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Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781847690463 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Multilingual Matters Ltd. |
| Publication date: | 01/17/2008 |
| Series: | Multilingual Matters , #139 |
| Pages: | 248 |
| Product dimensions: | 5.85(w) x 8.25(h) x 0.75(d) |
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CHAPTER 1
Prolegomena to the Sociolinguistics of Development
Western culture has made, through language, a provisional analysis of reality and, without corrective, holds resolutely to that analysis as final; the only correctives lie in all those other tongues which by aeons of independent evolution have arrived at different, but equally logical provisional analyses.
Whorf (1956: 244)
In broader terms, Africa that acknowledges its ethno-linguistic pluralism and accepts this as a normal way of life and as a rich resource for development and progress.
'Vision for Africa' – The Harare Declaration (UNESCO, 2006)
Introduction
The interfaces between sub-Saharan Africa and the rest of the world have been, and still are, painful. In almost all cases (agriculture, trade, health, technologies, immigration), they present a negative balance. Indeed, everything pertaining to Africa is seen as a problem: its demography, its economy, its political systems, its languages. However, the most painful and absurd interface between Africa and the rest of the world is the language question, and the crucial nexus between language and development. In an age of globalisation, many find it difficult to understand the need for continuing to problematise and reflect on the issue of language in Africa. So much so that it is very hard to argue the case for the maintenance of African languages, let alone their development. It is even harder to generate interest in language policy issues about and on the African continent. Why is this so?
First, the African linguistic situation is genuinely a complex one: multilingualism is normal for the majority of the African population and language diversity is a feature of almost every country on the continent. Language policies, when they exist, vary considerably from one country to another, and the prevailing view around the world and in Africa is still that this continent is awash with a plethora of languages, the speech communities of which can hardly understand one another. Secondly, most African languages lack international currency and are put under severe strain by the languages of the former colonisers that arguably offer the African people economic and scientific advantages not available to them through their own languages. Thirdly, after independence, the hangover of colonial approaches to multilingualism has led many African countries to promote the use of European languages, to the detriment of the languages actually known and used by the majority of the people. Despite the occasional rhetoric about their importance, African languages have, until recently, been neglected and downgraded in almost all cases, as development intervention and pedagogical practices in education have been subordinated to the search for a way around the linguistic diversity of African countries (Robinson, 1996). Former British colonies by and large used local languages as languages of instruction in the first few years of education, whilst former French, Belgian and Portuguese colonies maintained French and Portuguese as the sole languages of instruction throughout the school system. These European languages, in essence the languages of power and high status functioning as boundary markers of socio-economic opportunity and mobility, largely excluded and still marginalise the vast majority of Africans from various aspects of everyday life that are considered the pillars of development. Indeed, knowledge of a European language is the sine qua non condition for higher education and socio-economic success, and African societies are currently split between those who speak the language of power and those who do not – a division that mirrors the dichotomy between literate versus illiterate, educated versus uneducated, urban versus rural, rich versus poor. And yet current language policies and practices show no real willingness to break away fromthe colonial systems, as many African governments seem hell-bent on pursuing the colonial practices and refuse to innovate in favour of mass education. Hence, 50 years on, the historical legacy still prevails (Bamgbose, 1991:70-–71), and the current situation can be summed up as follows:
(1) timid or no use of local languages as media of instruction;
(2) dominant or exclusive use of the language of the former coloniser at all levels of education.
As a result, in most of Africa, one European language (English, French or Portuguese) always plays the most important role, at least in the official domain and mainly in the urban centres, placing those who are not proficient in European languages at a considerable disadvantage, and pushing majorities into separate and artificial existence. Comprehension and active use of French, English or Portuguese, the 'cultural [and economic] capital' seldom exceed 20% of the population and remain 'unattainable' for the rest (Alexander, 2000). This lack of proficiency in the official language is a powerful obstacle to individual and collective socio-economic improvement, as the majority of the people have no access to education, decent housing and health, and are denied full and active participation in the running of the affairs of state, simply because they cannot speak the official language.
Alexander (2005: 520) notes that Africa's linguistic dependence on Europe (Mazrui & Mazrui, 1998) was most apparent when the outgoing chairperson of the African Union (AU), Joaquim Chissano of Mozambique, caused a stir when he addressed the assembled Heads of States in KiSwahili, although it had already been resolved that KiSwahili would be one of the working languages of the AU. And there were even more rumblings in the audience when the incoming chairperson, Olusegun Obasanjo of Nigeria, proceeded to address the audience in Arabic, which has been an official language of the Organisation for African Union and the AUfor a long time (BBC News, 2004). This supports the view of Mazrui and Mazrui when they write:
[an] important source of intellectual dependence in Africa is the language in which African graduates and scholars are taught ... in non-Arabic-speaking Africa, a modern surgeon who does not speak a European language is virtually a sociolinguistic impossibility ... [A] conference of African scientists, devoted to scientific matters and conducted primarily in an African language, is not yet possible ... It is because of the above considerations that intellectual and scientific dependence in Africa may be inseparable from linguistic dependence. The linguistic quest for liberation must seek to promote African languages, especially in academia, as one of the strategies for promoting greater intellectual and scientific independence from the West. (Mazrui & Mazrui, 1998: 64–65)
The fundamental question has therefore always been, and still is, about the nexus between language and development. What, for example, is the most appropriate language(s) for disseminating information to the masses about health and hygiene and, most importantly, about preventive measures against diseases such as malaria, tuberculosis and HIV/AIDS? What is the most appropriate language(s) for passing on to farmers relevant information on the efficient and safe use of fertilisers and pesticides, or practical information on high-yield varieties of crops and cattle, techniques for stocking ponds, fish conservation and processing, rivers and artificial lakes, appropriate planting seasons, irrigation techniques and techniques for the preservation of land and soils? Quite simply, Africa cannot continue to ignore her own languages. Fifty years after colonisation began to come to an end, it is abundantly clear that the imposition of the languages of the former colonisers in the crucial areas of education, health, the economy and governance has failed to meet local needs.
The aim of this chapter is to separate facts from fiction, and to disentangle the language question in Africa from articles of faith passing for theoretical frameworks which, despite the appearance of intellectual complexity, are narrow and self-serving, because they fail to fully appreciate the complexities of language diversity. Nothing short of the full participation of the majority of its human capital will bring significant and lasting change to Africa; for, 50 years on, the solution to empowering the masses in Africa clearly does not lie in making everyone fluent in the languages of the former colonisers (i.e. English, French, Portuguese or Spanish). The issues raised in this chapter are:
(1) the assumptions underlying the rhetoric behind the marginalisation of African languages;
(2) the actual sociolinguistic picture of Africa, not just in terms of the number of languages, but in terms of the over-arching patterns of actual use, roles and statuses of these languages;
(3) whether language is neutral in the pursuit of development. In other words, can development be achieved in any language? Can civic information be efficiently disseminated? How much does the average citizen know about his/her country's political processes? Is the paucity of newspapers in local languages an impediment to political debate? What, in the final analysis, is development? Is the lack of development in Africa in fact an absence of solidarity?
What is Development?
Development, for the layperson, is quite simply finding solutions to everyday problems which human beings face, and improving their living conditions. In his Inaugural Address of January 20, 1949, after the devastation ofWorldWar II, US President Harry S. Truman described his thinking of Development Assistance as '... making the benefits of our scientific advances and industrial progress available for the improvement and growth of underdeveloped areas' (Truman, 1949). In other words, development was to be a process of transferring technical capability or expertise to stimulate local food production and industrial infrastructure. The developed world engaged in this process of transfer of know-how in Africa, seeking to replicate well-known and tried processes. This was inevitable, since economic theories of development and modernisation before the Asian boom (Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, and now India and China) were mostly Euro-centric. Over time, it became abundantly clear to some that Africa's cultural and socio-historical circumstances are different, and that the paths to development on the continent may differ fromthose of the Western world. What are some of these cultural and socio-historical circumstances? Do they really matter?
All economic studies look at development in terms of the general level of education, the critical indicators of health, the growth of the economy and, most recently, good governance. The connection between language and development did not always feature in these studies, in part because development was first conceived as moral progress for 'primitive' or 'oral' societies. Yet economic history cannot be explained on the basis of economic factors alone; and language, being part and parcel of all spheres of life – thought processes, communication, education, health, the economy and good governance – cannot be excluded from economic history.
Development in Africa is often defined in technocratic terms that do not take language into account and hence marginalise the majority of the people, their concerns and legitimate aspirations, even though Africa is beset by a number of development issues that are language-related. Most approaches to development in Africa put the emphasis on economic growth, measured by traditional indicators such as the gross domestic product or the gross national product, and this is reflected in the definition of development one can draw from the practices of the Bretton Woods Institutions over the past six decades, namely, that development means export led growth through structural adjustment, because for a long time development was determined by way of quantitative constructs such as gross national product, gross domestic product, growth and/or inflation rates and income per capita. It was thought that technology (e.g. the green revolution), the economy (e.g. import substitution or comparative advantage theories), politics and the economy (e.g. the dependency theory, which sees a dependency link between politics and the economy), and/or demography were key factors of development policies.
Complicating matters further is the confusion created under the criteria of the World Trade Organisation (WTO), where there is a certain degree of selection and interpretation of meaning of the terms 'developed' and 'developing' country, as countries choose to be either 'developed', 'developing' or 'least developed', because each of these statuses in the WTO brings certain rights and privileges. For instance, developing countries have the privilege of receiving technical assistance or the benefit from the Generalised System of Preferences (GSP) provided by developed countries (although it is the preference-giving country that decides which developing country will benefit from these preferences).
Development is therefore generally accepted as a moral evidence, universal aspiration and historical necessity. After nearly half a century of political independence, it has become painfully clear that development is certainly not the result of a quiet and easy stroll, inexorably promised to all. This is in part because, for far too long, development was an idea from developed countries 'projected', as it were, towards non-developed countries. Unfortunately, development in African countries was perceived by many as the hoarding of material wealth and consumerism, whilst the necessary changes of the productive social and organisational structures were overlooked. This kind of development has proven illusory for the majority. The current state of affairs in Africa clearly shows that there is something fundamentally wrong in this sort of approach and that one cannot set developmental goals that ignore the attributes and peculiarities of the target population.
This approach to development was first called into question in a report published in 1975 by the Dag Hammarskjöld Foundation, as it became clear that communication is crucial in the process of technical or technology transfer. The report argued that, in order to be sustainable, development had to effect changes at three levels; namely: (1) at the level of the actors, (2) at the level of the methods used, and (3) at the level of the aims and objectives of the process. The report also stressed the need for a 'bottom-up' or participative approach to development, in which the target population and non-governmental organisations would become the main actors in development planning and projects. It was acknowledged that no one factor can define, account for or shape the development process, and that a shift had to be made from mono-causal and mechanistic theories of development to more holistic approaches, with the introduction of the 'human development indicator' encompassing several related development indicators. This type of development had to be firmly based on local knowledge and aimed at meeting local needs and aspirations. Languages are the cornerstones of communication and progress, and examining human development means examining how the communicative, and hence linguistic, dimension of development is understood. Participatory methods were therefore initiated, with a view to involving people in the identification and resolution of their own problems, and this gave rise to a number of methods of data collection, such as the Rapid Rural Appraisal (RRA), the Participatory Rural Appraisals (PRA) and the Participatory Learning and Action (PLA), all of which recognised the need to listen to the people and to share knowledge. The Participatory Rural Communication Appraisals (PRCA), a modified form of PRA, were also developed to focus on communications systems and improvement of communication sharing among all the stakeholders. The PRCA is a communication research method that uses field-based visualisation techniques, interviews and group discussions to generate information for the design of effective communication programmes, materials, media and methods for development purposes. Needless to say, the PRCA requires the use of a shared language, and in rural and remote areas, an African language, to ensure, as the name of the method suggests, the full participation of the people in the process of needs analysis, problems identification, possible solutions, understanding of the scientific, technical and developmental issues and, most importantly, the relevance to and sense of ownership by the people involved in such a process (Anyaegbunam et al, 2001: 18). Language in the PRCA serves as a vehicle for active participation of all the shareholders in the development process and influences decision-making.
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "The Sociolinguistics of Development in Africa"
by .
Copyright © 2008 Paulin G. Djité.
Excerpted by permission of Multilingual Matters.
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Table of Contents
AcknowledgementsForeword
Introduction
Chapter 1: Prolegomena to the Sociolinguistics of Development in Africa
Chapter 2: Language, Education and Development
Chapter 3: Language, Health and Development
Chapter 4: Language, the Economy and Development
Chapter 5: Language, Governance and Development
Conclusion
Endnotes
Bibliography