Some Stuff About Things

The Mediums of Instruction at SU It would be naive to think I could talk about the injustices of linguistic  privilege without touching on the language crisis at the University of Stellenbosch. I'm not going to elaborate on what, where, when cause that could take me 3 days to explain. If you have not been following the news lately or if you don't follow South African news, a simple Google search will provide you with everything you need to know about this saga. It might be smart to do so now as this blog will be tackling issues directly related to it. What are the Issues? As you are now aware of, the university has shifted between a policy accrediting Afrikaans and English as equal languages of tuition, to primarily English and back to Afrikaans and English at the start of this term. The new (old) language policy of Afrikaans and English gives rise to a number of problems. None of these problems stem from profound philosophical insights, but are genuine pr...

The Mother Tongue Mind Many children in South-Africa and across the globe  are unable to speak or to even understand their mother tongue. This is because of all the hype that exists around English. A lot of parents believe it would be wiser to send their child to an only English school, hoping that it would help them further in life. Many schools also do not offer schooling in the child's mother tongue, either because they do not have the resources or the child's home language is not widely spoken in that area and is being oppressed by another, bigger language. But few know the great loss children suffer if not taught in their mother tongue as long as possible.  Wait, what? The hard fact is that these kids are losing their chance of performing well at school. They are thrown into a system of language turmoil without as much as a straw to grasp on. In the most cases, their entire school career is a fight to keep their head above water. A study was cond...

The marvels of multilingualism Aaah, good old English, considered as the lingua franca of the whole globe. Because of this reason, home language speakers of English enjoy linguistic privilege. Read more about this in my previous blog  http://19841647.blogspot.co.za/?zx=44838a9a22b5e696 .  But times a-changing, speaking only one language, even if it is English, is no longer sufficient. Not only does multilingualism give you the edge in our globalized world, but it benefits you in more ways than you can think of. Wait, what? Yes, if you speak two or more languages, you basically have superpowers. Besides being able to talk two or more languages, speakers have a few linguistic superpowers . Speaking a second language benefits your first language  immensely, including proficiency, vocabulary, reading and communicative improvements. Being bi- or multilingual also helps you to learn a language quicker and easier in the future.  You also have quite a ...

Language and Privilege Privilege- something every single person is born with in one form or another: Race, sexuality, gender and class to name some of the most talked (argued) about privileges that exist. Most people are aware of the bigotry that revolves around these subjects and most (decent) people are actively trying to bridge the inequality gap. In this day and age it would seem strange that a social injustice exists without someone rioting about or at least questioning it. But such a social injustice does exist: Linguistic bigotry. So let's take the time to check your privilege. Wait, what? Yes, if you speak a standard dialect of English, you enjoy linguistic privilege.  We performed a simple experiment in class that proved that even the most open-minded of us are likely to make snap judgments based simply on a person's speech. Out of 10 voice-clips of people inquiring after an advertised room, most students would have prefer the person who spoke standard Bri...