43 research outputs found
Commodification of transformation discourses and post-apartheid institutional identities at three South African universities
Using mission statements from the UCT, UWC and Stellenbosch
University (South Africa), we explore how the three universities
have rematerialised prior discourses to rebrand their identities as
dictated by contemporary national and global aspirations. We
reveal how the universities have recontextualised the experiences
and discourses of liberation struggle and the new government's
post-apartheid social transformation discourses to construct
distinctive identities that are locally relevant and globally aspiring.
This has led to the semiotic refiguring of universities from spatial
edifices of racially based unequal education, to equal opportunity
institutions of higher learning, and to the blurring of historical
boundaries between these universities. We conclude that the
universities have reconstructed distinct and recognisable identities
which speak to a segregated past, but with a post-apartheid voice
of equity and redress.IS
Communicating employability: the role of communicative competence for Zimbabwean highly skilled migrants in the UK
Skilled migration is an increasingly important topic for both policy and research internationally. OECD governments in particular are wrestling with tensions between their desire to use skilled migration to be on the winning side in the âglobal war for talentâ and their pandering to and/or attempts to outflank rising xenophobia. One aspect that has received relatively little attention is skilled migration from the African Commonwealth to the UK, a situation in which skilled migrants have relatively high levels of linguistic capital in the language of the host country. We focus here on the case of Zimbabwe. In spite of its popular image as a failed state, Zimbabwe has an exceptionally strong educational tradition and high levels of literacy and fluency in English. Drawing on 20 in-depth interviews of Zimbabwean highly skilled migrants, we explore the specific ways in which the communicative competences of these migrants with high formal levels of English operate in complex ways to shape their employability strategies and outcomes. We offer two main findings: first, that a dichotomy exists between their high level formal linguistic competence and their ability to communicate in less formal interactions, which challenges their employability, at least when they first move to the UK; and second, that they also lack, at least initially, the competence to narrativise their employability in ways that are culturally appropriate in England. Thus, to realise the full potential of their high levels of human capital, they need to learn how to communicate competently in a very different social and occupational milieu. Some have achieved this, but others continue to struggle
Speaking with a forked tongue about multilingualism in the language policy of a South African university
As part of a broader student campaign for âfree decolonized educationâ, protests
over language policies at select South African universities between 2015 and 2016
belied widespread positive appraisals of these policies, and revealed what is possibly
an internal contradiction of the campaign. The discourse prior to the protests (e.g.
âexcellent language policies but problematic implementationâ), during the protests
(e.g. silence over the role of indigenous African languages in the âAfrikaans must
fallâ versus âAfrikaans must stayâ contestations), and after the protests (e.g. English
becoming a primary medium in some institutional policy reviews) warrant attention
to critical literacy in language policy scholarship. Based on a theoretical account of
speaking with a forked tongue, this article analyzes the language policy text of one
South African university. The analysis suggests, simultaneously, why similar policies
have tended to be positively appraised, why studentsâ calls for policy revisions
were justified, but why the changes clamoured for arguably amount to complicity in
self-harm
Unlocking the grid: Language-in-education policy realisation in post-apartheid South Africa
This paper reflects on the state of educational language policy two decades into a postApartheid South Africa caught between official multilingualism and English. The
focus is on the national language-in-education policy (LiEP) that advocates additive
bi/multilingualism, and a provincial counterpart, the language transformation plan
(LTP). Using Ricento and Hornbergerâs onion metaphor, the paper seeks to uncover
the meanings of policy realisation in education at legislative, institutional, and
interpersonal levels. The LiEPâs non-realisation at institutional level is indexed by a
âgridlock of collusionâ (Alexander, personal communication) between political elites
and the majority of African-language speakers, who emulatively seek the goods that
an English-medium education promises. To illustrate how teachers can become policy
advocates, data are presented from a bilingual education in-service programme that
supported the LTP. The paper argues that sociolinguistic insights into speakersâ
heteroglossic practices should be used to counter prevailing monoglossic policy
discourses and school language practices, and that all languages should be used as
learning resources. Strategic essentialism would recognise the schooling systemâs
need to separately classify language subjects and to identify the languages most
productively used for teaching across the curriculum. The paper concludes with a call
for the revision of the LiEP
Translanguaging in kasi-taal: Rethinking Old Language Boundaries for New Language Planning
This paper examines discursive language practices among Black township natives who consider kasi-taal, a hybrid urban variety from major Black townships in Johannesburg, their home language. Firstly, an analysis of 20 dialogue samples that were collected from second-year university students from five townships reveals that traditional linguistic boundaries between indigenous African languages have been re-negotiated to express expanded views of the self. Secondly, the study shows that expansion of linguistic codes is enhanced by common substrate systems in the Nguni and Sotho languages, lexical borrowings, semantic shifts and morphological derivations from Afrikaans and English as source languages. Using a translanguaging framework, I argue that kasi-taal languaging practices challenge traditional conceptualisations of language and provide a window into future possibilities for merging African languages. Implications for future research based on the studyâs findings are highlighted at the end of the paper.Keywords: Translanguaging, Hybridity, kasi-taal, Language Boundaries, Township