Professor Carolyn McKinney (University of Cape Town, South Africa): ‘Coloniality of language and pretextual gaps: a case study of emergent bilingual children’s writing in a South African school and a call for ukuzilanda’

Professor Carolyn McKinney (University of Cape Town, South Africa) will give a presentation that will draw on her recently published paper.

‘Coloniality of language and pretextual gaps: a case study of emergent bilingual children’s writing in a South African school and a call for ukuzilanda’
TIME Thursday 27.4.2023 at 16.00 – 17.30
PLACE Arc 112, Arcanum (Vatselankatu 2)

Abstract
Framed by decolonial theory, this paper explores how language and literacy ideologies, including Anglonormativity, or the expectation that children should be proficient in a standardised version of English and are deficient if not, shape language and literacy practices in South African classrooms. While not legitimized, the use of fluid language practices in classroom discourse in the Global South is well documented. Less explored is the impact of language ideologies on children’s written text production. Using the tools of linguistic ethnography, I focus on the literacy practices emergent bilingual children are engaged with in a Natural Science lesson in year 4, the first year of their transition from ‘home language’ language of instruction (LOI) to monolingual English LOI.  A close analysis of the practice of learners making notes in the lesson shows a pretextual gap (Maryns and Blommaert, 2002) between the expectations of the activity: that the children will be proficient in the ‘English’ used for note-making as well as orthography and layout conventions of written notes, and the heterographic writing they are able to produce.  I examine the written products of note-making against a contested history of the use of African languages for writing fiction, and the exclusion of African languages from formal education, thus within a context of coloniality of language.  I argue that the concept of ukuzilanda can inspire the expansion of literacies in African languages in education, enabling us to build from an existing literate and oral tradition.

Keywords: Language Ideologies; English Medium of Instruction (EMI); Anglonormativity; De/Coloniality; Emergent Bilingualism; Writing

Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development https://doi.org/10.1080/01434632.2022.2116452

Carolyn McKinney is a professor in Language Education in the School of Education at University of Cape Town, South Africa.  She describes her research interests followingly: My research and teaching focus on language, literacy and learning in multilingual contexts, with particular interest in the impact of language ideologies.  Current research projects: Decoloniality and Language in Education: delinking and transforming languaging-for-learning