EXPLORING THE TERRAIN: SCHOOL LANGUAGE CHANGE, CHANGE AGENTRY AND SUSTAINING CHANGE
2.3 Part 2: Theoretical and conceptual framework
Arising from the literature review, three strands of theoretical and conceptual understandings on change (social psychological perspective on change, educational change, language policy and practice change) are derived and these are used to construct a framework for interpreting and analysing the data.
2.3.1 Social Psychological perspective on change
The first strand comprises the social psychological perspective on change (Douglas 1997), which attempts to understand the process of change involving individuals and institutions, and the environments in which they operate as targets of change. The focus is on behavioural change wrought by change agents who are trained professionals or friendly helpers and the core concepts are the following: externally and internally directed change, conditions enabling and disabling change (dissatisfaction propelling change, fear and threat of change limiting change, scope for change of targets either limiting or accelerating change), context and change, support and change, acceptance of and resistance to change, pressure and change, maintenance (sustainability) of change.
2.3.2 Educational change
The second strand comprises educational change and focuses specifically on the new meaning of educational change (Fullan & Stiegelbauer 1991). This model of educational change foregrounds the main stakeholders at the local (school), district and national levels of the education department and their response to change. In examining their roles, particularly those of teachers, principals and parents, Fullan & Stiegelbauer (1991) cast them as agents of change not simply implementing change from above but leading the change process. This approach makes possible large-scale reform grounded in local ownership (Fullan 2001). The perspective of change offered by this approach suggests types of change activities that are typically associated with or especially effective for change agents in their particular roles, and the limitations and constraints associated with their roles. This would be useful as a framework to interrogate the experiences of language change agents leading language change at the local (school) level and to reflect on the role of agents at the regional and national levels in supporting these change initiatives. The approach‟s concern with the process of initiation and adoption of change, the sustainability or institutionalization of the identified change and the factors impacting on this process are instructive and can be used in a framework to analyse the change process led by the language change agents in their respective schools.
2.3.3 Language policy and practice change
The third strand (Fishman 1977, Ruiz 1984, Martin-Jones 1995, Milroy & Muysken 1995, Sridhar 1996) focuses on theoretical and analytical approaches exploring language policy change. These approaches address multilingualism and the implementation of multilingual policies in the context of social, historical, economic, political and cultural factors impacting on language choice in societal institutions and particularly competing ideologies and interests within these institutions and in the wider society which impact on language choice and receptivity (or not) to language policy change.
An important theoretical approach in this strand is Joshua Fishman‟s Domain Analysis (1977) that was used in more recent studies (Martin-Jones 1995) to interpret the social and political factors within and outside linguistically diverse schools which impact on the type and level of multilingual teaching/learning which take place in these schools.
Fishman (1977) drawing on his study of Spanish-English bilingualism in New York, USA, linked language choice to what he called domains. A domain is an abstraction, which refers to a sphere of activity representing a combination of specific times, settings, and role relationships. Fishman (1977) explored language choice in terms of the following domains: the family, friendship, religion, employment and education. He discovered that the most likely place for Spanish was the family domain, followed by friendship and religion with a switch to English for the more formal settings of the workplace and education. Fishman‟s (1977) approach has been criticised on the grounds that in modern bilingual societies, the relationship between languages and speech activities is not unambiguous, and that many speech activities are not tied to one particular language, and even when they are realised more in one language than in another, the correlation is never strong enough to predict language choice in more than a probabilistic way (Auer 1995). However, Fishman‟s (1977) domain analysis which is informed by sociological analysis, illuminates the role played by societal structures in constraining and enabling the language behaviour of individuals (Milroy & Muysken 1995). Martin-Jones (1995) drew on Fishman‟s (1977) framework to demonstrate how
social relations within bilingual classrooms influence the breadth and depth of bilingual interaction within such classes, and to explore the asymmetrical relationship between the bilingual assistants and the resident teacher. Martin-Jones‟ (1995) study confirms Fishman‟s (1977) view that societal factors dictate much of what is taught and to whom;
as well as how it is taught and by whom; and finally how all of those involved in the teaching-learning process interact with each other. Other sociolinguists (Kachru &
Sridhar 1978, Sridhar 1996) aligning themselves with Fishman‟s theory introduced the concept of the Asymmetrical Principle of Multilingualism where languages in a multilingual community can be viewed as being arranged on a hierarchy. Hence, all the languages in the repertoire of a multilingual community are not equally distributed in terms of power, prestige, vitality or attitude; some languages are more valued than others (Sridhar 1996). Thus the status and value attached to different languages and the attitudes adopted towards different languages may impact on the linguistic choices in schools. The theoretical positions adopted by Fishman (1977) and Sridhar (1996) may help to illuminate understanding of competing ideologies and interests within and outside schools which in turn impact on language choice and the successful implementation or otherwise of transformative language policies and practices.
Another theoretical approach used in language planning but also instructive in understanding how language attitudes determine language choice and preferences is termed the Orientations Model (Ruiz 1984). This model accounts for the role played by attitudes towards language and its role and languages and their roles in society. The model is characterised as follows:
A language as problem orientation which would tend to see local languages as problems standing in the way of the incorporation of cultural and linguistic minority groups in society, and to link language issues with the social problems characteristic of such groups – poverty, handicap, low educational achievement, and little or no social mobility;
A language as a right orientation which would tend to see local languages as a basic human and civil right for their speakers, and to seek the affirmation of those rights, often leading to confrontation, since a claim to something is also a claim against something else.
A language as a resource orientation which would tend to see local languages as resources not only for their speakers, but for society as a whole, and to seek their cultivation and development as resources, in recognition of the fact that they are exhaustible not by use, but by lack of use.
The linguistic minority groups and their languages that are marginalized through negative perceptions created of these languages and the assimilation of these minorities into other more powerful languages, notably English, must be paralleled with the situation in South Africa. In South Africa linguistic majorities, that is speakers of indigenous African languages, have likewise been assimilated into the language of wider appeal, English, and who have developed perceptions of their own languages as problematic and blocking access to wealth and prestige. Closely linked to Ruiz‟s (1984) model is the concept of Static Maintenance Syndrome (Alexander 2004 ) which accounts for persisting negative perceptions of African languages chief of which is belief that African languages cannot be used in the most powerful domains of society. A counter to this concept is the Intellectualisation of African languages (Ngugi 1986, Mazrui & Mazrui 1998, Prah 2002, Alexander 2005), an approach which is concerned with the development of African languages that would enable them to be used in powerful domains thereby enhancing their linguistic capital (Bordieu 1991, Kamwangamalu 2000).
These conceptual understandings together with Ruiz‟s (1984) model may not only illuminate the role played by attitudes (individual and collective) towards language(s) which impact on language policy development but also the role played by such attitudes in the successful implementation or otherwise of language policy and practice reform.
In addition to the foregoing theoretical and conceptual underpinnings, the various principles under the categories of Educational Agents and Educational Context that Skutnabb-Kangas & Garcia (1995) advance are incorporated in a framework to guide interpretation and analysis of school language change initiatives that address the imperative of providing multilingual education to cater for the needs of linguistically diverse learners in post-apartheid South African schools.