Education, Language, and Identity Amongst Students at a South African University

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This article reports on a study of language and cultural identity of mother-tongue Zulu students at an English-medium South African university. The data consist of focus group interviews, questionnaires, and student opinions in essays. Findings include a strong identification of the participants with the Zulu language and Zulu culture, and a view of English variously as a language of settlers that participants are forced to speak for instrumental reasons, or, more positively, as a language useful for education and as a lingua franca. Stigmatisation of those who speak English “too much” was evident. Other findings are that although participants had been educated at nominally English-medium schools, classroom instruction for many was likely to have been in Zulu, with English used only for written work. After 1 year at university, however, students could articulate a clear idea of the kind of writing demanded by university study.