The Place of English in Expanding Repertoires of Linguistic Code, Identification and Aspiration among Recent High School Graduates in Limpopo Province, South Africa.

Abstract

This dissertation investigates the comparatively high use of English among 48 high school graduates aged 18-25 living in the semi-rural Mankweng area of Limpopo Province, South Africa. The study focuses on the interaction between the participants’ increased use of English and their processes of individual and social identification. Discourse analyses of focus group and individual interviews, triangulated with descriptive data from two questionnaires about educational experiences, media usage and language attitudes, suggest that the participants recognize both the potential consequences for identification that linguistic code choices carry, and the desirability of equitably managing—or as some call, “balancing”—these choices and consequences. Participants’ discourse indicates two factors shaping how they “balance.” One is their physical and social location. Post-apartheid freedoms of mobility and media engagement are positioning youth to tinker with historically persistent ideologies of languages as “traditional” or “modern”, “white” or “black,” “urban” or “rural”. Amidst these changes, the participants evaluate their own and others’ abilities to “balance” based on where one lives and works. A second “balancing” factor is the perceived strength of one’s sense of “African” group belonging, or “roots.” Most participants consider family or village ties as the basis for strong “roots”; certain others consider their ethnolinguistic backgrounds equally integral. In any case, one must avoid the perception of one’s roots being too “strong” or “weak,” as this can threaten “balancing.” A second finding is that, as a “balancing” strategy, participants claim that using African codes is “necessary” in oral conversation with elders at home, and that using English is “necessary” for both written language practices (especially cell phone messaging) and as a linking language in multilingual locations such as the local university campus (which half the participants call home). This strategy uses “necessity” as a way to problematize individual agency and responsibility for code choices deemed undesirable. This study is significant because it highlights the unpredictability of language practice trends in rapidly changing societies, and offers implications for multilingual education. It also invites further investigation into how opportunities for crossing linguistic and cultural boundaries expand with social, political and technological changes.

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