Abstract
The education system and teaching materials, such as Afrikaans language textbooks, have historically played an instrumental role in language planning initiatives for the standardisation of Afrikaans. More than a mere written presentation of a set of facts, textbooks are conceived, designed and written by people with vested interests and should be viewed as a product of political, economic and cultural actions (Apple and Smith (eds) 1991:1–2; Kalmus 2003:8). Accordingly, Nel (1943:190–1) argued that teaching plans should be employed to ensure the “pure transmission” of the Afrikaans language and culture to the child. Various Afrikaans language teaching materials such as Die opkoms van Afrikaans as kultuurtaal (1958), Dit was ons erns (1962), Ons moedertaal (1979), and Afrikaans my taal (1981), were used to create an Afrikaner hegemony around Standard Afrikaans by stigmatising and delegitimising other varieties of Afrikaans, like Kaapse Afrikaans and Oranjerivierafrikaans (Esterhuyse 1985:20; Van Oort 2008:168–89; Basson 2022a:124–7). With the impending dawn of democracy in the late 1980s, linguists, activists, and role players in the education sector increasingly argued that Standard Afrikaans should undergo a renewal or a reorientation which should aim to disentangle the language from the Afrikaner ideology and establish an inclusive standard variety. Despite enthusiasm for an inclusive Standard Afrikaans, the varied interpretations of the concept of restandardisation have led to confusion about how such a restandardisation project should be undertaken. Consequently, practical proposals for how to undertake the restandardisation of Afrikaans are scant.
Given the historical role of Afrikaans language textbooks in language planning initiatives for Afrikaans alongside Haugen’s (1987:631) view that language renewal should be undertaken by educational institutions, Basson (2022b:775) believes that Afrikaans language textbooks offer productive possibilities to legitimise Kaapse Afrikaans, which in turn would advance the restandardisation of Afrikaans. By using Odendaal’s (2012:462) restandardisation framework, Basson (2022b:775–87) illustrates how the inclusion of Kaapse Afrikaans idiomatic expressions in Afrikaans language textbooks can advance the restandardisation of Afrikaans.
A key requirement of a restandardisation project is to conduct an evaluation of existing standardisation tools (here: Afrikaans language textbooks) to gauge the extent to which these tools meet the contextual requirements of a restandardisation project. Basson (2024) therefore conducted a contextual evaluation of two Afrikaans language textbooks to determine to what degree these textbooks advance and promote the democratisation of Afrikaans. Based on his analysis, Basson (2024) points out that neither textbook sufficiently portrays the heterogeneous socio-cultural nature of the Afrikaans speech community; the included literary texts are written almost exclusively in Standard Afrikaans; the authors of both the included literary texts and the textbooks themselves are predominantly white; and both textbooks fall short of adequately including Kaapse Afrikaans language forms in the textbooks and presenting them as equivalent to the standard variety.
To begin to address the gaps identified in the aforementioned Afrikaans language textbooks, I designed and presented an original lesson series to role players involved in the teaching and learning of Afrikaans in order to determine what contribution the inclusion of Kaapse Afrikaans idioms in a lesson series could make to the democratisation of Afrikaans. In this article I present an empirical investigation that comprises a practical application of the status planning, corpus planning, prestige planning, and renewal stages of Basson’s (2022b:781–5) restandardisation proposals. Furthermore, the article reports on the implementation of and feedback on the reception of Basson’s (2022b:781–5) restandardisation proposals.
I begin the article by shedding light on the design of the lesson series. In this discussion, I outline the necessary decision-making underpinning the design of the lesson series within the specific stages of the restandardisation framework (status or corpus planning) and show how the proposals correlate with the requirements for language teaching as set out in the Department of Basic Education’s Curriculum and Assessment Policy Statement (CAPS). Thereafter, I shift my focus to the prestige planning stage, during which I designed and conducted an empirical investigation. The empirical investigation follows a mixed-methods research design, which consists of semi-structured interviews with three subject advisors, a focus group interview with the Afrikaans subject groups at two high schools, and questionnaires given to one grade 9 class at each of the two high schools.
Despite the deliberate design to include all role players involved in the teaching and learning of Afrikaans, the focus group interviews with both groups of teachers did not go as planned. After providing the teachers with more background on the subject of the study, I found that the teachers at both schools had a spontaneous and emotionally charged response. Consequently, I could not ask them the questions that I had prepared for the interviews. The findings of the study are thus based largely on the interviews with the subject advisors and the questionnaires given to the learners.
Based on the discussion of the data, the participants’ responses indicate that the inclusion of Kaapse Afrikaans idiomatic expressions could make a valuable contribution to the restandardisation of Standard Afrikaans. The participants believe that the current Standard Afrikaans continues to alienate Kaapse Afrikaans-speaking learners. According to the participants, the inclusion of Kaapse Afrikaans in a textbook is the appropriate way to dismantle the stigmas attached to Kaapse Afrikaans. The participants believe that the lesson series could help with the destigmatisation of Kaapse Afrikaans and foster a linguistic pride and a sense of belonging among Kaapse Afrikaans-speaking learners. Furthermore, the participants believe that the inclusion of such a lesson series could expand the vocabulary of Standard Afrikaans. The participants’ responses indicate that the lesson series could broaden Afrikaans speakers’ knowledge of the language norms and rules of Kaapse Afrikaans and help to normalise Kaapse Afrikaans and present it as equivalent to Standard Afrikaans.
When looking at the focus group interviews with the teachers, one notices that there is a stark difference between the various teachers’ reactions to the lesson series. One group of teachers is absolutely opposed to the inclusion of Kaapse Afrikaans, and the other group of teachers expresses a great deal of frustration with the way in which the current standard variety affects specifically Kaapse Afrikaans-speaking learners’ academic performance and self-esteem. Some of the reasons for the teachers’ opposition to the inclusion of Kaapse Afrikaans are related to race and language, language prescriptivism, power relations, and the upholding of negative stereotypes about Kaapse Afrikaans.
During the empirical study, the participants provided a number of suggestions for adjustments to the lesson series. These suggestions, combined with the findings in the discussion of data, form the renewal stage of Basson’s (2022b:781–5) restandardisation proposals. An important issue that must be investigated further is the influence of teachers’ personal language ideologies on efforts for language renewal or linguistic democratisation. Teachers’ personal language ideologies can play a significant role in the success of any project that aims to democratise Afrikaans. Therefore, it is important that prestige planning for the restandardisation of Afrikaans should focus more sharply on teachers. One way this can be done is through workshops that focus on specific themes, e.g. the history of Afrikaans and the injustices surrounding the standardisation of Afrikaans. Additionally, any lack of clarity with regard to the implementation of these proposals should be addressed. Regarding the lesson series, the participants felt that the lesson series should be longer and that a variety of additional reading texts written in Kaapse Afrikaans should be included in the lesson series. Furthermore, the participants – in particular the learners – felt that the lesson series should include more writing assessments where learners are allowed to use Kaapse Afrikaans. The learners also felt that more Kaapse Afrikaans words should be used throughout the lesson series.
Keywords: Cape Afrikaans; democratisation; Kaapse Afrikaans; language attitudes; language teaching; legitimise; restandardisation; Standard Afrikaans; standardisation; standard variety; textbooks