‘If I speak English, does it make me less black anyway?’‘Race’ and English in South African desegregated schools

Identity, language learning, and social change

“…Makubalo 2007;McKinney 2007;Nongogo 2007). McKinney (2007) conducted research on the language practices of black South African students attending high schools that had previously enrolled white students.…”

“…Makubalo 2007;McKinney 2007;Nongogo 2007). McKinney (2007) conducted research on the language practices of black South African students attending high schools that had previously enrolled white students. She showed that these black youth had sophisticated understandings of themselves and others in relation to different 'brands' of English as well as to the use of local African languages.…”

“…Race and ethnicity have long been recognized as connected to identity, and several scholars have been interested in the relationship between race and language learning (Ibrahim 1999;Lin et al 2004;Curtis & Romney 2006;McKinney 2007;Kubota & Lin 2009). Ibrahim (1999) conducted research with a group of French-speaking continental African students in a Franco-Ontarian high school in Canada to ascertain the impact on language learning of 'becoming black'.…”

Multimodal representations of identity in the English-as-an-additional-language classroom in South Africa

“…William positions himself as being English-speaking (conflated with 248 L. Kajee Englishman). McKinney (2007) in her work on 'race' and English in South African desegregated schools, for instance, explains how learners recognise and characterise different kinds of English used around them, and attach prestige to varieties perceived as white. She also foregrounds the tensions and ambivalence between learners' valuing of perceived white varieties of English, and their labelling of black learners who no longer speak African languages, either through lack of proficiency or choice, as 'coconuts' -black on the outside and white on the inside.…”

Community support - the missing link in indigenous language promotion in South Africa?

“…Kapp and Bangeni (2011) have also recorded incidents where English is 'Afranised' to signal a specific township identity. Recent studies in South Africa have also recorded instances of learners expressing appreciation of their indigenous languages (e.g., Dyers, 2007;McKinney, 2007;Rudwick, 2008). Sometimes, learners may even risk derision and humiliation from their peers if they publicly assert their preference for English rather than their own language (Kapp, 2004;Kapp & Bangeni, 2011).…”