Orientations to English in post-apartheid schooling

Abstract

As Voloshinov has famously argued, ‘the word is the most sensitive index of social changes, and what is more, of changes still in the process of growth’ (Voloshinov, 1986: 19). Scrutiny of young people's discourses on language together with their language practices offers us a window into a society in transition, such as present-day South Africa. This article examines the language ideologies and language practices of Black youth attending previously White, now desegregated, suburban schools in South African cities, important spaces for the production of an expanding Black middle class (Soudien, 2004). Due to their resourcing during apartheid (both financial and human) previously White schools are aligned with quality education and perceived as strategic sites for the acquisition and maintenance of a prestige variety of South African English. This article looks at how mainly African girls (15–16 years) position themselves in relation to English, drawing on data collected using ethnographic approaches in four desegregated schools in South African cities: three in Johannesburg, Gauteng and one in Cape Town, Western Cape. The discussion focuses on two significant themes: English and the [re]production of race; and the place of English in young people's linguistic repertoires. My aim is to show how African youth in desegregated schools orient themselves to English and what their language ideologies and language practices might tell us about macro social processes, including the (re)constitution of race in South Africa. Schooling, as Bourdieu points out, is one of the most important sites for social reproduction and is thus also one of the key sites, ‘which imposes the legitimate forms of discourse and the idea that discourse should be recognised if and only if it conforms to the legitimate norms’ (Bourdieu, 1977: 650). However, co-present with processes of reproduction are practices that work to subvert and unsettle dominant discourses. Suburban desegregated schools are thus productive sites for the re-making of cultural practices (including language) and identities.

Decoloniality and "Model C" schools: ethos, language and the protests of 2016

“…Delinking from the power relations of coloniality in education, we suggest, is likely to require fundamental changes, not minor adjustments to schooling arrangements. In making these arguments about "Model C" schools, we draw on our own primary research in and on these schools (see Christie 1995;McKinney 2010McKinney , 2013McKinney , 2017.…”

“…These children thus enter the schools as bilinguals, yet they are routinely positioned as "second language learners," and little or no support is given for the continued development of their home languages. Black learners' accents in speaking English are also often targeted as incorrect and as a source of "literacy problems" (McKinney 2017(McKinney , 2013. This is despite the wealth of sociolinguistic research on the range of accents of English across the world which clearly demonstrates that there is no single correct or standard accent for the language.…”

“…This is despite the wealth of sociolinguistic research on the range of accents of English across the world which clearly demonstrates that there is no single correct or standard accent for the language. Unsurprisingly in South Africa, learners are often expected to assimilate to ethnolingusitic repertoires of whiteness or varieties of White South African English (WSAfE) which are considered as normative in English medium "Model C" schools (McKinney 2013).…”

Working towards a more complete sociolinguistics

“…Deficit views of English are regaining currency in British educational policy and Snell () points out that the ‘different but equal’ sociolinguistic argument, in addition to relying on a mistaken belief about dialect systematicity, fails because it still inscribes an abstract standard as a covert norm and does not acknowledge how language varieties become enregistered and ascribed different social and cultural values (Agha ; see also discussion by Lillis and McKinney in this issue). Snell's argument about the theoretical and professional importance of acknowledging that spoken language labels are sociocultural as well as linguistic is echoed in McKinney's () account of the stigmatisation of Black South African English speech and Cape Flats English phonology which reinscribes the norm of a white ethnolinguistic repertoire.…”

What counts as language in South African schooling?

“…Busch 2012;McNamara, 2012; see also Lillis and Curry this issue). This reading is helpful in enabling us to understand how resilient essentialist notions of language are and how resistant to change, in parallel with the resilience of essentialist notions of race (McKinney 2014). But it can also be read as a decolonial move as analyses of historical processes of the construction of 'national' and 'tribal' languages in different parts of Africa show (e.g.…”