32.2007, Review: Sociolinguistics: Kaschula, Wolff (2020)

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LINGUIST List: Vol-32-2007. Wed Jun 09 2021. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 32.2007, Review: Sociolinguistics: Kaschula, Wolff (2020)

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Date: Wed, 09 Jun 2021 21:14:32
From: Shaden Attia [sattia2 at uwo.ca]
Subject: The Transformative Power of Language

 
Discuss this message:
http://linguistlist.org/pubs/reviews/get-review.cfm?subid=36692797


Book announced at http://linguistlist.org/issues/31/31-3585.html

EDITOR: Russell H. Kaschula
EDITOR: H. Ekkehard  Wolff
TITLE: The Transformative Power of Language
SUBTITLE: From Postcolonial to Knowledge Societies in Africa
PUBLISHER: Cambridge University Press
YEAR: 2020

REVIEWER: Shaden Samir Attia, University of Western Ontario

SUMMARY 

The Transformative Power of Language is an edited book by Russell H. Kaschula
and H. Ekkhard Wolff. The book is divided into 4 parts with each part
containing multiple articles in addition to an introductory chapter written by
the editors. The editors offer an excellent introduction which does  only
offers a summary of each and every chapter but also provides  background
information on colonial and postcolonial Africa and the native and
colonial-imported languages used. They provide examples of how other languages
such as German transformed itself into a prestigious and widely used language
and how African languages can do the same. They also underline the ways for
creating an educational system that is multilingual, and how African languages
can find their way to represent Africans’ knowledge and disseminate it using
researchers, poets, reformed educational systems and creating digital portals
in native African languages. The editors also underline the importance of
literacy in Africa and the need for translation into African languages. The
introduction offers an interesting and  comprehensive background on the
situation in Africa which works as a warm-up for the readers and to help those
who are not familiar with the situation in Africa in general and South Africa
in specific to understand what is being discussed. 

Part One of the book “Mental Decolonization and Cultural Diversity” includes 3
articles, and the first article by Thulani Mkhize discusses the need to
decolonize South Africa through the revival and use of African languages and
through viewing them as equals to English. He underlines that this can be
accomplished through education and the incorporation of African languages into
teaching and learning, and he offers different successful examples. He
emphasizes that this would be a first step in decolonising the minds and
highlights the need for curricula that is African-centred and not Eurocentric,
as the European curricula does not fit post-colonial Africa. He finally
emphasizes the need to have African culture reflected in universities and the
need to rid universities of the colonial symbols and statues that represent a
constant reminder  for black students of pain and oppression. The second
chapter connects to the notion of multilingualism, the idea of African-centred
education and mental decolonization. Theordore Rodrigues conducted a study of
engineering students, and he examined the benefits of translanguaging, i.e.,
using more than one language in teaching and learning to help students make
use of all their linguistic repertoire. The results of the study show how
students' understanding improved when they were shown videos of the material
they were studying in their first language using examples from their culture,
and how they felt a sense of inclusion. The third chapter in this part
discusses the decolonization of mind and language, and Mantoa Motinyane
explores how languages reflect attitudes and feelings and can be a means of
control. She underlines the connection between mental and language
decolonization and highlights the need to raise awareness of such relation to
reverse the negative attitudes and images reflected through language. 

The second and longest part of the book is titled “Multilingualism and
Intellectualization of African Language” and it is divided into 6 chapters.
The first chapter by Zakeera Dokrat and Russell H. Kaschula connects to the
first part of the book and highlights the importance of bilingualism and
multilingualism, and explores this through different law cases. The authors
underline contradictions between what policies on languages indicate and what
is applied by universities. They also shed light on the role of the people in
pushing for multilingualism and the role technology can play in improving
higher education by offering students the chance to learn in a language they
can understand and speak.

Along the same line of multilingualism, Emmanuel Sithole and Ziyanda Yola
explore the situation in Zimbabwe and South Africa and underline the
importance of indigenous language in transforming both countries. They
indicate the role of technology as well as the cooperation between both
countries in developing cross-border languages. Finally, they highlight the
need for theory to be put in practice with policies being enacted and creating
a real transformation which can only be accomplished through indigenous
languages. The following chapter by Zakhile Somlata further discusses the
importance of multilingualism and translanguaging and their role in improving
students' understanding and excellence academically. He investigated
linguistic diversity in North-West University (NWU) and Tshwane University of
Technology (TUT) where he found that both universities have similar policies
of inclusion for students speaking different languages; however, these
policies either need further development at TWU, and are not applied at all at
TUT, where  English is used exclusively, . He presents the views of students,
lecturers and members of executive management and offers recommendations at
the end of the chapter to improve the situation at both universities. Chapter
7 focuses on the use of multilingual glossaries to help law students at the
Cape Peninsula University of Technology (CPUT), and the study shows the
benefit of multilingual glossaries in helping students understand the content
which can be difficult to grasp in English. Having online access on and off
campus was beneficial to students and they recommended adding a glossary in
other African and foreign languages. This study confirms yet again the
importance of technology and multilingualism for students and of facilitating
the learning process for them. Multilingualism and multiculturalism are the
core concepts discussed in Chapter 8 where the authors underline the
importance of curricula and the learning and teaching environments that
provide inclusion for students from different cultural and linguistic
backgrounds. The authors underscore the role of educators in providing an
inclusive learning environment that allows learners to prosper through
understanding the students’ culture and language. The final chapter in this
part explores multilingualism in the banking sector and underlines findings
reflected in previous studies in this book on how language policies are not
applied. The author underscores the need for an inclusive educational system
that allows students to use their native African languages up till college to
strengthen their first language skills and boost their confidence in their
native language. 

Digitalization and Democratization of Knowledge is the title of the third part
which includes 4 different articles. The first article discusses the role of
technology in creating African communities of knowledge and information. The
author highlights in the article the role that technology can play in
disseminating African culture, language, literature, etc and how websites such
as Wikipedia can have a big role to play in presenting and preserving African
languages and culture. Chapter 11 further discusses Wikipedia’s role in the
intellectualization of African languages and how South Africans have an
important role as knowledge workers in creating and preserving their native
languages. The article highlights hurdles and opportunities in using
technology and underlines the importance of  bottom-up approaches, like using
Wikipedia, in creating language content, in addition to top-down approaches
represented in language policies. Connected to the idea of creating content to
enable and disseminate South African languages, Langa Khumalo underlines the
importance of corpora in intellectualizing languages.  He highlighted the
amazing work done in the University of KwaZulu-Natal  (UKZN) in creating the
IsiZulu National Corpus (INC) pointing to the vital relation between
computational tools and the development of corpora. The last chapter in this
part also discusses technology and is mainly focused on lexicography and the
creation of digital dictionaries. The chapter offers examples of different
digital dictionaries and calls for the need for more South African
dictionaries which reflect an African-centred version versus a
European-centred one. 

The final part of the book includes 4 different articles under the title
“Interlingual and Intercultural Cross-Fertilization” and the first article in
this section discusses orality and the presence of different forms of
knowledge emphasizing that no form of knowledge is superior to another. It
underlines the importance of orality and how technology can be of great help
to sharing such knowledge with the rest of the world. Finally, the article
reconnects to education, curriculum and technology and the need to digitize
oral languages, traditions and culture to underline the richness of such South
African sources of knowledge. The following chapter by Herculene Kotzé and Kim
Wallmach focuses on interpretation and translation and their role in
decolonization. The authors conducted a systematic literature review
highlighting the research’s focus on translation compared to interpretation
and researchers’ and students’ preferences to publish in English. They
underline the need for multilingualism and creation of South African knowledge
and theories instead of merely using and following European and international
trends in research. Chapter 16 further elaborates on the importance of
translation and the availability of academic texts and articles for both
lecturers and students at the Higher Education Institutes (HEIs) investigating
Rhodes University and focusing on both students’ and lecturers’ perspectives.
The article also draws on the concept of intellectualization of African
languages which can be achieved through translation and the creation of
academic texts in native South African languages. The last chapter in the
section focuses on teaching translation in a foreign language, German in this
case, and underlines the value of using reflective practices to foster
students’ critical thinking and improve language learning. 

EVALUATION

The book presents a great collection of articles focused on language and
higher education with each article providing research background on the topics
discussed and implications for improvement of the current state of education.
The introductory chapter and background information offered in each article
were especially helpful for those with limited information on the South
Afrcian context. The articles are also written by researchers who are either
South African or knowledgeable of the South African context who demonstrate
genuine interest in improving the linguistic situation in South Africa,
offering not only theories but practical suggestions for improvement.In
addition, the chapters highlight possible future research gaps that can
benefit researchers in investigating and possibly assisting in transforming
the linguistic and educational situation in South Africa. 

The chapters in the book are very well-connected to one another not only by
the themes under which they are grouped but also through the authors who are
either native to North Africa, currently living there, or well aware of South
Africa. The articles also flow very well as the first group of articles
discusses mental decolonization and how to decolonize t minds; and then the
second group of articles sheds light on the need for multilingualism and using
African languages to represent knowledge. The following group of articles
discusses knowledge and using and putting African language out there through
digital resources. The final discusses the importance of translation and the
use of students’ first language to learn and academically achieve better. In
addition, the articles provided research and recommendations for different
schools, including law, education and technology. It was interesting how the
editors included articles that tackle language in different fields, e.g.,
education, banking, law and information technology, using different research
methodologies, qualitative and mixed methods. It would have been beneficial
for some of the qualitative articles to include more direct quotes from
participants and not merely provide summaries of what was discussed in the
interviews. In addition, article 14 needed to further discuss education and
curricula in the body of the article instead of leaving the discussion of
these two points to the conclusion. 

Finally, the book  is suitable for different audiences including policy
makers, executive managers, student teachers, and educators, especially those
working in Higher Education Institutes (HEIs) and those working in South
Africa. The language of the book is also accessible and is clear for students
at the undergraduate and graduate levels. The book provides an excellent
starting point for researchers, students and educators who are interested in
themes related to the power of languages in education, inclusion, the
importance of education using the first language and those who are interested
in the South African context or similar contexts.


ABOUT THE REVIEWER

I am a second-year PhD student at the Faculty of Education at the University
of Western Ontario specializing in applied linguistics. I finished an MA in
TESOL and my research interests are adult education, discrimination in
education and TESOL. I plan to continue in academia teaching and conducting
research in the field of education.





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