"English is the best way to communicate": South African Indians' student to the relevance of Zulu

Result code in IS VaVaI

<a href="https://www.isvavai.cz/riv?ss=detail&h=RIV%2F62690094%3A18460%2F20%3A50017649" target="_blank" >RIV/62690094:18460/20:50017649 - isvavai.cz</a>

Result on the web

<a href="https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/soci-2020-0010/html" target="_blank" >https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/soci-2020-0010/html</a>

DOI - Digital Object Identifier

<a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1515/soci-2020-0010" target="_blank" >10.1515/soci-2020-0010</a>

Result language

angličtina

Original language name

"English is the best way to communicate": South African Indians' student to the relevance of Zulu

Original language description

The South African University of KwaZulu-Natal has developed an ambitious language policy aiming “to achieve for isiZulu the institutional and academic status of English” (UKZN LP 2006/2014). Part of this ambition is a mandatory Zulu language module that all undergraduate students have to pass if they cannot prove knowledge of the language. In this article, we examine attitudes of South African Indian students towards this compulsory module against the strained history and relationship between Zulu and Indian people in the province. Situated within the approach of Language Management Theory (LMT), our focus is on students as micro level actors who are affected by a macro level policy decision. Methodologically combining quantitative and qualitative tools, we attempt to find answers to the following broad question: What attitudes do South African Indian students have towards Zulu more generally and the UKZN module more specifically? The empirical findings show that students’ motivations to learn Zulu are more instrumental than integrative as the primary goal is to ‘pass’ the module. South African Indian students have developed a blind spot for the prevalence and significance of Zulu in the country which impacts negatively on the general attitudes towards the language more general and the module more specifically. Language ideologies that elevate the status of English in the country further hamper the success of Zulu language learning.

Czech name

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Czech description

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Type

J_ost - Miscellaneous article in a specialist periodical

CEP classification

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OECD FORD branch

60203 - Linguistics

Project

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Continuities

I - Institucionalni podpora na dlouhodoby koncepcni rozvoj vyzkumne organizace

Publication year

2020

Confidentiality

S - Úplné a pravdivé údaje o projektu nepodléhají ochraně podle zvláštních právních předpisů

Name of the periodical

Sociolinguistica

ISSN

0933-1883

e-ISSN

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Volume of the periodical

34

Issue of the periodical within the volume

1

Country of publishing house

DE - GERMANY

Number of pages

17

Pages from-to

155-171

UT code for WoS article

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EID of the result in the Scopus database

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