Navigating language: strategies, transitions, and the ‘colonial wound’ in South African education

Abstract

Higher education institutions in South Africa are dominated by English, a result of the colonial history of the country and its education system, a legacy which is intensified by the current dominance of English in higher education worldwide. This paper applies a decolonial theoretical lens to argue that the dominance of English in South African education manifests in the ‘colonial wound’, what Walter Mignolo describes as the damage done by ‘the fact that regions and people around the world have been classified as underdeveloped economically and mentally’. It provides evidence for this argument by analysing a set of ‘language histories’ submitted by students at a prestigious English language university in South Africa. Strategies for educational success described by students include mobility and language shift, yet students find these transitions traumatic. They experience feelings of inferiority in terms of their own languages and social practices, which highlights the pervasiveness of the colonial matrix of power.