Proper use of mother-tongue the way forward

[Ɔkyeame Kwame]

Proper use of mother-tongue the way forward

April 21 2008 at 01:56PM

In this article in our series, Neville Alexander, director of the project for the Study of Alternative Education in South Africa at the University of Cape Town, argues that to ignore the language issue is to entrench the domination of powerful elites.

South Africa has arguably the most progressive language policy on paper. This fact is acknowledged by most people who are familiar with the sociology and the politics of language.

In spite of this, however, if one reads only the Afrikaans press, one would have to conclude that this language policy is a total failure and that we are moving rapidly to a situation where the de facto sole official language is the "hated" Queen's English.

The reader would be surprised, therefore, to hear that some of us hold the unpalatable view that, because of what we call our "languish policy", this country is in fact simply carrying out in practice a neo-apartheid language policy. For, in spite of the fact that Afrikaans is being driven out of many domains of social life and being replaced by English, it is still the most favoured official language next to English.

Why is language policy important? And why is it a bad idea that we should all be forced to operate in English only when we transact business or are involved in any public domain?

The simple way to answer this is by means of a five-dimensional argument. Incidentally, although there is a very important polemic taking place among linguists about the exact meaning and even the validity of a word such as "a language", this is not the place to enter into that debate. Suffice to say it is an important debate that may eventually lead to significant changes in the ways we speak or write about the language question.

The fact is that I am writing this article in Standard South African English, and expect to be read and understood by hundreds of South Africans and other users of a notional international standard written English.

Many of these readers, I expect, will tell others, who either have not read or cannot read the article, about its contents in whatever linguistic means they have in common. And, somehow, for my current communicative purposes, this seems to be in order.

The five-dimensional argument refers to the relationship between language use and language policy with the social processes of diversity, development, democracy, dignity and didactics.

It is generally accepted that cultural diversity, which includes linguistic diversity, is as necessary an aspect of human survival as is biological diversity. This point is the subject of much controversy, but it is bound to prove useful for our understanding of the continuum between "nature" and "culture".

This debate, which is as yet confined to a small group of linguists concerned about the rapid disappearance of "languages" on Earth may yet turn out to be one of those revolutionary moments in humanity's self-understanding such as the, initially quite esoteric, discussions that led to the Copernican Revolution, as a result of which we now know that the Earth revolves around the sun and not the other way around. In this regard, because of our constitutional commitment to the promotion and maintenance of multilingualism, South Africa is, in principle, on the side of the angels.

It is also accepted that language policy at the workplace and in business transactions generally is a vital aspect of economic success. Languages have market value - hence the desirability of English as the most important of the global languages today - and it is one of the tasks of any national or regional government to frame language policy and use it in such a way that the populace at large is empowered by the fact that the linguistic resources which they possess become "cultural capital" that they can use to earn their livelihood and to improve their life chances.

Much detailed research is essential in this regard since politicians tend to "find" the will to act once they are convinced that there is real economic benefit in a given policy approach. Our score in this area is quite bad since, with some notable exceptions in both the public and the private sector, there is a very strong tendency towards an English-only policy, although it self-evidently restricts the productivity, efficiency, creativity and job satisfaction of those engaged in the economic processes of production, exchange and distribution.

It is probably useful to remind ourselves here that it is a myth that only "unilingual" countries have become economically successful in the modern world. If you study the question seriously, you will find that it is the levels of literacy that determine economic success in the modern world.

Democratic polities require the full participation of the citizens in the important decision-making processes. It is axiomatic that such participation is only possible when these processes are conducted in languages that the citizens understand and are able to use. This is the very foundation of freedom of speech. Again, our balance sheet is patchy, even though I believe there is a genuine commitment on the part of government to move in the right direction.

Parliament and the SABC are examples where, recently, major steps have been taken towards treating the official languages as well as sign language equitably.

However, because of a simplistic, short-sighted knee-jerk reaction to Afrikaans (as the "language of the oppressor"), many obvious steps that ought to, and can, be taken are skipped. It is incomprehensible, for example, that we still do not use African languages on our airlines or on our beaches (except when we need to warn people about dangerous circumstances or behaviour); why can we not also have road signs and official instructions in numerous contexts in the relevant African languages? That difficult decisions would have to be made is clear, but we have to make these all the time, whether it is in the domains of transport, health, crime fighting or education. Much more urgency is required.

Human dignity, the right to use the language of one's choice and not to be discriminated against on the basis of language, is inscribed in the Bill of Rights and there are institutions such as the Pan South African Language Board, the Human Rights Commission, the Cultural, Religious and Linguistic Commission and, in the final analysis, the judiciary, that have been given the powers to enforce these provisions.

Despite this, however, and in spite of numerous complaints about the violation of language rights, mainly from organised Afrikaans-speaking and other smaller African language-speaking communities, these provisions remain a dead letter. The example of the European Union and the Council of Europe, in spite of a yawning disparity of resources, is there to show the way and we have in fact learnt much from post-war Europe in this regard. There are close connections at all levels between Europeans, Asians, Americans and South Africans who are committed to the implementation of a consistently democratic language policy.

A mother tongue-based bi- or multilingual educational system, the didactical dimension of the language question, is the sine qua non for all development in South Africa. Space does not allow any further explanation of this proposition, but it is essential that it be seen as the challenge it is intended to be. Besides the obvious pedagogical issue of teaching children in languages they understand rather than in those they do not understand, this question involves the critical and urgent question of early literacy learning which, if you think about it carefully, is the basis of economic success or failure in the 21st century.

The Western Cape Education Department has begun to take this challenge seriously and is involved in numerous initiatives to find out what the problems and the most effective approaches to solutions would be. The national Department of Education supports these moves in principle.

However, language policy in education is a sensitive matter, and most parents do not have the necessary information at their disposal in order to make the most appropriate decisions in this regard. A major advocacy campaign is imperative.

In conclusion, beyond the issue of political will and the prioritisation of the language question, we should be looking more carefully at how language policy and use are being managed currently. The Asmal Commission that considered the efficacy of the Chapter 9 institutions has not been very kind to the Pan South African Language Board, which was intended to be the keystone in the linguistic architecture of the new South Africa. Whether one agrees with all its recommendations or not, I believe that a case can be made out for a radical redrafting of this entire complex.

Without language communication, hardly any complex operations are possible for human beings. To ignore the language question or to take it for granted is merely to entrench the domination of the powerful elites in our society.

Above all, let us agree: it is not a question of the highest levels of competence in either English or the mother tongues. It is a question of all individuals having the power to communicate, learn, work and be creative in both the mother tongue and English. Many, of course, will want - and be able - to function in more than two languages.

o This article was originally published on page 9 of Cape Times on April 21, 2008