Shifting Language Attitudes in Linguistically Diverse Learning Environment in South Africa

Bangeni, Bongi; Kapp, Rochelle

doi:10.2167/jmmd495.0

Cited by 82 publications

(51 citation statements)

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“…Four of the 'coloured' students identified English as the main medium of communication in their homes, but they spoke a mixture of English and Afrikaans as is common on the Cape Flats. 3Elsewhere, we have focussed more on individual students' experiences (Bangeni & Kapp, 2005;Bangeni & Kapp, 2006;Bangeni & Kapp, 2007;Kapp & Bangeni, 2009). 4We are grateful to Dr Sally Frankental and Prof. Mugsy Spiegel for pointing out this notion of situational identity in our data (see Spiegel, 2007).…”

Section: Notesmentioning

confidence: 99%

A longitudinal study of students’ negotiation of language, literacy and identity

Kapp

Bangeni

2011

Southern African Linguistics and Applied Language Studies

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IntroductionThis article is based on a longitudinal, qualitative case study (2002 to 2004) of 20 Social Science students at a historically 'white',1 English-medium, South African university. The participants in our study are all from disadvantaged educational backgrounds and/ or are speakers of English as a second language.2 They were (with the exception of one student) the first in their families, sometimes the first in their communities, to attend university. The project tracked their shifts in language and literacy attitudes and practices and in constructions of self over the course of their undergraduate years.There is by now a considerable body of literature which analyses the linguistic challenges and writing development processes of first-year university students from second-language/ marginalised/ disadvantaged educational backgrounds (see for example Clark & Ivanič, 1997;Herrington & Curtis, 2000; Thesen & Van Pletzen, 2006;Granville & Dison, 2009;Stacey, 2009). These studies have shown that becoming proficient in academic literacy is intimately connected to identity. However, aside from Herrington and Curtis' (2000) path-breaking longitudinal study of student writing in the US context, such studies have tended to be confined to the first-year experience. Our study has attempted to situate students' language and literacy attitudes and practices in time and space. We trace the felt experience of negotiating the accepted ways of 'saying-doing-beingvaluing-believing' (i.e. Discourses) of both the institution and home over time (Gee, 1990: 142). Our data reveal students' ambivalence as they found themselves straddling multiple, often conflicting discourses between home and the institution. In this article, we attempt to highlight key moments in students' journeys in order to illustrate how this process unfolds. Although our participants' trajectories through the institution are by no means uniform, there were discernable patterns in their language and literacy attitudes and practices that are intimately linked to their changing notions of self over the course of their undergraduate years.3

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Section: Notesmentioning

confidence: 99%

A longitudinal study of students’ negotiation of language, literacy and identity

Kapp

Bangeni

2011

Southern African Linguistics and Applied Language Studies

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“…Equally disturbing is research at the University of Cape Town, which reports that as black students immerse themselves at university, they accept being taught in English and maintain their home languages for cultural identity but not as academic language (Bangeni & Kapp, 2007). Reference to these findings in relation to critical pedagogy suggests that black students have "internalized the discourse of the oppressor" (Allen & Rossatto, 2009, p. 165), which is the privileged status that is associated with English.…”

Section: Linking Language To Critical Pedagogymentioning

confidence: 99%

Student voice: Perspectives on language and critical pedagogy in South African higher education

Mayaba

Ralarala

Angu

2018

Educ. res. soc. change.

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In the past two years, higher education institutions (HEI) have been inundated with students' demands for a decolonised education. Their voice led to the resuscitation of debates on a transformed curriculum. Amongst others, the language question is an issue at the centre of these debates. What students were questioning was the hegemony of English, the slow pace in which universities implement multilingual policies, and lack of clarity on the positioning of African languages as languages of learning and teaching. In this paper, we argue that if higher education aims to address marginalised and new knowledge through a decolonised curriculum, fundamental questions are worth being asked. In particular the questions we are asking and responding to are: "How does student voice become a force for social change?" "How can student voice enable HEIs to deal with the issue of language?" We suggest and support the view that the issue of language should be recognised as a social justice issue, that student voice can enlighten curriculum designers and society on the dangers of reproducing inequalities through the hegemony of English, and that graduate attributes, as an essential notion, should recognise multilingualism as a core skill that students should acquire.

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“…An increasing number of 'African' and 'coloured' students are now being educated at relatively well resourced, middle class, formerly white, now racially mixed former Model C3 schools. Others, for whom an African language or Afrikaans is a home language, have been educated in the old Department of Education and Training (DET) schools and the Department of Education and Culture (DEC) schools which are, by contrast, relatively ethnically homogeneous, working class and poorly resourced (Bangeni & Kapp, 2007). Bangeni and Kapp's (2007) study of shifting language attitudes among 20 Humanities students points to the very different schooling experiences of these two groups.…”

Section: The Contextmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Others, for whom an African language or Afrikaans is a home language, have been educated in the old Department of Education and Training (DET) schools and the Department of Education and Culture (DEC) schools which are, by contrast, relatively ethnically homogeneous, working class and poorly resourced (Bangeni & Kapp, 2007). Bangeni and Kapp's (2007) study of shifting language attitudes among 20 Humanities students points to the very different schooling experiences of these two groups. In the first year of university, those students who have been educated in racially-mixed schools are at ease in the environment and move quite comfortably across racial and linguistic boundaries, whereas those educated in working class, ethnically homogeneous schools enter the institution with a strong desire to preserve their home language and home identities (Bangeni & Kapp, 2007).…”

Section: The Contextmentioning

confidence: 99%

Xhosalising English? Negotiating meaning and identity in Economics

Paxton

Tyam

2010

Southern African Linguistics and Applied Language Studies

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As yet, very few South African studies have explored multilingual learning contexts in order to develop a better understanding of the role that students' diverse primary or hybrid languages play in meaning making in English medium universities.This paper will report on a project which set out to investigate code-switching practices in informal learning groups in the university and to distinguish the forms and functions of these code-switching practices. A particular focus has been to gain insights into the ways in which concepts transfer from one language to another in order to develop thinking on language and learning in multilingual contexts and extend theories of conceptual transfer. The particular focus of this paper is the pedagogic and social functions of this hybrid language and how its use might be tied to questions of identity. We look particularly at the way the tutor in the peer learning group used code-mixing to negotiate different identities in dealing with first a rural and then an urban group of students. We will also illustrate by means of our data ways in which English is being appropriated and Xhosalised, particularly by the urban group of students in order to negotiate meaning, identity and status on this campus and in the wider community. IntroductionAt the University of Cape Town (UCT), a previously white English-speaking university, language practices among the student population are particularly complex and interesting. The medium of instruction is English and most of the staff are English speaking but, although 66.8% of students claim English as a first language, many of these are fluent in an African language. English has status on the UCT campus because, apart from being the medium of instruction and the language of assessment, it is seen as the language of material and symbolic power. However, as one moves around the campus and in the corridors and hallways of the university, one becomes aware of the vast variety of languages being spoken and particularly of hybrid languages. In seminars, workshops and laboratories as students work in small groups, one finds languages weaving together in a magical and colourful tapestry from which many English speaking lecturers (and students) are excluded. Therefore, while English would be regarded as the dominant language, multilingualism and multiculturalism is very much a mark of the UCT campus.In a previous research project, code was studied to identify ways in which students often used their home language or a hybrid language when studying in peer learning groups (Paxton, 2007(Paxton, , 2009). The findings from this research project illustrate that students' learning of economic concepts is restricted by the sole use of English for teaching and learning. The translated data from the project indicated that some students did not have clear understandings of new concepts in English and that, without a discussion of concepts in their own codes, their unclear conceptions might remain undetected. In this situation, they would resort to rote l...

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Shifting Language Attitudes in Linguistically Diverse Learning Environment in South Africa

Cited by 82 publications

References 14 publications

A longitudinal study of students’ negotiation of language, literacy and identity

A longitudinal study of students’ negotiation of language, literacy and identity

Student voice: Perspectives on language and critical pedagogy in South African higher education

Xhosalising English? Negotiating meaning and identity in Economics

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