‘They all Speak Your Language Anyway …’: Language and Racism in a South African School

Abstract

This article reports a rhetorical discourse analysis of learner perspectives on language diversity in a contemporary South African high school. Based on four group discussions with Grade 12 isiXhosa, Afrikaans and Engli~h-speaking learners, the analysis traces two interrelated clusters of argument. In the first, a liberal discourse of individual freedom and human rights is mobilised to argue against a language order where languages are made compulsory, or forced upon people. We show that this argument was employed inconsistently: it only extended to languages other than English. To understand how this dilemmatic use of liberal ideas was justified, we trace a second line of argument. This is the construction of English as a universal language and, consequently as neutral, necessary and unifying; a language of 'rational choice' for all South Africans. Based on these arguments, language diversity -or the formal recognition and empowerment of languages other than English -was problematised as both violating individual rights of choice and a public order characterised by the mutual and universal understanding afforded by the universality of English. Supporting English-only practices in the school was thus presented as itself a liberal gesture, allowing not only the continued racialisation of isiXhosa, but also a rhetoric of racial blame: isiXhosa speakers, when they use their language in public, were blamed for instigating racial tension and misunderstanding in the school.

Race and Community Practice: Reflections From the Supervision of Professional Training

“…In postapartheid South Africa, critical social and community‐oriented psychological scholarship on race has highlighted the intersections of race with social dimensions such as culture and ethnicity (e.g., Stevens, Duncan, & Bowman, ), language (e.g., Painter & Baldwin, ), and gender (e.g., Shefer & Ratele, ). An emerging cluster of work focuses on critical Whiteness studies (e.g., Green, Sonn, & Matsebula, ; Ratele, ; Stevens, ) and there is a substantive body of research on intergroup relations, racial segregation, and inter‐racial mixing (e.g., Dixon, Tredoux, Durrheim, Finchilescu, & Clack, ).…”