Multilingualism Going Nowhere Slowly At One Of The Most Demographically Representative South African Universities

• Main Author: Dianna Lynette Moodley
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: National Council of Less Commonly Taught Languages 2011-08-01
• Series: Journal of the National Council of Less Commonly Taught Languages
• Subjects: Multilingualism; Bilingualism; Higher Education; Userperceptions; South Africa
• Online Access: http://www.ncolctl.org/files/multilingualism.pdf

This discussion situates itself amidst increasing tensions about multilingual policy implementation in South African Higher Education. As a result of revised education legislation that has been amended to synchronise with the country’s new democratic constitution, many universities have been forced to undergo a rather complex alteration in their language policies. Most recent language policy encourages institutions to develop strategies to promote bi/multilingualism, elevating the use of previously marginalized languages. The University of KwaZulu-Natal (UKZN) is one of the largest universities in the country, much more demographically representative than any other South African university. Its deliberate move to revamp language policy in line with latest education initiatives has resulted in the implementation of a bi/multilingualism policy for education. Now that the policy is in place, actual implementation seems to be hampered by user-attitudes. This discussion offers a descriptive analysis of the sentiments of UKZN’s constituents (staff and students) towards the policy.