Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Figures and tables
- Acknowledgements
- Editors’ note
- Foreword
- Foreword
- Chapter 1 Conditions under which language policy affects social stability
- Chapter 2 The case of the Catalan language: Some lessons
- Chapter 3 Language and hegemonic power: How feasible is conflict management by means of language policy?
- Chapter 4 The language issue and the quest for lasting peace in Africa: Prospects and challenges
- Chapter 5 The role of language in the process of constructing, preserving and reinforcing peace in Africa
- Chapter 6 Language policy and identity conflict in relation to Afrikaans in the post-apartheid era
- Chapter 7 Linguistic politics and the Northern Ireland peace process
- Chapter 8 Language policy and conflict management: A view from Galicia
- Chapter 9 Overcoming ethno-liguistic divisions: Developing educational materials in post-war Bosnia-Herzegovina
- Chapter 10 On language and peace: Some theological remarks
- Abbreviations and glossary
- Author biographies
Chapter 6 - Language policy and identity conflict in relation to Afrikaans in the post-apartheid era
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 19 March 2020
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Figures and tables
- Acknowledgements
- Editors’ note
- Foreword
- Foreword
- Chapter 1 Conditions under which language policy affects social stability
- Chapter 2 The case of the Catalan language: Some lessons
- Chapter 3 Language and hegemonic power: How feasible is conflict management by means of language policy?
- Chapter 4 The language issue and the quest for lasting peace in Africa: Prospects and challenges
- Chapter 5 The role of language in the process of constructing, preserving and reinforcing peace in Africa
- Chapter 6 Language policy and identity conflict in relation to Afrikaans in the post-apartheid era
- Chapter 7 Linguistic politics and the Northern Ireland peace process
- Chapter 8 Language policy and conflict management: A view from Galicia
- Chapter 9 Overcoming ethno-liguistic divisions: Developing educational materials in post-war Bosnia-Herzegovina
- Chapter 10 On language and peace: Some theological remarks
- Abbreviations and glossary
- Author biographies
Summary
Introduction
South Africa bears witness to a long and varied colonial and post-colonial history of contact between various language groups and, by almost inevitable consequence, also one of social conflict around matters of language and linguistic policy. This is particularly so in relation to Afrikaans (still known officially as Dutch until 1925), itself an example par excellence of a language that can trace its current and historical population of speakers as well as some of its most distinctive structural and lexical features to the consequences of linguistic contact between groups of highly divergent origins (Roberge 2002). The predominant focus in this paper, however, will remain limited to only a small part of this aforementioned history, namely the 17 or so years of the post-apartheid period up to the time of writing.
In terms of official language policy, the post-apartheid era signalled a radical departure from the strict bilingualism of the previous dispensation with the introduction of an 11-language policy which has seen nine African languages acquire official and nominal equal status alongside English and Afrikaans (Orman 2008:91). While this policy was heralded in some quarters as an innovative and progressive development in the domain of state language policy, it is generally acknowledged, at least by those familiar with the language-political situation in South Africa, that the policy in fact constituted a quite shrewd measure of conflict avoidance on the part of the ANC. As Heugh (2002a:460) notes, the policy was the result of an ‘eleventh-hour compromise’ designed to appease the concerns of Afrikaners that Afrikaans would be marginalised or even removed from public life in the new era as the language issue had become the major sticking point in the negotiations between the National Party and ANC which preceded the transition to democratic rule. A pragmatic retrospective interpretation of the policy necessarily leads one to the conclusion that rather than signalling any genuine and novel ideological commitment to the multilingual implications of the new constitution, the elevation to official status of nine African languages instead merely enabled the ANC to neutralise the previously privileged position of Afrikaans without Afrikaners being able to claim that their language had been downgraded, at least not in a de jure sense.
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- Information
- Language Policy and the Promotion of PeaceAfrican and European case studies, pp. 59 - 76Publisher: University of South AfricaPrint publication year: 2014