Abstract
In South Africa, reports on language shift have focused on instances of language shift from indigenous African languages to English. There is, however, also research that suggests that language shift is taking place from Afrikaans to English in the Western Cape. Anthonissen (2009), for example, notes in her research among Coloured communities that a shift has taken place from Afrikaans first language (L1), across three generations, to English L1. Against this backdrop, this paper investigates language shift in two semi-urban Western Cape Coloured communities; in particular, it examines what patterns of language shift/maintenance can be observed, and investigates sociolinguistic factors, such as age, language of schooling, socio-economic status and language attitudes, to which the observed patterns can be ascribed. The aim is to ascertain whether language shift, from Afrikaans to English has taken place, and which factors appear to encourage or discourage language shift in the two communities. Through the administration of a questionnaire to 50 households, 25 in each of the communities, the study this paper reports on examined language use across a number of domains: at home, in the community, in church, and in the workplace. It also explored the language attitudes of the participants (53 in total) towards Afrikaans in order to investigate the possibility that this language might be used for indexing their identity. The collected data does not provide any evidence of language shift from Afrikaans to English. However, there seems to be increased use of English in the public domains (such as the workplace and in the church), with Afrikaans being used almost exclusively in the intimate domains. It appears that Afrikaans remains a strong marker of identity in the two semi-urban Western Cape Coloured communities, despite English largely being regarded as the language of upward socio-economic mobility.
Highlights
The study reported on in this paper set out to investigate whether language shift is taking place from Afrikaans first language (L1) to English L1, a language often associated with social mobility and work opportunities, in two specific historically Afrikaans Western Cape “Coloured”1 communities that fall outside of the Cape Metropolitan area.58 Alfred Thutloa and Kate HuddlestoneLanguage shift has been observed in a number of contexts and defined in a number of different ways
This section reports on the results of the data collection with particular attention to evidence of language shift or maintenance and the effect of sociolinguistic factors that were observed in the two semi-urban Western Cape communities
This paper reported on a study of language shift in two specific, semi-urban, Western Cape Coloured communities
Summary
The study reported on in this paper set out to investigate whether language shift is taking place from Afrikaans first language (L1) to English L1, a language often associated with social mobility and work opportunities, in two specific historically Afrikaans Western Cape “Coloured” communities that fall outside of the Cape Metropolitan area.58 Alfred Thutloa and Kate HuddlestoneLanguage shift has been observed in a number of contexts and defined in a number of different ways. Reports on the phenomenon of language shift in South Africa have generally focused on the marginalisation of indigenous African languages in favour of English (cf Bekker 2005; De Klerk 2006; Kamwangamalu 2007, 2008). This is not surprising given the country’s previous political dispensation that promoted only English and Afrikaans as official languages. According to the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa Act, No 108 of 1996: Recognising the historically diminished use and status of the indigenous languages of our people, the state must take practical and positive measures to elevate the status and advance the use of these languages
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