CHAPTER 2: LANGUAGE POLICY IN SOCIAL LIFE
2.1 INTRODUCTION
This chapter sketches the impact of language policy with regard to social life. In order to achieve this objective, the chapter concentrates on the following topics: the media, which incorporate television, radio, newspapers, and magazines. The chapter also discusses social and official gatherings. Several religions including African, Christian, Hinduism, and Islam are analysed. The chapter pays special attention to the concept “language policy”.
A policy is a set of ideas or plans that are used as a basis for making discussions on the use of language. Richards (1997:203) defines language policy as follows:
Language policy is language planning, usually by a government or government agency, concerning choice of national or official language(s), ways of spreading the use of a language, spelling reforms, the addition of new words to the language, and other language problems. Through language planning an official language policy is established and/or implemented.
There are two main reasons why the South African languages policy is essential.
In the first place, the country has eleven official languages (to wit: Afrikaans, English, Ndebele, North-Sotho, South-Sotho, Swazi, Tsonga, Tswana, Venda, Xhoza and Zulu) whose co-existence needs to be regulated by a thoroughly thrashed out policy.
Secondly, as Msimang (1992:139) aptly sums it up, “the tendency in the past was to deliberate on the language rights of mainly English and Afrikaans, thus projecting a fallacious impression that South Africa is a bilingual state when in fact it is very much a multilingual country.”
Before discussing social life in the South African language policy, a brief outline of language policies in other countries will be presented. This is important because it places the analysis of the South African language policy in an international context.
Every country has its own languages that are spoken there and its own language policy. According to the Malawi Population Census Report (1966), “Malawi, like many other African countries, is linguistically heterogeneous with about fifteen languages spoken within its boarders." According to Kishindo (1998:85), the report further mentions that
there are four major languages in Malawi:
Chichewa (Chinyanja) the main home language (50.2%, followed by Cilomwe (14.5%), Ciyao (13, 8%), then Citumbuka (9.1%). During the colonial period English was the official language whilst Chichewa was the national language, and Citumbuka (1947-1968) was the regional language in the North. The language policy changed in 1968 when the Malawi government retained English as the official language and Chichewa became the sole national language for apparent reasons of national integration and wider communication.
Another neighbouring country to South Africa that deserves mentioning is Mozambique. Matsinhe (1993:6-7) illustrates that
With an area of 799 380 square kilometres and a population of about 13 million inhabitants (1980 census), Mozambique is situated in the South East of Africa. It became independent in 1975 after a 10 year popular liberation struggle against Portuguese colonialism led by the Front for the Liberation of Mozambique (FRELIMO). All the African languages spoken in the country belong to the Bantu family. Portuguese is the official language and is the only medium of instruction used in all the classes of the formal education system. However, Makhuwa is the most widely spoken language, with about 5 million speakers, followed by Tsonga (including Ronga and Tswao with about 3 million.
Only 1.2% of the population are native speakers of Portuguese, and 24.4% of the Portuguese as a second language (L2) with a Bantu language as a
mother tongue. Altogether 75, 6% of Mozambiquans do not speak Portuguese, which is spoken mainly in urban areas. Thus, in the country – side, Bantu languages are widely spoken (1980 census).
Just like South Africa, Malawi and Mozambique are using European languages as the de facto languages for official communication purposes. Unlike South Africa, however, the aforementioned countries have not as yet gone very far in promoting indigenous languages as official languages.
Another neighbouring country is Lesotho. The language policy of Lesotho stipulates that Sesotho and English are official languages. As in all other neighbouring countries, English is the dominant language in Lesotho.
The language policy of Botswana is that it regards Setswana and English as official languages. English is dominant although its mother tongue speakers are in the minority.
In the international scenario the investigation starts by looking at the Singaporean language policy in the Far East. Cassner (2002:221) stipulates that
When Singapore gained its independence in 1965, it was a mixed identity of Chinese, Malays, and Indians. The four official languages of Singapore are English, Chinese, Malay and Tamil. The four official languages are found in most public places to communicate ideas and messages. English is used mainly in the business and administrative fields.
Another country that has a clear and interesting language policy is Ireland. The Irish language as a national language is the first official language while the English language is recognised as a second official language. Donnacha (2004: 159-160) elaborates on the language policy of Ireland thus: During the establishment of the Irish Free State in 1922, the Irish language was granted the status of “National language” with English being “equally recognised as an official language”. He
further indicates that “The Irish language as the national language is the first official language. English is recognised as a second official language”.
What now follows is a list of some countries and their official languages as supplied by Jinzhi (2002: 366-379):
Country Official Language
Canada English
French
Central African Republic Sangoa
French
Columbia Castilian (Spanish)
Comores Comores
French Arabic
Ivory Coast French
Democratic Republic of Congo French English
Four local ethnic languages
Congo French
Two local ethnic languages
Costa Rico Spanish
Cuba Spanish
Egypt Arabic
Kenya Swahili
English
Madagscar Malagasy
Philippines Pilipino
Poland Polish
Portugal Portuguese
Russia Russian
Seychelles English
Creole French
Slovakia Slovakian
Spain Castilian
Sri Lanka Sinhalese and Tamil
Sudan Arabic
Switzerland German
French Italian Romansch
Syria Arabic
Tunisia Arabic estas nacia lingro
Turkey Turkish
Yugoslavia Serbian
This table exposes various countries and their official languages. As already indicated, South Africa has eleven official languages.
2.2