Multilingualism is ‘expanded and strengthened’ in revised Stellenbosch University language policy

The Council of Stellenbosch University (SU) approved the university’s Language Policy 2021, a revision of the university’s 2016 language policy, on 2 December. It will come into effect on 1 January 2022. 

The policy change follows language usage at the university coming under the media and political gaze this year.  

The policy’s practice was scrutinised after allegations emerged in March of an English-only rule being applied during the welcoming period at some university residences (read here and here and here). 

While the university held that there was no blanket ban on Afrikaans and that the incidents were resolved through internal and external investigations, similar allegations became the catalyst for a South African Human Rights Commission (SAHRC) inquiry.

The SAHRC is preparing a report on its inquiry, said spokesperson Gushwell Brooks. No findings have yet been made and it is unlikely that more inquiry sittings will occur, Brooks said.

“Our investigation has not yet determined a direct link between the language policy and the language practices of the residences being investigated, nor were the complaints received and herein investigated worded as complaints about the language policy itself.” 

While the SAHRC inquiry found no direct link  between policy and practice, more allegations were heard in a documentary released in June by the student organisation StudentePlein.

The documentary was titled Listen — a play on the documentary Luister, released during the time of the Fees Must Fall movement (read here and here), which centred on the exclusion of African students due to the role of Afrikaans at the university.

Now, the revised policy has been approved, but its content has not changed significantly. 

The policy must still satisfy a diverse cohort of students, and so multilingualism is still the bedrock of the policy. 

“But in the new policy it is expanded and strengthened,” said Dr Leslie van Rooi, senior director for social impact and transformation at the university.

The new year will test how the revised policy fares in practice. 

A sum of the pages 

The university’s institutional commitment remains to Afrikaans, English and isiXhosa, but the revised policy opens the door for other languages by means of “translanguaging”. 

This allows students to use whichever language resource they have to communicate effectively, which should not exclude or limit communication to one language. 

Now, learning spaces — for example, tutorials, workshops, consultations —  are flexible spaces where translanguaging can take place, while English and Afrikaans are the primary languages for learning and teaching.

This is different from the 2016 policy, which had stipulated that “Afrikaans and English are SU’s languages of learning and teaching”.

Van Rooi said this change allowed for a more spontaneous and informal use and interpretation of different languages to take place “amid mutual respect and tolerance for different language abilities”. 

This is in line with an addition to the policy that discloses what the university means by “multilingualism”.

The policy distinguishes between institutional multilingualism, which speaks to the spaces that encourage multilingualism to take place, and individual multilingualism, where individuals initiate communication in more than one language. 

“It is therefore a multilingualism that speaks not only to the mind, but also to the heart,” said Van Rooi. 

The policy still offers, where “reasonably practicable”, separate lectures in Afrikaans and English.

Faculties may motivate for an exemption from the policy’s provisions, but this must be in line with the principles of the policy and it must be justified by the resources, pedagogical issues or faculty-specific considerations at the university.

In the revised policy the use of Afrikaans, English, and isiXhosa — which will now be phased into official communication at the university — is aligned with the Language Policy Framework for Public Higher Education Institutions and the university’s Vision 2040.

The revised policy is also explicit that the principles of the language policy — multilingualism, inclusion, access and success — must apply in all spaces, including residences.

In residences, language must be used in such a way that all students can engage and participate, the policy stipulates.

Quenching the controversy? 

Some student groups are not happy with the revisions. 

It was under the same residence clause, which should be interpreted as a clause encouraging multilingualism and linguistic freedom, “that students were told to speak English only during welcoming”, said Frederik van Dyk, director of StudentePlein. “We fear this policy will simply continue the Anglicisation train.” 

Sentiments over the Anglicisation of language policy at the university have been shared with the Democratic Alliance and the DAK Netwerk, which, during the policy’s year-long revision process, held protests and initiated petitions calling for Afrikaans to have equal status with English at the university.

“SU remains committed to Afrikaans as a medium of instruction and communication in an inclusive multilingual context — one of the few institutions of higher education in our multilingual, diverse country that follows this approach. 

“SU still believes that its students have more choices, greater access and a better future, thanks to its approach to language,” Van Rooi said. 

The policy must be informed by what is reasonably practicable, considering student benefits from the arrangement; the language proficiency of staff and students; the university’s resource, timetable and venue constraints; and the competitive claims on resources, said Van Rooi. 

Yet, according to Van Dyk, “There are still escape clauses that make it easy for the institution to make a multilingual offering subservient to such a host of factors that the presence of academic multilingualism, apart from the constant English offering, will necessarily be erratic.” 

Van Dyk said it was problematic that policy still allowed for student demand to determine language offering. 

The revised policy continued to further “the national fiction that multilingualism in our society is in a healthy and sustainable state”, he said. 

Viwe Kobokana, the university’s Students’ Representative Council chairperson, said her council agreed with the context wherein the policy was functioning, adding that available data indicated that students were not opposed to the revised policy.

“A policy regulating language offering must attempt to create inclusive practices whilst still promoting the multilingualism that contributes to students’ identities,” she said, admitting that while it is a “lofty goal”, it requires compromise to be practical.

“We, however, believe strongly that these policy compromises should be done only when needed and that the advancement of isiXhosa and Afrikaans should not be neglected purely in favour of vague practicality reasoning in the policy’s implementation,” Kobokana said.

She said translanguaging could be an effective approach for teaching, but that it was “an ambitious idea that is not currently prescribed, but merely encouraged.

“We will therefore wait and see if it is truly the pedagogical tool it is made to be when used in the academic spaces or whether it is just a buzzword used institutionally, but not advanced practically in the lecture halls,” she said. DM

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