THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK AND RELATED CONCEPTS
4.4 GRAMSCI’S HEGEMONY THEORY
87 of the English Language in today’s many education systems and obviously, this has a lot of implications on the implementation of mother tongue education policies. This also obviously means that those who are expected to implement are likely to have difficult experiences in implementing mother tongue education policies.
I find it critical at this point to look at another theory which largely informs this study:
Gramsci’s Hegemony Theory.
88 shaping people’s behavior, beliefs and even their patterns of voting(ibid). Gramsci seems to be agreeing with the Theory of Linguistic Imperialism that language pervades all forms of imperialism because these linguistic patterns are critical in our analysis of political positions which in turn influence certain decisions by the ruling elites to continue to dominate the proletariat. According to Phillipson (1997: 242)
Hegemony is used in popular speech loosely to indicate dominance but in the substantial scientific literature spanned by Gramsci, hegemony is invariably seen as non-coercive, as involving contestation and adaptation, a battle for hearts and minds.
Therefore, to convince the dominated that being oppressed has no problem, the bourgeoisie employ various non-coercive strategies to win the hearts and minds of the proletariat.
Ives (2004:82) gives one of Gramsci’s famous quotes that,
Every time that the question of language surfaces, in one way or another, it means that a series of other problems are coming to the fore: the formation and enlargement of the governing class, the need to establish more intimate and secure relationships between the governing groups and the national-popular mass, in other words to recognize cultural hegemony.
Implicit in this quote is the fact that the language question leads to a whole lot of other problems. One of the problems according to Gramsci is the enlargement of the governing class and obviously their language would get preference over the rest of the languages. At the same time, there is need to make sure that more close and safe relationships need to be established.
Gramsci therefore maintains that, “…power is not only dependent on force but also on consent” (Yilmaz, 2010:194). The governing class therefore seeks consent of the popular mass by making it believe that their language is less important than the language of the bourgeoisie.
In his theory, Gramsci identifies two levels of the superstructure which are: the political society and the civil society (Charamba, 2012). Guaba (2003) says that political society resorts to coercion to maintain its hegemonic position. The political powers therefore use their authority to put in place what Gramsci calls structures of coercion that would ensure their continued hegemony over the proletariat. These according to Althusser (2008) are the Repressive State Apparatus (RSAs). The police, army, courts and prisons make up the state’s Repressive State Apparatus. In super power politics, the world power at any given time would use its RSAs to coerce countries to do what the world power needs including imposing their language on the weaker nations. As I alluded to earlier in this thesis, the United States of
89 America is the current super power. It ascended to the rudder of the world economy in 1945.
It strengthened its position as the world power in 1990 when it allied with England and other European states after the fall of the Soviet Union.
From that time up until today, the superpower has been dictating what should and what should not be done in the different countries in this world. A quick example that comes to mind is the attack of Iraqi by America in the 90s on speculation that Iraqi had weapons that can cause mass destruction. Recently, it was attacked again on the same allegations and that led to the execution of its leader (Saddam Hussein) on 30 December 2006. This is just one example of many situations where America as a world power has used structures of coercion to maintain her political hegemony.
In this thesis, however, my focus is not on the political society but on the civil society.
According to Barker (2008), the civil society is composed of associations external to formal state boundaries, which include the press, family, leisure activities and social class among others. According to Charamba (2012) the structures of the civil society are used by the bourgeoisie in their endeavor to attain consent (hegemonic order) of the ruled (proletariat).
Unlike in political society where the ruled are coerced to do certain things, the civil society works out strategies to convince the ruled that the ruler has the right to make choices for them and that those choices are good for them anyway. I should hasten to say that in the current super power politics, we can witness the Americanisation of the world at different levels. I will discuss the Americanisation of the world on the level of language practice and preference.
This will be done with reference to Gramsci’s (1971) conception of consent as the key stratagem used by rulers to compel the subordinate groups to use their language. I will therefore look at the Zimbabwean situation with regards to the hegemony of English and national languages (Shona and Ndebele) and how the consent strategy has been applied on the minority languages in general and the Shangani minority language in particular.
From the foregoing discussion one would note that linguistic imperialism and hegemony are closely related entities which can help explain the dilemma of mother tongue education policies. There is a strong relationship between imperialism and hegemony (Yilmaz, 2010). It follows that the political and economic instruments will also dictate the languages that would be officially recognized which will lead to the hegemony of particular languages over others.
90 However, according to Cox (1993) cited in Yilmaz (2010) Gramsci says that the major power itself induces keenness and support intuitively. For Gramsci therefore, the hegemony of a language is strengthened when the major power makes the dominated groups willingly accept that their language is inferior to that of the major power. I have said that America is the current world power and that due to this reason the English language enjoys a hegemonic position in the global economy. I should therefore discuss how Gramsci’s conception of consent can be used as lenses through which we can explain why the hegemony of the English language continues many years after the end of colonialism.
The issue of technology has been used to convince the majority of formerly colonized nations to believe that we cannot do without the English language. English has been made the official medium through which technological knowledge can be accessed. Mutasa (2006:82) observes that,
Needless to say, English is ubiquitous and indispensable: Switch on a computer-the language it uses is English; touch a telephone-it uses English; step into a bank- communication is in English; open most newspapers and switch on a television-they use English. What this insinuates is that English become an epitome in the lives of the people and this has dire implications for the continued existence of African languages.
The fact that most technological gadgets use the English language makes speakers of indigenous languages accept its superiority and look down upon their own languages. It is important to note that things have slightly changed and the computer now uses many languages, some of which are African languages. However, it may also be interesting to note that most information on serious issues can be largely accessed in the English Language. The implication is that the English language will be willingly accepted without question as the language of technology. In Gramscian thinking this is a form of a consent strategy employed by the major power to continue to dominate the weaker groups. As a direct result of this non- coercive strategy, the English language has continued to dominate the indigenous African languages in many post-colonial countries.
English language has also been viewed as the language of scientific advancement. Indigenous language speakers are made to believe that their languages cannot be used to express scientific terms. For example, Kadodo and Mhindu (2013) found out that some teachers and education officers thought that local languages lacked sophistication to cater for science and technology.
These people have accepted the defeat of their own languages and this means that they are no
91 longer worried about why English continues to dominate their own languages. This kind of thinking has grim repercussions for the continued existence of African languages (Charamba, 2012).
According to Phillipson (2015) many people opt for the neo-imperial language because they feel that its linguistic capital is the one which can serve their professional and personal interests well. This is acceptance of domination willingly. In so doing, speakers of indigenous languages do not even consider the future of their own languages. They simply accept the neo- imperial language because they want to pursue their personal and professional interests.
A quick example that comes to mind is the history of the English Language in Hong Kong.
Boyle (1997: 176) notes that, “One thing that emerges from a consideration of the history (of English in Hong Kong) is that, whether they thought they were culturally compromised or not, Hong Kong Chinese have always wanted English.” He goes on to say that recent surveys by Littlewood and Liu in 1996 as well as Pennington and Yue in 1994 have revealed that so far there have not been any changes to that effect. “ In the early days of missionary schools, as soon as the opportunity for English was offered by St Paul’s school, Chinese parents grasped it vividly”(Boyle, 1997:176). This shows that these Hong Kong Chinese people willingly grabbed an opportunity at their disposal to make their children learn through the English language.
It may be surprising as to why they opted for English. The reasons are explicitly given by Boyle (1997) when he highlights that the Hong Kong Chinese have at all times viewed the English Language pragmatically. They have always seen it as a way of engaging in better business and at the same time those in possession of English rapidly felt supreme as compared to their counterparts without. Boyle (1997) further notes that those parents who wanted their children to enroll in good government schools had to agree to the English medium and the majority of them were actually pleased to have their children in schools where the English medium was used. Thus, their choice for the English language was not because they had been compelled to do so but because they considered the social prestige of the English Language and its usefulness commercially (ibid).
The super power ensured that the English language continues to dominate as a language of commerce and prestige so that non-English speakers will willingly accept its use while their own languages continue to play second fiddle even in their own countries. This is what Gramsci means when he talks about the civil society uses non-coercive strategies to perpetuate
92 the hegemony of a language over other languages. In as far as English language is concerned, it has remained a highly desirable commodity because of its utilitarian value in many parts of the world and Zimbabwe is no exception. Kadodo et al (2012) note that the expectancy theory proposes that for mother tongue to succeed it must guarantee that once people have learnt through it they are assured of a good life they yearn for.
If the super power has ensured that English continues to dominate in the job market whilst the indigenous languages play peripheral roles, it leaves a lot of questions as to how the so called mother tongue education policies will be viewed by the supposed beneficiaries of such policies. The expectancy value theory mentioned above definitely affects people’s attitudes towards particular languages and this may make them accept the dominance of the former colonial languages if they are the ones that guarantee the good life. With this in mind, the experiences of teachers using Shangani as a medium of instruction can be better articulated using the Gramscian concept of hegemony where English and national languages are highly valued as compared to the minority languages in general and Shangani in particular.
Where language hegemony takes place, Ives (2004:89) notes that,
Language is transformed with the transformation of the whole civilization, through the acquisition of culture by new classes and through the hegemony exercised by one national language over others…and what it does is precisely to absorb in metaphorical form the words of previous civilisations and cultures.
The implication is that, through the hegemony of one language over others, the civilisations and cultures are symbolically absorbed and this is done in a way that convinces the dominated people that there is nothing wrong with this continued dominance. This hegemony of English and/or national languages will definitely have a bearing on mother tongue policy implementation and the subsequent experiences of teachers in their quest to implement the policy. That is the reason why the Hegemony Theory by Gramsci has been incorporated in this thesis to help unravel the experiences of teachers in using Shangani as the MOI at the three schools under study.
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4.5 THE NEED FOR THE LINGUISTIC DECOLONISATION OF THE