Education, Language, and Identity Amongst Students at a South African University

Abstract

This article reports on a study of language and cultural identity of mother-tongue Zulu students at an English-medium South African university. The data consist of focus group interviews, questionnaires, and student opinions in essays. Findings include a strong identification of the participants with the Zulu language and Zulu culture, and a view of English variously as a language of settlers that participants are forced to speak for instrumental reasons, or, more positively, as a language useful for education and as a lingua franca. Stigmatisation of those who speak English "too much" was evident. Other findings are that although participants had been educated at nominally English-medium schools, classroom instruction for many was likely to have been in Zulu, with English used only for written work. After 1 year at university, however, students could articulate a clear idea of the kind of writing demanded by university study.Tertiary education requires accommodation to the values and the literacy practices of the university, which inevitably impacts students' sense of identity. Rural L2 students are likely to have attended poorly resourced secondary schools, which neglect university-related literacy practices. They thus have greater accommodation to make than do those South African students who have attended well-resourced schools and who are able to study in their mother tongue. Thus the university sees many L2 speakers as lacking in the academic literacy necessary for university study.This article examines the influence of schooling, language, and literacy on identity construction in South African students who are mother-tongue speakers of Zulu and who live in KwaZulu-Natal. It examines experiences of (dis)continuity between under-resourced rural schooling and tertiary study in a multicultural city environment. Because the participants have, for equity reasons, been admitted to university despite not meeting entry criteria, they are enrolled in an "alternative access" degree program. We explore the effect of this positioning by the institution on participants' sense of identity.Correspondence should be sent to

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