THE DYNAMISM OF ENGLISH AS A GLOBAL LANGUAGE IN POST-GENOCIDE RWANDA

English, as global language, has had great influence over most languages of the world for nearly two centuries now. The expansion of English is no exception in Rwanda, though. For the last two decades, the importance of English has been felt in the day to day activities of Rwanda. English became a third official language in Rwanda just after the 1994 genocide and a compulsory language of instruction since January 2009. This paper discusses the use of English in post-genocide Rwanda and its impact on French, over a borrowing one, Kinyarwanda and French. English has risen sharply for the last two decades because of the will of the Rwandan government to find ways of communicating with the external world in a more powerful language, English, than the previously predominant one, French. It also highlights major domains where English speaks of its strength and the factors that led to the spread of English

Multilingual education in South African universities: A possibility or delusion?

After the demise of apartheid it was hoped that a radical shift would give impetus to multilingual education in universities in South Africa. This is predicated on the vigour that South Africa exuded in its endeavour to promote eleven languages to national official status for the country. The question is, will universities ever be able to create a rich tapestry of a genuine all-inclusive multi-lingual language policy that elevates the status and use of indigenous languages in universities? In this regard, the article highlights what transpires with regard to language policy implementation in universities. It also presents the views of lecturers and students of content subjects concerning the promotion of multilingualism in universities. For this research a questionnaire was administered to university lecturers of content subjects whose views the researcher claims to have hitherto been untapped. The article also proposes certain strategies to be implemented so that universities can promote multilingual education in tandem with national endeavours.South African Journal of African Languages 2014, 34(1): 9–2

Black writers’ Shona novels of the liberation war in Zimbabwe: an art that tells the truth of its day

Over the years Shona fiction that portrays Zimbabwe’s liberation war has been a subject of severe criticism because of its tendency to falsify and distort history. This article attempts to provide answers to the question of why authors of Shona war fiction tended to romanticise the war of liberation. In pursuance of this objective this article looks at circumstances and conditions that prevailed at the time that most of the Shona stories about Zimbabwe’s liberation war were written. These stories were published during the first decade of Zimbabwe’s independence and it is possible to look at this time and come up with a set of interdependent cultural, economic, political and ideological conditions that helped to shape writers’ perspectives on the war. The article argues that the conditions of artistic freedom that interfaced with internalised fear, the euphoria and celebration, the dominant ideology of the time, as well as the situation of competition were responsible for shaping the consciousness of the war fiction writers. In this article views expressed in interviews by some of the writers of Shona war fiction are taken into consideration. All interviews with authors referred to in the article were carried out by the researche

Black writers’ Shona novels of the liberation war in Zimbabwe: an art that tells the truth of its day

Over the years Shona fiction that portrays Zimbabwe’s liberation war has been a subject of severe criticism because of its tendency to falsify and distort history. This article attempts to provide answers to the question of why authors of Shona war fiction tended to romanticise the war of liberation. In pursuance of this objective this article looks at circumstances and conditions that prevailed at the time that most of the Shona stories about Zimbabwe’s liberation war were written. These stories were published during the first decade of Zimbabwe’s independence and it is possible to look at this time and come up with a set of interdependent cultural, economic, political and ideological conditions that helped to shape writers’ perspectives on the war. The article argues that the conditions of artistic freedom that interfaced with internalised fear, the euphoria and celebration, the dominant ideology of the time, as well as the situation of competition were responsible for shaping the consciousness of the war fiction writers. In this article views expressed in interviews by some of the writers of Shona war fiction are taken into consideration. All interviews with authors referred to in the article were carried out by the researche

Representations of the body as contested terrain: The Zimbabwean liberation war novel and the politics of nation and nationalism

The article raises insights on the politics of representation, nation and nationalism in Zimbabwe, as these are linked to the 1970s war against colonial settlerism. They are also at the centre of the contest for political power. In this endeavour, it particularly discusses fictive representations of the body, both male and female, as embodiments of the ideas of  nation and nationalism and the uses to which history is put in Zimbabwean politics today. The article shows that the liberation war historical narratives invest in the geography of the body, which is a vital resource for any given people’s visibility. In the early 1980s, a time when Zimbabwe attained political independence, the narratives cast the  body as larger-than-life, healthy and steely. Narratives published in the late 1980s and beyond depict the body as tormented and vulnerable turf as a result of what the authors identify as the excesses of nationalism. The argument is made that the liberation war historical narratives, which are published in different historical epochs purposefully  engage in selective forgetting and remembering. They ingeniously instrumentalize and operationalize the body as a slate for inscribing historical content and ideology. Thus, the contesting uses to which the body is put in historical narratives on the war evince that historical narratives are a veritable stakeholder in the politics of history and the  politics of contested hegemony in Zimbabwe recent politics.S.Afr.J.Afr.Lang., 31(2) 201

The inevitability of linguistic change: The motivation of borrowing English terms by Shona speakers

Europeans brought new concepts, ideas and technologies with them that had not existed before colonialism in Zimbabwe. This led Shona and other indigenous languages (such as Ndebele, Venda, Nambya, Kalanga) to absorb a substantial new vocabulary into their lexicons. Speakers of these languages have been creating terms to cope with the new concepts through various strategies. This article aims at studying the motivation of Shona speakers to prefer borrowed words where both Shona and the English terms are available. Results of the research for this study show that Shona speakers seem to prefer English loanwords owing to issues such as prestige and elitism, shortness and precision, explicitness, expressiveness, currency of term, gap-filling and language modernisation. In addition, an unfavourable language policy in Zimbabwe helps to promote the use of English in all spheres of life, thereby undermining the development of Shona. This study is qualitative in nature, and it adopts a descriptive approach in analysing the data gathered through structured and oral interviews, questionnaires and secondary sources. The major contribution of this study is the illustration of how borrowing can be used to benefit the indigenous language development initiatives and to help language policy planners in Zimbabwe

The African concept of a dual-sex system and Freir’s characteristics of dialogue as potential pivots of globalising world

The idea of a dual-sex system, which scholars such as Sofola (1998) lobby for, is an aspect of African people's communalist philosophy that helped men and women complement each other in all life activities of a precolonial society. That concept helped push both men and women to realise that although they were biologically different, they were both vital actors in the process o f the society's growth and development. This article argues that if the concept of a dual-sex system is interpreted from an understanding o f Freire’s (1971)) characteristics o f dialogue it will have the potential to map out a gender-based framework for a globalising world. Therefore, this article discussses the possibility o f using indigenous African philosophies of gender as points of reference for action at a time when the world is being perceived to be ‘globalised’. The argument pursued in the article is that genuine globalisation cannot be attained outside a sound framework that can potentially deal with gender disparities that are currently rampant in Africa and the other societies of the world. This article relies on Sofola (1998) and Freire (1970) and on examples that are drawn from Shona culture to create an argument

Language policy, linguistic hegemony and exclusion in the Zimbabwean print and broadcasting media

This article examines linguistic hegemony and linguistic exclusion in the Zimbabwean print and broadcasting media. The discussion is based on the fact that the media carry language, operate through language and contribute to language promotion and development. Therefore, this article argues that there is need for a sound and working language policy for the print and broadcasting media in Zimbabwe. The language used in information dissemination, public debates and communication can include or exclude some speech communities in the country. However, the language choices in the media in Zimbabwe demonstrate multilayered linguistic hegemonies where English is generally the dominant language, while Shona and Ndebele are hegemonic to the other languages in Zimbabwe. This situation is attributed to the fact that the broadcasting media in Zimbabwe are part of the colonial heritage; that there is a lack of a clear and consistent language policy of the media in Zimbabwe, which is reflective of the absence of a comprehensible national language policy; that the domination of the Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation leaves no room for meaningful and authentic competing community radio and television stations; that the media in Zimbabwe are business and political organisations; and that the media in Zimbabwe are appendages of the global media system which favour the use of English.South African Journal of African Languages 2014, 34(2): 225–23

Empowerment through indigenous literature: The case of Shona novels

Languages express the needs of their users, opening windows to information and knowledge. A language of excellence and empowerment is seen through the quantity of literature and thought it can express. In the information age, literature forms a reliable and consistent reservoir of a people’s life experiences, aspirations and endeavours. It is the main means by which language transfers the images of the world embodied in the culture it carries. Literature that is empowering broadens its readership and equips its readers to deal with their social and physical environment while opening avenues for artists to exhibit their creative genius.S.Afr.J.Afr.Lang.,2009,

‘Only Tonga spoken here!’: Family language management among the Tonga in Zimbabwe

This article analyses language management strategies that are employed by Tonga parents towards the conservation of the Tonga language. Since Zimbabwe gained independence, Tonga, alongside a host of other previously designated minority languages has endured marginalisation in terms of use in public and official spaces, leading to language shift. In the presence of dominant endoglossic languages, Shona and Ndebele, within Tonga communities, Tonga speakers have found it difficult to maintain their language. In the context of family and societal bilingualism, parents, as the custodians of the home language are better placed to manage language use, for example, by encouraging and rewarding preferred language practices and sanctioning or punishing undesirable use. This study sought to understand some of the language management strategies that parents employ to promote the use of Tonga language at home. Deploying insights afforded by the language management approach, the reversing language shift theory and family language policy, the study reveals that Tonga parents have high impact beliefs regarding their potential to control their children’s linguistic behaviour in the home. These impact beliefs tend to inform parental language management strategies