Restandardisation in the Direction of a New English: Implications for Access and Equity

Abstract

Numerous commentators have identified the dominance of English as a major challenge to South Africa's language policy, intended to redress past discrimination. This article attempts to show the extent of this threat by depicting the current sociolinguistic order and the role of English in it. For reasons of scope it focuses on one province, KwaZulu-Natal. It suggests that the survey-type studies alone, in depicting a stable Zulu-English diglossia, provide an overly simplistic picture of the sociolinguistic order. The article reports on the findings of studies of naturally-occurring language data that suggest a more diverse and changeable reality. The particular focus here is the processes and consequences of a putative informal restandardisation of StdSAE in the direction of a new English, Black South African English. The article argues that to accurately depict the full extent of such diachronic diversity methodological innovation, in the form of scenario-building techniques, is needed. Using this approach it attempts to assess the potential for this re-standardisation to occur. Finally, it considers the implications of this revised picture of the sociolinguistic order for the issue of equitable access to the society's resources for all South Africans.