Kachru (1988) and Sridhar and Sridhar (1992) argue that the spread of English as a world language increases the types of context in which English is learnt today. The sociolinguistic realities of world Englishes learners today challenge the validity of some second-language acquisition theories. One of the theoretical limitations of existing second-language acquisition theories is the dependence upon the notion of integrativeness to explain success in second-language acquisition. In this paper, the notion of integrativeness is problematized from an empirical and theoretical perspective. The main findings are: (1) second-language acquisition theories that rely on any assumption of integrativeness should not be applied uncritically to sociolinguistic contexts where learners are acquiring a variety of world English today; (2) it seems that the concentric circle description of the sociolinguistic realities of world Englishes speakers needs to be adjusted.

Academic performance at universities in South Africa is a cause of concern. It is widely acknowledged that there are a variety of factors that contribute to poor academic performance, but language is regarded as one of the most important issues in this discussion. In this article, the relationship between language and academic performance at a South African university for the first-year group in 2010 (n = 900) is investigated, taking their performance in their second (2011) and third (2012) year into account. The authors review: (a) the relationships between measures of language ability (matric scores, and scores on university placement tests like the NBT and TALL/TAG); and (b) the relationship between these language measures, performance in courses offered by universities to support students and general academic success indicators to investigate the language issue and academic performance at university. The main findings of the study are: (a) matric average results above 65% are useful to predict academic success at university; matric average results below 65% cannot be used with confidence to predict success at university; (b) language measures (e.g. matric language marks, and scores on academic literacy tests used by some universities) are not good predictors of academic success at university; (c) there are strong positive relationships between the academic literacy components in the NBT and TALL/TAG; and (d) scores achieved in academic literacy modules are good predictors of academic success. The implications of these findings are discussed in the context of strategic decisions that academic managers should consider when they reflect on the language issue and its impact on academic performance at South African universities.

Racial or ethnic labels are common practice in South African English, but in recent years some criticism has been levelled against this practice, particularly as far as the label Black South African English is concerned. This article investigates the labelling practices of ordinary, non-linguist South Africans to determine what may be acceptable to them, following a bottom-up approach to categorisation. Data were elicited from 167 black first year students in a survey designed to compare the labels they assigned to six different forms of South African English, alongside their attitudes towards these varieties, their perception of the proximity of these varieties to their own English and a measure of the comprehensibility of these varieties. The results indicate that the participants do avail themselves of ethnic and racial labels, but their main categorisation strategy is the national label South African English, used for all varieties, but more frequently for the varieties of Black and Indian speakers than White speakers. Furthermore, the acrolect form of Black South African English emerges as the variety that enjoys the highest status amongst the participants, on the basis of the most favourable attitudes, the sense of greatest proximity and the highest degree of comprehensibility.

Currently, there is a debate about the potential language shift among speakers of African languages towards English. Scholars hold conflicting views about this issue and the debates are complicated because of the widespread multilingualism in the South African society. The main aim of this article is to re visit current claims of language shift among speakers of African languages by analyzing relevant data from a larger scale survey of the language repertoires of an identified population. The research method involved the adaptation of lan guage history or experience questionnaires designed by bilingualism researchers to describe the language repertoires of a large population of multilingual stu dents. The main findings of the study are: (a) multilingualism is flourishing among the participants; (b) the multilingual repertoires of the participants are expanding because of the addition of African languages to the repertoires; and (c) the position of English is confined to specific functions. A pattern of flourishing functional multilingualism emerges. The value of adding larger scale quantitative studies to complement smaller, qualitative studies in discussions of language shift and maintenance is confirmed by this study.

Identity construction drives the development of postcolonial Englishes in Schneider’s Dynamic Model. Contexts like those of South Africa where widespread bi- and multilingualism are observed challenge notions of English as sole “identity carrier” postulated in the model. Findings from a questionnaire and interview study reported in this article indicate that: (a) urban participants are bi- and multilingual, (b) the home language is the carrier of ethnic or cultural identity, (c) English is part of the repertoires of the participants, (d) “being multilingual” is the linguistic marker of a South African identity. The refinement of the identity construction in this very useful model indicates that South Africa will probably not progress conclusively past Stage 3 in the Dynamic Model in the near future.