This study investigates the impact of Family Language Policy (FLP) on the conservation of minority languages in Zimbabwe. Family language policy is a newly emerging sub field of language planning and policy which focuses on the explicit and overt planning in relation to language use within the home among family members. The study is therefore predicated on the view that the conservation of any minority language largely depends on intergenerational transmission of the particular language. Intergenerational transmission is dependent in part, on the language practices in the home and therefore on family language policy. To understand the nature, practice and negotiation of family language policy in the context of minority language conservation, the study focuses on the perspectives of a sample of 34 L1 Kalanga parents and 28 L1 Tonga parents, who form the main target population. In this study, parents are considered to be the ‘authorities’ within the family, who have the capacity to articulate and influence language use and language practices. Also included in this study are the perspectives of language and culture associations representing minority languages regarding their role in the conservation of minority languages at the micro community level. Representatives of Kalanga Language and Cultural Development Association (KLCDA), Tonga Language and Culture Committee (TOLACCO) as well Zimbabwe Indigenous Languages Promotion Association (ZILPA) were targeted. This research takes on a qualitative approach. Methodologically, the study deployed the interview as the main data collection tool. Semi structured interviews were conducted with L1 Kalanga and L1 Tonga parents while unstructured interviews were conducted with the representatives of language and culture associations. This study deploys the language management theory and the reversing language shift theory as the analytical lenses that enable the study to understand the mechanics of family language policy and their impact on intergenerational transmission of minority languages in Zimbabwe. Language management theory allows for the extendibility of the tenets of language policy into the family domain and specifically affords the study to explore the dialectics of parental language ideologies and family language practices in the context of minority language conservation in Zimbabwe. The reversing language shift theory also emphasises the importance of the home domain in facilitating intergenerational transmission of minority languages. Findings of the study demonstrate that family language policy is an important aspect in intergenerational transmission of minority languages, itself a nuanced and muddled process. The research demonstrates that there is a correlation between parental language ideologies and parental disposition to articulate and persue a particular kind of family language policy. In particular, the study identified a pro-minority home language and pro- bilingual family language policies as the major parental language ideologies driving family language policies. However, the research reveals that parental language ideologies and parental explicitly articulated family language polices alone do not guarantee intergenerational transmission of minority languages, although they are very pertinent. This, as the study argues, is because family language policy is not immune to external language practices such as the school language policy or the wider language policy at the macro state level. Despite parents being the main articulators of family language policy, the study found out that in some instances, parental ideologies do not usually coincide with children’s practices. The mismatch between parental preferences and their children’s language practices at home are a reproduction, in the home, of extra familial language practices. This impacts family language practices by informing the child resistant agency to parental family language policy, leading to a renegotiation of family language policy. The research also demonstrates that parents, especially those with high impact beliefs are disposed to take active steps, or to employ language management strategies to realise their desired language practices in the home. The study demonstrates that these parental strategies may succeed in part, particularly when complemented by an enabling sociolinguistic environment beyond the home. The articulation of a pro-Tonga only family language policy was reproduced in the children’s language practices, while the preference for a pro- bilingual family language policy by the majority L1 Kalanga parents was snubbed for a predominantly Ndebele-only practice by their children. In most cases, the research found out that language use in formal domains impacted on the success of FLP. Tonga is widely taught in Schools within Binga districts while Kalanga is not as widespread in Bulilima and Mangwe schools. Ndebele is the most widespread language in Bulilima and Mangwe schools. As such; children of L1 Kalanga parents tend to evaluate Kalanga negatively while having positive associations with Ndebele. All these language practices are deemed to impact on family language policy and therefore on intergenerational transmission of minority languages in Zimbabwe. The desire by parents for the upward mobility of children results in them capitulating to the wider socio political reality and therefore to the demands of their children in terms of language use in the home. The study therefore concludes that family language policy is an important frontier in the fight against language shift and language endangerment, given the importance of the home in intergenerational transmission of minority languages. The study therefore implores future research to focus on this very important but largely unresearched sub field of language policy. The study observes that most researches have focused on the activities of larger state institutions and organisations and how they impact on minority language conservation, to the detriment of the uncontestable fact that the survival of any language depends on the active use of the language by the speakers. The research also recommends that future practice of language policy should not attempt to promote minority languages by discouraging the use of other majority languages, but rather, speakers should embrace bilingualism as a benefit and a resource and not as a liability. The interaction between the top down state language policy and the bottom up micro family language policy should be acknowledged and exploited, in such a way that the two can be deployed as complementary approaches in minority language conservation. / Linguistics and Modern Languages / D. Litt. et Phil. (Languages, Linguistics and Literature)

The study sought to explore possibilities of harmonising Shona-Nyai cross-border varieties in Zimbabwe and Mozambique. Emerging from the responses were problems of attitudes, ignorance of what the harmonisation project entails and the different levels of development among the varieties to be harmonised. Participants believed that the challenges they faced could be resolved and they proposed some intervention strategies. Results from the questionnaire, the interview and documents analysed affirmed the generally held view that, the future of Shona-Nyai as a language and culture is securely in the hands of the speakers’ initiatives. The argument of the study has been that, the success of such a harmonisation project depends on the presence of favourable and conducive political and economic conditions through enabling language engineering activities. Information collected from the questionnaires was mainly presented in tables and information from interviews and document analysis was presented qualitatively in words. The language as a right and the language as resource orientations of language planning guided this study. The intention was to show that the preservation of linguistic diversity is important in the maintenance of group and individual identity and harmonisation should further this cause. Findings from this thesis indicate that for a successful harmonisation project to take place there is need for research in the documentation of underdeveloped Shona-Nyai varieties so that they have some presence in the education domain. The study recommends that people’s mindsets must be changed by packaging the harmonisation project in a way which they understand and appreciate. A holistic approach in solving the language problem can be achieved through a mixed approach of language policy formulation. / African Languages / D. Litt. et Phil. (African languages)

This study examines the mediation of multilingualism, localism and the nation in the Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation, henceforth, ZBC as the local content and multilingual broadcasting policies subsumed in the Broadcasting Services Act (2001) and the Broadcasting Services Amendment Act (2007) respectively translated into radio and television programming. This purpose is pursued by analysing the language choices and practices on the ZBC radio and television stations and programming. This study is informed by an eclectic approach within the critical theory tradition and therefore it disapproves the domination, marginalisation and exclusion of the indigenous African languages in the ZBC as a public sphere. Against this backdrop, the study envisages the promotion of linguistic diversity and indigenous African languages in the ZBC broadcasting. Data for this study was gathered from the ZBC employees, academics and the ZBC audience using questionnaires, interviews, and focus group discussions. As the local content and multilingual broadcasting policies translated into ZBC programming, this study detected a hierarchical organisation of the languages spoken in Zimbabwe on the radio and television stations where English is the most dominant language, while Shona and Ndebele dominate the minority languages, Shona dominates Ndebele and the supremacy of the Zezuru dialect in the Shona language is easily felt. This is a confirmation of the fragility of Zimbabwean linguistic nationalism in the ZBC which is convoluted by the ideological and political nature of the media, electronic colonisation, the political economy of broadcasting, the transformation of the ZBC public sphere by the market and state interests, the influence of the global media firms, and the relentless hegemony of the western countries in the world system. This study established that broadcasting in indigenous African languages is obligatory if the informative, communicative and symbolic functions of the public service broadcasting are to be achieved. However, this study contends that it is remarkably insufficient for linguists to minimally identify, lament and deplore the marginalisation and exclusion of the indigenous African languages in the ZBC without taking into account the economic, political and technological factors which contribute to the marginalisation and exclusion of these languages in the ZBC broadcasting in the context of the local content and multilingual broadcasting policies. Therefore, this study implores scholars in the discipline of language studies to ameliorate their sophistication by espousing a multidisciplinary approach to the study of language if they are to make meaningful arguments which can influence meaningful language policy outcomes instead of parroting. / African Languages / D. Litt. et Phil. (African Languages)

The study sought to investigate how the symbiotic relationship between amaXhosa and amaNdebele impacted on IsiXhosa language and amaXhosa culture in Mbembesi area in Zimbabwe. The study was conducted where two ethnic groups of amaXhosa and amaNdebele coexist. Language policies in the past have disadvantaged amaXhosa by treating the language as a minority language which led to its marginalisation at school and in public life. Dynamic Social Impact Theory was used to explain the concept of the evolution of language. Language contact, language change, and bilingualism are the main terms that were discussed in relation to what happened to the two languages of study. The case study was descriptive in nature. The participants were purposefully selected according to what the researcher desired to achieve. The data were collected through interviews with heads of schools in Mbembesi, teachers, elders and youths of the community. Document analysis was also employed when the Indigenous Languages syllabus and teachers’ schemes were observed. The pupils were given a topic on which to write a short composition in IsiXhosa and IsiNdebele to ascertain if indeed IsiNdebele had impacted on IsiXhosa. A comparison between IsiXhosa of Mbembesi and that of South Africa was made as a way of verifying if there has been a change from the original IsiXhosa that is spoken in South Africa. The two ethnic groups’ cultural activities were also studied as a way of investigating the level of impact in their way of life. After administering the research instruments, the findings revealed that there is a level of impact on IsiXhosa language and amaXhosa culture through their contact with amaNdebele. The terminology in the two languages has overlapped as well as their cultural lives. The Zimbabwean 2013 Constitution has tried to raise the status of IsiXhosa by making it officially recognised but it seems to be still functioning at community level as before. IsiXhosa is still not learned at school although it was introduced in 2013 in the two pilot schools but which discontinued in 2016 reverting to IsiNdebele citing lack of teaching and learning materials. The recommendations from the study include: that the teachers should be trained in IsiXhosa at institutions of higher learning; that amaXhosa educated personnel should spear-head the writing of teaching and learning materials and that the language should be used in public life so that its speakers maintain their identity. / Linguistics and Modern Languages / Ph. D. (Languages, Linguistics and Literature)