POLICY RESEARCH
      LANGUAGE POLICY RESEARCH IN
                             SOUTH AFRICA
                                                                Neville Alexander
   I want to make a few general points first about the language question, then deal
with the National Language Project very briefly, and finally with the agenda for
language policy research in South Africa. The original paper on which my presen tion
is based was prepared for a seminar at Yale University.
    The first point is that the language question derives from, in the first place, the
national question - the question of national unity - because of the function of
language as a medium of communication and a transmitter of culture. It arises
technically from the social question because of the function of language as an
instrument of production. In other words from the unequal and discriminatory
distribution of economic, political and cultural power.
   I'd like to quote from Beer and Jacobs' book on language policy and national unity
just to demonstrate this point more clearly. They say;
          A number of questions arise concerning the translation of linguistic
          heterogeneity into a political issue addressed by public policy. First,
          how do language demands come to be posed in the first place? Is
          language policy a result of grass roots mobilisation, or a pre-emptive
          government policy designed to forestall or alter otherwise less
          palatable unrest? Second, what is the social and political context in
          which language becomes a salient political issue? If the crucial
          variable in this discussion were the extent of the linguistic cleavage
          alone, then one would expect intense language conflict in Papua New
          Guinea or within the Soviet Union and so forth.
     The conclusion to this volume, argues that language difference alone do not
 necessarily lead to challenges to national unity. It is the trends of the perceived
 inequality of social status and unequal access to economic rewards or political power
 due to language use which is crucial for the politicisation of language use and its
 degeneration into conflict. Einar Hangan, the Norwegian social linguist makes the
 point very crudely and simply. He says, in the final analysis the language conflict in
 places like Belgium, Yugoslavia and so on boils down to the unequal distribution of
 jobs.
    I think that particular perspective is becoming more and more understood in the
 liberation movement But I think we must say very clearly right from the outset that
 actually this is a sorely neglected area of research and of policy in the liberation
 movement Broadly speaking, in fact, we've adopted an extremely laissez faire
 attitude which has boiled down to entrenching a petty bourgeois practice in the
 question of language policy.
    It goes to the point where reputable South African social scientists -1 don't want
  to mention names here - oppose language planning on the grounds that you must
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 leave your languages alone. Don't touch them. If they're going to change, they'll
 change in some sort of magical organic way. I want to make the point very strongly
 that language planning is part and parcel, integrally, of social planning, and that the
 moment you are faced with a situation of social inequality where language is a
 marker of that inequality, as it is in South Africa, you have got to do something by
 means of intervention, which means that you have got to start planning the use, the
 status, the function of language.
    It is only recently that major political organisations, particularly the ANC, have
 begun to look at the language question more seriously. The ANC, in fact, in the report
 of the Harare workshop, say that they have rejoined the debate because in the 1950s
 there was in fact a very dramatic debate inside the ANC which was very unfortunate-
 ly phased out Other political organisations haven't really come up with any specific
 language policy. In fact, I had the singular honour - although I'm not sure if it was
 an honour - the other day when somebody asked somebody in another organisation
 (not the ANC by the way), 'What is your language policy?' This person said, 'Ask
 Neville' even though I don't belong to this person's organisation.
   The point I want to make then is that language policy and research in the recent
 history of this country arose out of struggle. We began language policy research in
 a serious scientific manner only round about 1983 as a result of our experience in
 organisations like S ACHED, the Council Black Education and Research Trust, and
 I can go on naming a whole string of organisations, South African Council of
 Churches and so on, as a result of our experiences of the ravages of Bantu Education.
That is why we started. In other words, out of the experience of mass struggle, we
 had to confront the language quesion.
   You will find the details in the Yale paper of the background to the coming into
being of the National Language Project which I submit has played a catalytic role
in getting people sensitised to the political and economic importance of the language
question. Most people haven't understood that And we must be honest about it.
People haven't understood how language reinforces class division, class distinction,
class privilege. They might have understood it somehow in their heads but they have
never understood it in practice. Otherwise they would never have perpetuated the
practices inside the liberation movement which they did in the past.
     I was originally going to go into some detail on the history of the National
Language Project, but I think we haven't got the time, I just want to make the point
that we have put forward very clear proposals about language policy towards the
democratisatton of South Africa, reinforcing obviously other social forces, other
social movements, that are working towards the democratisation of this country.
   Those proposals in a nutshell are firstly, that we accept that English in the very
near future is going to be the lingua franca of this country; that we however ensure
that all the people and not only the middle class as is now the case have proficiency
in English. Otherwise, it once again becomes a divisive social marker which will
simply shift the divisions from race to class.
   Secondly, that the African languages, the indigenous languages, specifically be
promoted, be given priority; that resources be put into the development of those
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ALEXANDER                                                           POLICY RESEARCH
languages on a scale that this country has never seen before; that they be encouraged,
people be taught, be given incentives to learn the African languages because these
are the languages that in the future will determine what happens in this country. As
the relations of power shift in favour of the oppressed and exploited people, there is
no doubt that the indigenous languages are going to become languages of employ-
ment, languages of higher education, and so on and so forth. We've got to do
something about that now. We have many detailed proposals in regard to this, which
we've worked out at workshops and so on, and which if there is time in the discussion
we could look at
   Thirdly, the whole question of standard languages must be looked at from a class
point of view. Standard languages are a class instrument of oppression and exploita-
tion. The kinds of languages which are accepted for purposes of social interaction
generally are not necessarily and should not be the so-called standard languages.
That is a very big question and discussion, and I'm not able here to go into it.
  In September last year the NLP called an international conference, with very strong
African participation incidentally because we thought we could learn a lot, which
we in fact did from some of the experiences of those countries. Participation included
government agencies, semi-government agencies like the HSRC, across the
spectrum of language-related projects and institutions in this country. That con-
ference, looked particularly at democratisaa'on; what we call language planning from
below, on the one hand and standardisation on the other hand.
   This led to a very important unanimous conference decision being taken to explore
the possibility of what they called a democratic language board or a national
language academy. To do away with the formal existence of the English Academy,
the Afrikaans Akademie, the so-called Language Boards for the different African
 languages, and to subsume those functions under a national language academy or a
democratic language board, with a view to conceptualising language policy research
 in the context of a nation-building project.
   Again, although I cannot develop it, I just want to say that at present the steering
 committee that was elected by the conference is consulting with organisations -
 political, labour, community, and of course language organisations, educational
 organisations and so on - with a view to bringing about the most representative
 possible conference on this issue so that such a body can take over the whole question
 of co-ordinating language policy research in this country.
   To move, lastly, to an agenda, what I say is the agenda - this is my personal view
 of course - for language policy research. There is a very important chapter by
 Gerhard Schuring of the HSRC in the report of the Languages in Conflict and
 Contact in Africa organisation, at the conference which they had in April last year.
 It's called 'Language Planning for a New South Africa.' He puts forward what I call
 a conservative liberal agenda for language policy research in this country. It is an
 important one because it touches on all the fundamental questions.
    There are, however, some questions which are not raised there, which I believe
 from a radical point of view, should be asked. Firstly, the most important is
 quantitative research on the question of existing language policy impacting on the
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 POUCY RESEARCH                                                             ALEXANDER
political economy of the country. For example, how does the rate of illiteracy among
rural workers affect productivity in agriculture?
   Secondly, how does lack of proficiency in the standard varieties of the so-called
 official languages tend to reinforce the racial classification of the labour force? A
basic question once again. It's not asked. How does lack of proficiency in English
or Afrikaans affect industrial safety? And so on. You can simply spell them out; they
 virtually come by themselves once you adopt the correct stance to these things.
   There's a host of related questions that ought to be investigated. The effect of such
research would be to enhance the understanding of the entire population, specifically
of the workers, of the reality and the crucial importance of language policy. People
take language for granted. Unless you both problematise it and demonstrate to them
the economic effect of language policy, they don't take it seriously.
   Secondly, updated large-scale language-attitude surveys which would serve as a
 sound base from which to project language policy into the future. This is especially
important in the educational sphere, needless to say. These points on the agenda
should however not be mistaken for a commitment to a mechanically implied
empiricist methodology. I'm not suggesting at all that until we have these figures
we can't do anything. Not at all. But I do want to stress that if we do adopt an
empiricist methodology we are simply going to entrench the status quo. After all,
we all know that statistical surveys and opinion polls tend simply to mirror the
dominant ideology, and therefore we have to be extremely sensitive in our interpreta-
tion of the findings of such surveys.
   People, for example say that all the black workers want English. English is the
preferred language. That is true, because English is the key to economic advance-
ment It is also the key to social status. That is why they want it That will change
when the power relations change.
  Then, on my second last point, how can the urban and the rural poor be drawn into
the determination of language policy? The National Language Project's demands
for language planning for below, we continue to believe is completely feasible. That
is why this idea of a national language academy is such an important idea. It has
come from our own experience, from the experience of the people in struggle,
particularly during the '80s. The Conference of the NLP was an attempt to address
this question, and to show that in fact we must go ahead along those lines, involving
ordinary people, people who are involved in literacy work, people who are involved
in second language English, or conversational Xhosa or Zulu or whatever projects,
in the determination of language policy. The fundamental democratic principle is
that those who have to execute the policy have to have a vital say in the making of
the policy. That is a fundamental principle. You can't get away from that
   Finally, there is an urgent need to go back to first principles, to clarify what we
call the nation-building project of the national liberation movement, as well as our
understanding of the relationship between language and culture. I have a lot to say
on this but I haven't got the time to do that now. However, I believe, as we said
earlier, that unless you ask these prior questions you are simply being reactive. You
cannot be proactive. You cannot in fact generate policy options that are both feasible
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in that transformatory sense of the chameleon moving very, very slowly on the one
hand, but preparing to change colour, preparing for a revolutionary rupture. You can
only do that if you have a proactive vision towards which you are actually working,
and, of course, the flexibility to adapt to the realities as they manifest themselves.
DISCUSSION
   FRANCIE LUND: We cannot formulate reasonable policies for the future until
we've got uniform budgeting procedures, until we've got the most basic information
system. And we have not got the most basic information system on which to plan
social policy. This means we have to start addressing what we're going to do with
the present civil service which is administering the policies which we're about to
move to. If we want a chance of a better policy in the future, we have to make those
bureacracies more uniform now and start building up an information system now at
a national level,
   MIKE MULLER: The fact is that if we go to communities and ask them what their
priorities are, they will say some form of health care provision is very important. If
 that is so, we have to start our policy formulation from the mass base that everyone
 is talking about, with what the masses are demanding. Let's start to transform that
 into a useful product. Part of that is indeed to use precisely all the service research
 foci of essential national health research, so that you take the resources that people
 want to see, the clinic that they want to see rather than some abstruse campaign. You
 take those resources and you start trying to deliver something that is useful. You
 really don't want to divorce this debate about research and health from the very large
 expectations and misunderstandings that sit out there in the community.
    JERRY COOVADIA: I think that what South African society does is creates a
 milieu. It creates a milieu where individuals react in certain predictable ways. So
 that if you look at agricultural research, if you look at medical research, if you look
 at technological research, it's not just the state which says that you must do work in
 that. It leaves it to the individuals, but because it suits my career to do esoteric
 research I do that, and in fact that's where the majority of universities have don •
 their research. It's not simply state control. It is often the individual, the institutions
 and the group which determine the priorities in which the money is spent. There's a
 suggestion that the state at the moment is decentralising and that it's paid particular
 attention to individual excellence and that it's drawing in a lot of private funding for
 research. I would say that many of those things are laudable and probably worth
 aiming for. Was it your intention to suggest that those things are all bad?
    ANIA GROBICKI: Previously there was a really coherent project. There was an
 immense amount of defence funding and so on, for national areas. What's been
 happening more recently is there's been a shift to try and fragment these institutions
 and the system as much as possible. Where individual excellence fits into this is that
 there's been a buying out of scientists and people with technical backgrounds, high
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 POUCY RESEARCH                                                              DISCUSSION
  skills, technical training, to defend their individual interests. That is why the
 emphasis on individual excellence as a sole criterion for allocating research funding
 now is dangerous. Because it's then difficult to create any sort of process, or research
 foresight, of drawing those individuals out into the community, back into the process
 of looking at what are national sector economic priorities and what research should
 actually be funded to focus on those priorities.
    ABDOULE BATHILY: I would like to just draw your attention to the importance
 of language policy. Because wherever you go to the other parts of Africa, you will
 find that there is a crisis of the education system. One of the sources of this crisis, is
 linked to the problem of language. What kind of language should be used, not only
 for cultural activities but also for the school system? But we must not forget that the
 educational language is the best channel for country-wide expression for a people
 or for a nation. Beyond that, a number of studies have been made in our part of Africa
 to prove that school performance - not only at primary school and secondary school,
 but also at university level - is very much linked to the use of the national language
 or the lack of it. I think we have to start to respect our own languages. These
 languages have the same capacity as the English or the Turkish language. The
 experience is that French and English cannot be the national languages now. The
 African people are not Francophone; they- are not Anglophone.
   PAULUS ZULU: If we are going to spend some time and resources and energy in
 the development of English as the lingua franca in the near future, and then at the
 same time spend as much on resources to develop local languages or vernaculars as
 I put it to become the languages of employment, I find that a bit difficult in terms of
 expending resources. I am also concerned with the capacity of the local languages
 to actually sustain a technology.
    The second aspect lies with the position of international communications. I am
 finding it here both necessary and expedient to stress that when a language has
already been developed and is familiar to a very large sector of the population it can
be used to address other people internationally. You then tamper with that process
at the expense of, one, international communications and, two, production at a local
and international level.
    NEVILLE ALEXANDER: I just want to make the fundamental point that any
language is capable of development to the highest possible degree. There is nothing
to prevent any language from going to the highest possible degree. It's a matter of
resources; it's a matter of policy priorities; and so on.
    MOSES NGOASHENG: In relation to the national technology system; is it
changing? Is it changing from being a military, big projects, culture into something
else? Is the national technology system focused enough or directed enough so that
it will be able to produce the kind of technology that is appropriate to meeting the
basic needs of our people?
   ANIA GROBICKI: There has been a major shift from research and technical support
for the defence sector to actually pulling the money out of science and technology
research - for instance ARMSCOR is being run down - and a lot of these places are
really suffering under a shortage of research funding. I feel that it's very important
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that we maintain the technological capability for the future of this country.
  The answer to the second part of your question is that of course it can. But the ship
has to be turned around. People's training and their attitudes have to change so that
they're prepared to research those kinds of problems rather than to focus on the high
technology areas that have been popular up till now. I think those are the sorts of
debates which really have to come out in public. The fact that the nuclear accelerator
is still running at an annual operating cost of R43,000,000, which is say half of the
budget of the HSRC: do you want that nuclear accelerator or not? Who decides
whether it's closed down? In a lot of these areas the decisions have already been
 made, generally by individuals. The processes are absolutely not open. That's why
 we're trying to open up those processes for public scrutiny.
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