Re-considering orientations in South African Language Policies

Abstract

What should be taken into account when language policies are developed? It is rarely the case that when language policies are developed, the focus is on issues outside of ‘language’. However, when issues of language are experienced in certain societies as a “cumulative disadvantage” (Piller 2016) together with other forms of domination, normative conceptualisations of language policy seem inadequate. The notion of ‘inhabitance’ is a generative lens through which to illustrate this. In the South African university space, since the #MustFall protests, the question of ‘inhabitance’ has taken centre stage in issues of curriculum and access. Through the act of throwing poo on the statue of Cecil John Rhodes, the #MustFall protests have firmly put on the agenda the need for universities to reflect upon itself, and to ask whose knowledges, bodies, histories and lifeworlds it legitimizes, and therefore, its complicity in maintaining coloniality. This has led to a wider call to decolonize universities. However, while the notion of ‘inhabitance’ has been central to the #MustFall protests, it has not been considered from the position of language and language policy. This paper reflects on institution-wide language policy conversations at a South African university arguing to shift attention from the orientations we take to language in language policy, to how policies “orient” (Ahmed 2007) bodies in university spaces. This paper seeks to add to the conversation in the South African Higher Education space in anticipation of the implementation of the new Language Policy for Higher Education (2020).