152BOOK REVIEWSthe direction of education. Given Zimbabwe's professed goal of building ademocratic socialism, the most disturbing aspect of current debate on education inZimbabwe is the almost complete absence of class analysis and the consequentfailure to develop a coherent socialist education strategy. Histories such as the onereviewed here have an imporant contribution to make to the development of such ananalysis and strategy, but only if they use sharper, more committed, concepts.Sydney College of Advanced EducationG. FOLEYBilingualism, Language Contact and Planning 2?y E.A. Ngara. Gwelo, MamboPress, Zambeziana 12, 1982, xii, 162 pp., Z$8.70.Dr Ngara's book is a welcome addition to the Zambeziana Series as it is the firstwork in the series which examines issues of language in Zimbabwe.The phrase 'issues of language' bespeaks an enormously wide range of topicsand problems. Dr Ngara begins with a discussion of bilingualism, that is, therelationship between languages in contact within a particular boundary (here,Zimbabwe) and the problems of acquiring two or more languages for the individualmember of a community. This is followed by a survey of the language situation inthe country itself with some interesting observations from the writer's 1975 studyon the attitudes to language of Black teenage students. Clearly the war for nationalindependence created a growing awareness of a linguistic and cultural identity withShona, although, as a counterbalance to this, the study records a positive attitude toa neutral world language like English.The central chapters of the book discuss the specific linguistic and learningproblems for the Shona student in learning English, The contrastive studies ofShona/English phonology and grammar are the first easily accessible accounts ofthese subjects and should provide language teachers and laymen with a valuablereference source. To the linguist, these chapters are a spur to deeper study.Languages in contact inevitably influence each other's development in everyaspect of the linguistic systems from phonetics to semantics. Ngara introduces andanalyses the important principles of 'penetration', 'interlarding' (for example,when a Shona speaker is so accustomed to using particular phrases of English thathe cannot avoid using them in his first language) and the idea of'alternation' whichis 'an advanced form of interlarding where the bilingual introduces so much Englishthat it may be difficult to tell whether he is speaking Shona or English' (p. 97).There are some interesting examples:Hwahwa hunopinda right throughVanhu vacho vari devoid of sense ambuyalye ndiye trouble causerIt should be emphasized that from the linguistic point of view these are naturalprocesses of language interchange. They look forward to a future variety of spokenZimbabwean English in which there may well be so much 'alternation' in aspeaker's language that the new variety could in fact assume a separate languageidentity. Such speculation is of the future but decisions concerning the relationshipsbetween our three most widely spoken languages in contemporary Zimbabwe maywell affect the kind of language which future generations of Zimbabweans use.BOOK REVIEWS153In many respects, Ngara's book addresses itself to the future. The subtitle'Proposals for language use and language teaching in Zimbabwe' is the culminationof much preceding debate, on the influence and inter-change language resourcesbetween Shona, Ndebele and English. As Minister Mutumbuka notes in theforeword they are 'a good basis for discussion'. Ngara proposes, inter alia, as onealternative, that Shona and Ndebele should be regarded as our national languagesand accorded official status while English would remain the language ofinternational communication and the prime medium of higher education, while asecond alternative would be to regard the majority language, Shona, as the onenational language. As far as classroom communication is concerned he proposesthat English should be introduced in gradual stages so that it would only be amedium of communication at secondary level. Clearly the medium of teaching atprimary level would be in the child's mother tongue.Many problems would obviously require careful analysis before suchproposals could be successfully implemented: the wishes of parents, for example,would, in my own experience of contact with schools, favour the retention ofEnglish as the medium of instruction from the earliest stages of education and thereis no doubt that Zimbabwe has inherited a sound infrastructure of English teachingin terms of syllabus design, the quality and linguistic ability of teachers, the design,testing and production of suitable teaching materials and a much closer involve-ment with English over the years than countries such as Zambia, Botswana andLesotho. It would be unfortunate to dilute the progress we have made in theserespects.On the other hand it is vital to develop the cultural linguistic consciousness ofShona and Ndebele speakers and clearly such impressions are best developed withlearners of school-going age. To this end Ngara discusses an outline content of newShona studies ('Rurimi noUnhu HwavaShona'); he proposes the establishment ofa Ministry 'charged with the task of promoting and developing the nationallanguages' (p. 137), and a National Languages Development Bureau. Ngara alsooffers proposals on the restructuring of the University departments to fulfil newdevelopment needs, including guide-lines for the preparation of language teachers.Ngara has produced a most useful book in that it sets out virtually all therelevant issues pertaining to language development in Zimbabwe and the policyoptions which planners and politicians may choose from. There will no doubt bemuch change in the years to come but whereas, to make a comparison, for a nation'seconomy, the market-place is a dynamic force, for a nation's educational system,the classroom and the forces within that system are conservative and slow tochange. Innovation in education is a slow process, particularly when so manypeople are involved; discussing proposals for innovation is an even slower processbecause so many people are involved. But, in a sense, this is right and properbecause appropriate decisions will shape the character of our new nation for manyyears to come. Ngara has stimulated us to think about new processes and there willbe no shortage of discussion about them.Un iversity of Zim ha b weD. DAWSON