Introduction
1. Theoretical foundations
1.4. Relevant theoretical approaches
1.4.2. Are language attitudes ethnic attitudes?
Language attitudes generally reveal a multitude of information about individuals' perceptions towards themselves and towards languages, and are thus inextricably linked to perceptions of identity. Although this is not a language-attitude study per se, the concept of language attitude is by no means peripheral to the concerns of this work as a significant part of the research data is based on eliciting language attitudes and opinions about language. The concept of attitude is in itself a complex and multi-layered phenomenon, and searching for a general definition of the term goes beyond the scope of this work and would be a futile exercise in this study as it is specifically language attitudes that are of interest here. I merely aim to examine the term 'attitude' with regard to its commonly referred two-fold meaning; the mentalist versus the behaviourist one. The approach here is sociolinguistic by nature and I take a mentalist perspective, which according to Fasold (1984: 147) is most common among scholars interested in language. It approaches attitude as a 'state of readiness' aroused by a stimulus, whereas behaviourists and most social-psychologists48 consider attitudes to be a behaviourist response.
The mentalist perspective is not without its problems and poses specific obstacles, because attitude as a state of readiness is compared to an observable state and the researcher has to rely on what his/her participants indicate (Fasold 1984: 127).The
48 Scholars working within the framework of the social-psychology of language have influenced language attitude research to a large extent. A milestone in this field of enquiry was the 1982 publication Attitudes towards Language variation by Ryan and Giles, which presented a wide collection of articles of well-known scholars in the field.
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validity of such data, which is self-reported information, remains questionable. The researcher cannot claim to be able to make predictions about a person's language behaviour merely due to the elicitation of his/her language attitude. As will be seen below, this problem was overcome by the particular methodological framework employed in this thesis.
Numerous researchers have investigated language attitudes in the context of motives for group identification and ethnicity (Fishman 1983; Panther 1994; Ehret
1997). References to several of these studies can be found in various sections and footnotes throughout this work, but are not discussed in further detail at this point.
I intend to provide a working definition of the term language attitude and a brief theoretical foundation of research related to the topic at hand, without a further investigation into the enormous complexity of language attitude research in general. This field of enquiry has been systematically approached by various disciplines since the 1960s, but received particular attention from sociolinguists and social psychologists. The applications of research in this field are diverse and offer a variety of findings and theories.
According to Fishman (1972b: 142), language attitudes are particularly adhered to in a multilingual setting where the knowledge of particular languages is associated with a particular 'social type'. This, indeed, is salient in South Africa, because English proficiency is widely associated with a certain social environment and a specific educated status among African language-speakers. To be more precise in fact, within South Africa, one is also a particular 'economic type' if one is articulate in English. Although this notion is increasingly the case worldwide, proficiency in English is not a prerequisite for high salary professions in Europe, for instance. In contrast, the high economic value of English in South Africa cannot be contested and influences attitudes towards the language from a variety of perspectives.
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Fasold (1984: 158) illustrates how language is employed as a symbol of a particular group membership and how language attitudes provide helpful information for identifying diglossic potentials, for example. In terms of (economic) power dynamics, South Africa shows diglossic features with English as the H- and African languages as L-varieties. One may be surprised that a linguistic symbol of contrastive self-identification, i.e. English for isiZulu- speakers, is valued more than the language the person identifies with, essentially from a cultural and social perspective. The symbolism and the functions of language(s) are seldom straightforward and clear-cut. It is pertinent to this study to acknowledge that individuals do not necessarily identify with a language they hold in high regard or that they have a positive opinion about. Language attitudes of this kind may well be based on purely instrumental reasons, which may give rise to contradictory and paradoxical sociolinguistic behaviour, as will be proved below.
Fasold (1984: 148) further argued that the "attitudes toward language are often the reflection of attitudes towards members of various ethnic groups". At first glance, this statement makes sense but, of course, human behaviour is rarely straightforward. An argument that claims a direct correlation between a people and their language is both simplistic and dangerous. There are many languages spoken on this planet that are shared by people who belong to very different ethnic groups.
English remains the best example in this context, as one can find people of various different cultural backgrounds speaking it as a mother tongue. The contemporary world is far too hybrid and dislocated to accept the abovementioned suggested correlation without criticism. South Africans certainly do not learn English and have positive attitudes about the language because they particularly favour the British, US Americans, or English LI-speakers of their country, but rather because the language is a prerequisite for a successful life.
There are also multiple factors that influence language attitudes: the environment in which an individual is socialised plays a crucial role for the motivation on which a particular language attitude is based. A common distinction is that of integrative and instrumental motivation. Instrumental motivation is linked to economic
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success and employment opportunities, whereas integrative motivation is of a more interpersonal and social nature. Because English proficiency is linked to economic and political benefits, African-language speakers ally themselves with the language for instrumental reasons. However, an integrative motivation may additionally be at work when African learners attend school with predominantly English Ll- speaking children.
Although language behaviour is linked to language attitudes, the two concepts must be clearly distinguished. The empirical findings presented in Chapter 4 provide clear evidence supporting this. Qualitative researchers have increasingly become cautious about explaining complex sociolinguistic dynamics on the basis of language attitudes only, because the information subjects give in questionnaires or in interviews often contradicts the actual behaviour of the individuals. In South Africa, for instance, "teachers who express negative attitudes towards English could equally be found sending their children to English medium schools where English domination is perpetuated" (Ngcobo 2000: 17). The frequent inconsistency between assessed individual attitudes and their actual behaviour of these individuals requires a more critical approach to data collection and elicitation. One cannot immediately assume that an individual who acquires a particular language, and uses this language extensively, necessarily 'likes' the language (Fishman 1977:
308).
Language behaviour in a multilingual setting is also related to language choices.
The choice of an individual to behave negatively towards his/her mother tongue, i.e. to refuse to use it, is a matter of choice and potentially represents an act of identity. Certainly, the same holds equally true for languages other than the mother tongue. The last decade in South African sociolinguistic inquiry has seen prodigious research into language attitude studies (De Klerk 2000a, 2000b, 2002;
De Klerk and Barkhuizen 1998, 2002; Mhlanga 1995; Ngcobo 2000;
Kamwangamalu 2003, Smit 1996). The official 'deracialisation' of the country has instigated an improved access to multiracial schooling for learners, which resulted
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in an increasing number of African children being exposed to an English environment for most of the day.
Thus far, researchers have predominantly been interested in the impact of English economic and instrumental supremacy, but there are also attempts to elicit data on the attitudes towards the indigenous African languages. Despite the work already done, large-scale language attitude studies, which focus on township and rural communities, remain scarce in South Africa. From the perspective of language-in- education research, there exists an evident gap. I would like to argue that it is imperative that future sociolinguistic studies focus on the abovementioned rather than on urban communities, as still the vast majority of South African children attend these largely under-resourced institutions49.
The quality of schooling and exposure to English is largely dependent on the financial standing of the school and hence, class status, which is a phenomenon South Africa shares with other countries. For this reason I chose to collect a large part of my data in township (former Department of Education and Training - DET) schools. Although some additional Umlazi residents who attend multiracial schools outside the township were interviewed, the bulk of the data stems from township school learners.
First-year University courses provide a clear picture that there exists a great discrepancy between English language proficiency of learners educated in township or rural (former DET) schools and learners educated in multiracial schools (ex-Model C50) schools. Consequently, language attitudes also differ significantly, not only if one compares individual members, but also with reference to urban/township/rural background. Speech communities in general are not
The schools lack numerous resources: there are not enough benches for all the learners, windows are broken, and the state of the bathrooms, if existent, is appalling. Students are rarely given reading homework, as there are not enough books available for each student. If learning material is available, teachers are reluctant to distribute the books, due to theft.
50 Until the end of 1990, Model C schools were government schools, completely funded and for the use of whites only. In 1991, these schools were converted into state-aided schools that admitted black students (for more details on the South African school system before and after the transition, see Pampallis (1998)). Although the schools are open to all students who pass the entry exam, only the minority of isiZulu-speaking parents have sufficient financial funds to pay fees for such an institution.
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homogenous entities, and there exist a multitude of factors, inter alia linguistic ones that create boundaries among members of a group, which is considered to be one homogenous language community. Incidentally, the members of the isiZulu speaking community of Umlazi are no exception. The educational issues discussed above that play a role in this regard shall be discussed in more detail below.