Language Planning, Policy and Implementation in South Africa

By

Atheer Lateef

The history of language is not separate from the rest of human history: on the contrary, it is an essential aspect of it. Human history is as much as history of semiotic activity as it is of socio-economic activity.

South Africa

Independence from the United KingdomUnion 31 May 1910

On 31 May 1961, the country became a republic.

South Africa's populationSouth Africa is a nation of diversity, with nearly 52-million people (2013)

and a wide variety of cultures, languages and religious beliefs.

Read more :http://www.southafrica.info/about/people/population.htm#ixzz2PfTIMN8i

Nearly 25 languages are used in South Africa on a daily basis by more than 45 million people (Statistics South Africa 2003). The majority of South Africans, almost 80% of the population, use an African language as their home language.

Distribution of Languages

English 8% Others

1%Afrikaans

13%

African languages78% English

Others

Afrikaans

African languages

Languages of South Africa

Languages of South Africa

• South Africa has eleven official languages: Afrikaans, English, Ndebele, Northern Sotho, Sotho, Swazi, Tswana, Tsonga, Venda, Xhosa, and Zulu. While all the languages are formally equal, some languages are spoken more than others. According to the 2011 National Survey, the three most spoken first home languages are Zulu (22.7%), Xhosa (16.0%), and Afrikaans (13.5%). Despite the fact that English is recognised as the language of commerce and science, it ranked fourth, and was spoken by only 9.6% of South Africans at home in 2011.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Africa

Languages of South Africa

• The country also recognises several unofficial languages, including Fanagalo, Khoi, Lobedu, Nama, Northern Ndebele, Phuthi, San and South African Sign Language.

• Many white South Africans also speak other European languages, such as Portuguese , German, and Greek, while some Asians and Indians in South Africa speak South Asian languages, such as Tamil, Hindi, Gujarati, Urdu, and Telugu. French is spoken in South Africa by migrants from Francophone Africa.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Africa

Introduction• South Africa is one of the multilingual society.

• The government declared ‘11’ languages as the official languages of the country to be used at all levels.

• This decision was influenced by the politics of compromise that led to the formation of a democratic South Africa.

• The policy replaced the former language policies that contributed to the uplifting and development of English & Afrikaans as the only official national languages in South Africa.

Theoretical framework1. Rational model ( canonical model or ideal planning model ).

• The policy aspect of language planning is referred to as allocation, language happening, and language treatment

• The canonical model considers the choice of the national/official language as properly a government decision.

2. Alternative model argues that an adequate model of language planning should accommodate several types/levels of governmental or non-governmental decision-making and implementation, and several planning mechanisms.

Language management• Language management focuses on discourse and this “ provides

a basis on which to relate language planning to other language systems such as language cultivation, terminology, and language teaching.”

Language planning modelForm ( policy planning )Society ( status planning )1_ Selection (decision procedure)• Problem identification• Allocation of norms

Language ( corpus planning )2_ Codification (standardization procedure)• Graphisation• Grammatication• Lexication

Function ( language cultivation )Society ( status planning )3_ Implementation (educational spread)• Correction procedures• Evaluation

Language ( corpus planning )4_ Elaboration (functional development)• Terminological modernization• Stylistic development• Internationalization

Compartmentalization

Compartmentalization suggests that a particular language or variety may be chosen for specific purposes and given official status. This may result in a language policy which is a product of language planning and can be comprehended within the discourse of language politics and society or the more informal but powerful political and social aspects of language planning.

• Language status planning issues are related to political issues as the status planning focuses on legislative decisions that affect the reallocation of language functions.

• Language corpus planning focuses on changes by deliberate planning to the actual corpus or shape of a language.

Policy approach versus cultivation approach in South Africa• According to (Antia, 2000) affirms that the development of a language also depends by and

large on the planning of its corpus. Even if the policy can elevate the status of language, corpus development of language is a major step that will bring practical experience in the implementation process.

• In 1822 the British authorities issued a formal declaration based on language use in the Cape colony as part of Anglicization where English was declared as the only official language.

• The Dutch speaking community resisted this policy and the resistance laid the foundation of language planning in a strict sense after the formation of the Union of South Africa in 1910.

• The legislated language use incidentally led to the standardization of certain indigenous languages through the system of “divide and rule”, the politics that allowed indigenous languages to be used within ethnic designed areas.

Status planning in the democratic South Africa• The difficulties involved in language planning decisions compelled the democratically

elected government of 1994 to reach a compromise in the language issue.

• Then Ministry of Arts, Culture, Science and Technology formed the Language Action Task Group (LANGTAG) as a forerunner to the Pan South Africa Board (PanSAB) to bring a solution to language issues.

• PanSAB was granted constitutional power to ensure that all languages are developed and properly represented in the language policy ( South Africa Constitution, 1996).

• PanSAB completed the final draft of the National Language policy Framework, and submitted it to the Minster of Arts, Culture, Science and Technology who then submitted it to parliament for the necessary legislative Act.

Some other documents about language policy • The National Language Policy Framework (NLPF) is the major document and binds all

government structures to a “multilingual mode of operation”.

• The other important document is the Language in Education Policy issued Ministry of Education in 1996.

• Ministry of Education has another document called the Language Policy of Higher Education which places power to determine language policy in higher education.

• Western Cape has managed to produce a document called The Western Cape Provincial Languages Act of 1998.

• All these documents are important in the development of South African languages.

The nature of the new South African language policy• Language planning in South Africa takes into consideration an understanding that official

language policies were used by the apartheid ideology to establish and consolidate Afrikaner nationalist hegemony, ethnic separation and institutionalized inequality.

• The language policy is objectively designed to maintain ethnic diversity and the politics

of compromise.

National Constitution which states that a Pan South African Board established by national legislation must:

1. Promote, and create conditions for, the development and use of (a) All official language (b) The Khoi, Nama and San languages (c) Sign languages

2. Promote and ensure respect for: (a) All languages commonly used by communities in South Africa, including German, Greek, Gujarati, Hindi, Portuguese, Tamil, Telegu and Urdu (b) Arabic, Hebrew, Sankrit and other languages used for religious purposes in South Africa.

• According to Chick (1992), the important challenge is the promotion of the notion of “language ecology in which all languages are viewed as national resources needing to be preserved so that the talents of their native speakers may be optimally utilized for the good of all.

• The policy plan is designed to ensure that all languages are used at all-levels and they are grouped together to be used on rational basis.

1. Nguni languages as well as Sotho languages are grouped together according to intelligibility.

2. English and Afrikaans are grouped together because the assumption is that their speakers are bilingual.

3. Tsonga and Venda languages since they do not fall in either each of the groups and they are considered not mutually intelligible.

4. The model is simplified so that one can learn at least five or six languages.

The problem of implementation and the “Escape Clauses”

• The main challenge to the South Africa language policy is the problem of implementation. The actual content of the official language policy is determined by specific regulation of language use in interactions between the state and the subjects.

• The problem of implementation is the discourse used to mobilize people of various language groups behind language planning initiative in the country.

• The emphasis is on equality and equity, language rights versus language and other use, and practicability.

• The concepts of equality and equity refer primarily to the status of the official language. This is reflected in the statement: All official languages must enjoy “parity of esteem” and be treated equitably.

• The “equity” in the 1996 Constitution replaced “equality” which appears in interim Constitution “equal use and enjoyment”.

• In the view of the history of “official denigration and neglect of the indigenous language, a need for differential and preferential treatment”.

• Parity of esteem; would suggest that considerations of practicality can be put aside and a sincere effort made ensure that no particular languages dominate at the neglect of others. This also ensure the protection of minority languages.

• Equitable use of the official languages is also related to the freedom to exercise language rights.

• Language rights = freedom of language choice, recognition, protection & promotion.

• African languages are positively associated with tradition and culture.

• Ethnicity is a symbol of individual’s identity and intimate social relations.

• Linguistic differences are allowed to address the communication situation of particular community. For the purposes of “practicality” it may be argued that the object of the constitutional language policy is to provide protection for the diversity of languages.

• The language of choice only means the language that could be used in so far as that would be “reasonably practicable”.

• Reasonably practicable refers to as the “escape clauses” (together with usage, expense, regional circumstance, etc.).

• As a result the South African Language Policy is politically and ideologically functional.

The strengths of the policy• The status planning in South Africa has addressed issues of the history of apartheid and

the birth of a democratic state.• The language stipulations show major strength in promoting diversity, political

participation and access to services.• The official language policy was intended to make one or more designated, or more

identifiable language official in domains of legislation, justice, public administration and education.

• The legislation is based on two principles;1. Territoriality ( the obligation or right to use one or more designated languages within a

given territory).2. Linguistic personality (the obligation or the right to use one’s own language or any

other language).

Towards a successful implementation

There are certain strategies that need to be followed in ensuring a successful implementation of the language policy in South Africa.

First strategy• Any language can only be developed and preserved properly through corpus planning.• European languages are able to serve as means for communicating specialized information

and knowledge, “crucial to the pursuit of goals on the global agenda, e.g., the environment, international public health, empowerment, democratization and good governance.

• English language is now seen as claiming a more and more dominant status despite of a policy that uplifts the status of the languages in South Africa.

• Socio-economic pressures, the need for international communication standards and stable geo-political relations as the contributing factors towards language death and a shift to monolingualism.

• The implementation of the language policy requires the development of teaching material and other applications.

• Corpus planning involves providing terminologies to serve socio-economic development. It also involves developing new vocabulary and discourse which will in turn help in the development of teaching material and other applications.

Second strategy • Encouraging people to use their languages in all domains.

• We need to establish a context and innovative influence through information and motivation.

• The availability of learning material in all official languages in South Africa serves as means and provides an opportunity for development and motivation to use these languages.

• The systematic development of these languages need to be pursued until people accept their languages as commonly used in all domains.

Third strategy• Language specialists should take advantage of new and technologically-based initiatives

to develop and preserve each and every language in South Africa.

• Computers can play a essential role in corpus planning especially in development of dictionaries and localizing content.

• The research focused to corpus development should be encouraged. This will help in designing assessment and training material for schools and speech therapy. This will help in lifting the level of literacy in African languages in South Africa.

• Trying to avoid marginalizing languages will depend on the use of new and acceptable conventions and the involvement of the designated audience.

Conclusion • The discourse used in the policy reflects conflicting ideologies emanating from the history of

this country and illuminates the politics that led to the formation of a democratic state in South Africa.

• Ethnicity and group demands have had a significant role in language discussions that led to the formation of the current language policy.

• Status planning should be complemented with corpus planning to ensure that languages are properly developed.

• Corpus planning will address a need for localization or glocalization and term creation as a solution to challenge of global technology and modernization.

• Creating language teaching resources is a major step in corpus planning, language development, and policy implementation.

References (Website) http://www.google.com.eg/search?q=the+map+of+south+africa&hl=ar

http://www.southafrica.info/about/people/population.htm

http://www.coe.int/t/dg4/linguistic/source/alexanderen.pdf

http://www.linguapax.org/congres04/pdf/1_beukes.pdf

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Africa

Thanks