On Not Taking Language Inequality for Granted: Hymesian Traces in an Ethnographic Monitoring of South Africa’s Multilingual Language Policy

Session Type: Invited Session

Abstract

The University of KwaZulu-Natal (UKZN) is at a critical juncture in implementation of South Africa’s multilingual language policy promoting institutional status for nine African languages, English and Afrikaans. Drawing on more than a decade of short-term ethnographic work in South Africa, I recently engaged in observation and dialogue with UKZN faculty, administrators, and post-graduate students to assess current implementation and identify next steps for making the university truly multilingual in teaching, learning and research. Concurring with Hymes that ethnographic monitoring can be of great importance with regard to educational success and political consequences, I undertook my work from a collaborative stance, in which the participants and I jointly sought to describe and analyze current communicative conduct, uncover emergent patterns in implementation of the policy, and evaluate the policy in terms of its social meanings. Hymes often reminded us that despite the potential equality of all languages, differences in language and language use can become a basis for social discrimination and actual inequality. While linguistic anthropologists may take these insights for granted, we nevertheless have our work cut out in raising critical language awareness more broadly. Ethnographic monitoring in education offers one means toward not taking language inequality for granted.

Sub Unit

• Division G - Social Context of Education

Chair

• Richard Ruiz, The University of Arizona

Speaker

• Nancy H. Hornberger, University of Pennsylvania