Hope and Doom 2

(excerpted from travel blog to South Africa, March 2004, http://sbmhome.typepad.com/south_africa)

This idea surfaced again during the roundtable: eleven languages are protected by the South African constitution, almost everyone is a non-native English speaker, therefore there is no stigma; no negative judgment is passed on non-native English speakers in the academy. I waited, very interested, to see how it would play out, and it did, on multiple levels. First, it opened up a discussion of how students, graduate students in particular, are judged in language use. Almost everyone sends their writing out to an outside person so that their language can be fixed. Two Black Africans and one Afrikaans woman in the room offered testimony that more than suggested that there is a stigma in the academy attached to having a non-English, particularly African, heritage language. The Standard English that they are held to is British academy English, and I was surprised (but maybe not) at how little willingness there seemed to be to embrace the construct of World Englishes (Braj Kachru). I know from talking to Elize Naude that as a native Afrikaans speaker, having to write in this perfect English is what has her most frozen in terms of finishing her Master’s research. It’s also interesting that with 90 some odd percent of the population completing their education and graduate work in a foreign language, there is no support infrastructure, nothing like the Writing Center at Columbia. Of course, neither is there any kind of first year writing program or requirement. University is a European model – students enter their field of study and there are not general, core requirements.

Mthunzi Totana, one of the 2005 Sharing Cultures Project instructors, spoke about his experience with the language issue as a graduate student and the complexities of translating himself, putting his most complex thoughts into a language that does not accept the natural construction of his ideas. He then passionately raised the questions about schooling in English and language loss for children. This, I think is very close to his heart. He is on the board of the local school in New Brighton where he lives; he hosts reading and poetry clubs with the children who live nearby and is actively a voice, a force, and a role model for them. How do they educate the children in the language that has become the chosen currency of power, English, without having them lose their heritage languages and cultures? Mthunzi sees hope in having communities actively working towards that goal. He embodies hope.