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Relanguaging language in English(ing) classrooms in Khayelitsha South Africa
Institutional language teaching is built on the assumption that languages exist as homogeneous entities and is aimed at the mastery of standardised codes. In this view, English teaching in South African township schools is failing. Learners (and teachers) underperform in standardised English tests a...
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| Format: | Thesis |
| Language: | English |
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School of Languages and Literatures
2020
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| _version_ | 1867614509726695424 |
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| access_status_str | Open Access |
| author | Krause, Lara-Stephanie |
| author2 | Dowling, Tessa |
| author_browse | Dowling, Tessa Krause, Lara-Stephanie |
| author_facet | Dowling, Tessa Krause, Lara-Stephanie |
| author_sort | Krause, Lara-Stephanie |
| collection | Thesis |
| description | Institutional language teaching is built on the assumption that languages exist as homogeneous entities and is aimed at the mastery of standardised codes. In this view, English teaching in South African township schools is failing. Learners (and teachers) underperform in standardised English tests and are repeatedly described – by stakeholders in schooling and by scholars of language in education – as ‘ cut off’ from standard linguistic norms needed for success beyond the township. But is linguistic deficit all we can find in township English classrooms, given that the day-to-day language practices in these settings are known to be heterogeneous, flexible and creative? I begin here by taking this local linguistic heterogeneity seriously, asking: What does language education in Khayelitsha look like through a lens that is not a priori structured by separate, homogenised languages? In the first part of this thesis I develop such an analytical lens. I begin by committing not to use some key linguistic terms that imply a view of languages as discrete, homogeneous entities. I then engage with (trans)languaging literature and the inchoative sociolinguistic notion of ‘spatial repertoires’, conceptualising ‘languaging’ for my purposes as a spatial practice, with which speakers draw on and transform elements of spatial repertoires. This spatial perspective doesn’t allow for surface-level categorisation of linguistic phenomena. It demands instead fine-grained, situated analyses that I conduct with tools from Bantu linguistics, conversation analysis and ethnography, on data from participant observation, recorded classroom talk, a learners’ writing task and teacher interviews. Rather than training the spotlight on the alleged lack of Standard English, I show the Khayelitshan English classroom to be a space of specific linguistic possibilities, ordered by teachers through a linguistic sorting practice I call relanguaging. This practice instantiates teachers’ negotiations of Khayelitshan heterogeneous linguistic realities, and the demands of a centralised curriculum and testing system, in the classroom. Learners are also shown to be ‘relanguagers’, who display complex linguistic sorting processes in their writing, juggling what I find to be an oversupply rather than an undersupply of standard linguistic norms. My empirical findings and my conceptualisation of relanguaging, which develops and complexifies throughout this thesis, allow me to systematically unsettle a construction of linguistic hetero- and homogeneity as mutually exclusive. This comes with a theoretical critique of ‘translanguaging’ as a linguistic descriptor that, in my view, reifies a dichotomy between fluid languaging and fixed standard languages. As a result, it makes us overlook the relationality in practice regarding these two dimensions of language and the complexities that result therefrom. With the dichotomy between languaging and languages dissolved, I end by proposing ways of testing for Standard English beyond its own confines, i.e. to test for increasingly sophisticated linguistic sorting skills instantiated in emergent englishing. |
| format | Thesis |
| id | oai:open.uct.ac.za:11427/31726 |
| institution | University of Cape Town (South Africa) |
| language | eng |
| last_indexed | 2026-06-10T12:53:10.874Z |
| license_str | Not specified — see source repository |
| provenance_str_mv | Harvested via OAI-PMH from UCTD — University of Cape Town Open Access Repository |
| publishDate | 2020 |
| publishDateRange | 2020 |
| publishDateSort | 2020 |
| publisher | School of Languages and Literatures |
| publisherStr | School of Languages and Literatures |
| record_format | dspace |
| source_str | UCTD — University of Cape Town Open Access Repository |
| spelling | oai:open.uct.ac.za:11427/31726 Relanguaging language in English(ing) classrooms in Khayelitsha South Africa Krause, Lara-Stephanie Dowling, Tessa Beck, Rose Marie Languages and Literatures Institutional language teaching is built on the assumption that languages exist as homogeneous entities and is aimed at the mastery of standardised codes. In this view, English teaching in South African township schools is failing. Learners (and teachers) underperform in standardised English tests and are repeatedly described – by stakeholders in schooling and by scholars of language in education – as ‘ cut off’ from standard linguistic norms needed for success beyond the township. But is linguistic deficit all we can find in township English classrooms, given that the day-to-day language practices in these settings are known to be heterogeneous, flexible and creative? I begin here by taking this local linguistic heterogeneity seriously, asking: What does language education in Khayelitsha look like through a lens that is not a priori structured by separate, homogenised languages? In the first part of this thesis I develop such an analytical lens. I begin by committing not to use some key linguistic terms that imply a view of languages as discrete, homogeneous entities. I then engage with (trans)languaging literature and the inchoative sociolinguistic notion of ‘spatial repertoires’, conceptualising ‘languaging’ for my purposes as a spatial practice, with which speakers draw on and transform elements of spatial repertoires. This spatial perspective doesn’t allow for surface-level categorisation of linguistic phenomena. It demands instead fine-grained, situated analyses that I conduct with tools from Bantu linguistics, conversation analysis and ethnography, on data from participant observation, recorded classroom talk, a learners’ writing task and teacher interviews. Rather than training the spotlight on the alleged lack of Standard English, I show the Khayelitshan English classroom to be a space of specific linguistic possibilities, ordered by teachers through a linguistic sorting practice I call relanguaging. This practice instantiates teachers’ negotiations of Khayelitshan heterogeneous linguistic realities, and the demands of a centralised curriculum and testing system, in the classroom. Learners are also shown to be ‘relanguagers’, who display complex linguistic sorting processes in their writing, juggling what I find to be an oversupply rather than an undersupply of standard linguistic norms. My empirical findings and my conceptualisation of relanguaging, which develops and complexifies throughout this thesis, allow me to systematically unsettle a construction of linguistic hetero- and homogeneity as mutually exclusive. This comes with a theoretical critique of ‘translanguaging’ as a linguistic descriptor that, in my view, reifies a dichotomy between fluid languaging and fixed standard languages. As a result, it makes us overlook the relationality in practice regarding these two dimensions of language and the complexities that result therefrom. With the dichotomy between languaging and languages dissolved, I end by proposing ways of testing for Standard English beyond its own confines, i.e. to test for increasingly sophisticated linguistic sorting skills instantiated in emergent englishing. 2020-04-30T08:05:43Z 2020-04-30T08:05:43Z 2019 2020-04-30T07:11:40Z Doctoral Thesis Doctoral PhD https://hdl.handle.net/11427/31726 eng application/pdf School of Languages and Literatures Faculty of Humanities |
| spellingShingle | Languages and Literatures Krause, Lara-Stephanie Relanguaging language in English(ing) classrooms in Khayelitsha South Africa |
| thesis_degree_str | Doctoral |
| title | Relanguaging language in English(ing) classrooms in Khayelitsha South Africa |
| title_full | Relanguaging language in English(ing) classrooms in Khayelitsha South Africa |
| title_fullStr | Relanguaging language in English(ing) classrooms in Khayelitsha South Africa |
| title_full_unstemmed | Relanguaging language in English(ing) classrooms in Khayelitsha South Africa |
| title_short | Relanguaging language in English(ing) classrooms in Khayelitsha South Africa |
| title_sort | relanguaging language in english ing classrooms in khayelitsha south africa |
| topic | Languages and Literatures |
| url | https://hdl.handle.net/11427/31726 |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT krauselarastephanie relanguaginglanguageinenglishingclassroomsinkhayelitshasouthafrica |