The Attitude of Black People of Hammanskraal Towards Afrikaans and Changes in This Regard: a Sociolinguistic and Cultural Studies Approach
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THE ATTITUDE OF BLACK PEOPLE OF HAMMANSKRAAL TOWARDS AFRIKAANS AND CHANGES IN THIS REGARD: A SOCIOLINGUISTIC AND CULTURAL STUDIES APPROACH by Piet Thapedi Shiburi A thesis submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree DPhil in Linguistics in the Department of Afrikaans at the UNIVERSITY OF PRETORIA SUPERVISOR: PROFESSOR C.H.F. OHLHOFF November 2019 © University of Pretoria SUMMARY This explorative, qualitative study examines the attitude of Black people of Hammanskraal towards Afrikaans. The role that Afrikaans plays in this attitude was looked at. Qualitative research methodology was employed. Mixed method approach was also considered. Qualitative research is used to explore and understand people’s beliefs, attitudes and behaviour as well as interactions. The findings of this study revealed that respondents’ attitude towards Afrikaans was generally negative. Possible reasons are the severe impact of apartheid policies on Black people and the negative attitude of the Boeremag towards them. The introduction of Afrikaans in 1976 as the medium of instruction in Black schools played a major role in forming this attitude. A number of recommendations were made to address the negative attitude towards Afrikaans. The following key concepts were identified by the researcher: culture, behaviour, language, attitude, language planning, language policy, corpus planning, status planning, conceptual analysis and relational analysis. The researcher employed the following to collect data: structured interviews, newspaper articles and stories told by respondents. The researcher interviewed 60 male and female respondents, including young people, middle-aged people and old people with a sample of convenience. Narrative analysis and content analysis were employed as methods of analysis. This thesis listed keywords from newspaper articles, analysed and interpreted them by using conceptual content analysis, relational content analysis and interpretive content analysis. Stories told by respondents were also presented and interpreted. The significance of the role that attitudes play in language education, planning and development was examined in this study, which also investigated the importance of language policy and the dimensions of language planning and looked at the historical overview. The following four functions for an individual’s attitudes that have important implications for attitude change were investigated: the instrumental function, the ego- defensive function, the value-expressive function and the knowledge function. This thesis also paid attention to classical conditioning, reinforcement and operant conditioning, human modelling, consistency and self-justification, age changes, ii © University of Pretoria dramatic experiences, community effects, parental effects, peer group effects, institutional effect, mass media effects, rituals and situational effects. The two theoretical approaches relevant to a study of language attitudes, namely, the behaviourist view and the mentalist view were examined. The cognitive component, the effective component and the action or conative component (the main components of attitudes) were brought into focus. iii © University of Pretoria DECLARATION I hereby declare that this thesis is my own work and effort and that it has not been submitted anywhere for any other degree. Where other sources of information have been used, they have been acknowledged. Signature Piet Thapedi Shiburi Date: 28 November 2019 iv © University of Pretoria KEY CONCEPTS 1. Culture 2. Behaviour 3. Language 4. Attitude 5. Language planning 6. Language policy 7. Corpus planning 8. Status planning 9. Conceptual analysis 10. Relational analysis 11. Afrikaans 12. Hammanskraal v © University of Pretoria ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would first like to thank my thesis supervisor Professor Heinrich Ohlhoff. The door to Professor Ohlhoff’s office was always open whenever I ran into a trouble spot or had a question about my research. He consistently allowed this research to be my own work but steered me in the right direction whenever he thought I needed it. I would also like to thank the following experts from the Department of Statistics at the University of Pretoria for their passionate support and input during this research project: Dr Lizelle Fletcher, Dr Judy Kleyn and Ms Joyce Jordaan. I would also like to thank Professor Willie Burger for his valuable support. I would also like to acknowledge the support of Ms Tracey Andrew and Mr Vincent Sithole. I would also like to thank Ms Machoene Kwebu, for her contribution. I must express my profound gratitude to my mother, to the whole Shiburi family and to my fiancée Lebogang (“Tshidi”) for providing me with unfailing support and continuous encouragement throughout my years of study and during the process of researching and writing this thesis. This accomplishment would not have been possible without them. Thank you. Piet Thapedi Shiburi vi © University of Pretoria TABLE OF CONTENTS SUMMARY ........................................................................................................................... ii DECLARATION ................................................................................................................... iv KEY CONCEPTS .................................................................................................................. v ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS .................................................................................................... vi TABLE OF CONTENTS ..................................................................................................... vii CHAPTER 1: ORIENTATION OF THE RESEARCH ...................................................... 1 1.1 Introduction ......................................................................................................... 1 1.2 Problem Statement .............................................................................................. 2 1.3 Research Question .............................................................................................. 2 1.4 Sub-Questions..................................................................................................... 3 1.5 Rationale ............................................................................................................. 4 1.6 Objectives ........................................................................................................... 8 1.7 Chapter Outline ................................................................................................... 8 1.8 Summary ............................................................................................................. 8 CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW .......................................................................... 10 2.1 Introduction ....................................................................................................... 10 2.2 Analysis and Interpretation of the Literature ...................................................... 10 2.2.1 The concept attitude ...................................................................................... 10 2.3 Language Attitudes ........................................................................................... 11 2.3.1 Functional theory ........................................................................................... 25 2.3.1.1 The utilitarian or instrumental function ........................................................ 25 2.3.1.2 The ego-defensive function ........................................................................ 26 2.3.1.3 Value-expressive function .......................................................................... 26 2.3.1.4 Knowledge function .................................................................................... 27 2.3.2 Language planning ........................................................................................ 37 2.3.3 Language policy ............................................................................................. 59 2.3.3.1 Language policy of the National Department of Health ............................... 61 2.3.3.2 Language policy of the National Department of Public Service and Administration ...................................................................................... 62 2.3.3.3 Language policy of the National Department of Arts and Culture ................ 63 2.3.3.4 Language policy of the National Department of Basic Education ................ 63 2.3.3.5 Language policy of the City of Tshwane ..................................................... 64 2.3.3.6 Language policy of the Ekurhuleni Metropolitan Municipality ...................... 65 2.3.3.7 Language policy of the Council for the Built Environment ........................... 65 2.3.3.8 Language policy of Umalusi ....................................................................... 66 2.3.3.9 Language policy of Freedom Park .............................................................. 66 2.4 Historical Overview ............................................................................................ 67 2.4.1 The Frontier ................................................................................................... 67 vii © University of Pretoria 2.4.2 The Great Trek and the Boer War .................................................................. 68 2.4.3 The 1924 elections ........................................................................................ 68 2.4.4 The 1948 elections .......................................................................................