulu (23.8%), Ndebele (3%), Swati (2%), South Sotho (7.9%), Pedi or North Sotho (9.4%), Tswana (8.2%), Venda (2%) and Tsonga (3%). The figures in brackets reveal the percentages of mother-tongue speakers of each language according to the 2001 Census.

4. The South African Group Areas Act of 1950 forced people of different ethnic origin to live in areas demarcated for their specific group. The best areas were reserved for White occupants, with other groups being restricted to peripheral areas. Even in these peripheral areas, a strict hierarchy was maintained, with better areas being zoned for those classified Coloured and Indian and the worst areas going to those classified Black. It was not uncommon for people to attempt to get reclassified in order to access a better quality of life.

5. Wesbank High, where our research took place, is a dual medium (Afrikaans and English) school, which also offers Xhosa as a First Language from Grade 8. Most Xhosa pupils choose to learn Xhosa as First Language and English as Second Language, but a small minority choose English as First Language and Afrikaans as Second Language. This means that pupils are either placed in the English-medium classes or in the Afrikaans-medium classes, but staff shortages have meant that teachers frequently have to teach both groups in one class. The Xhosa students are normally placed in the English-medium classes for subjects like Geography and Science.