Faculty of Humanities School of Education 0516698x georgemakubalo@yahoo.com / This research report explores the English language practices of six Grade 10 learners in a desegregated Johannesburg school as well as the ways in which the learners position themselves and others as users of English and other languages. The context of the study is desegregated schooling that is a consequence of the demise of apartheid with its policies of separation of people on racial and ethnic grounds. I draw on post-structuralist theorizing of language and identity in thinking about the relationship between language and identity (Hall, 1992a; Weedon, 1997; Zegeye, 2001) with an emphasis on the productive force of language in constituting identity (Pennycook, 2004). Also significant in this research report are the hybridity theories of Bhabha (1994) and Hall (1992b) and their critiques as well as the post-structuralist concepts of ‘positioning’ (Davis and Harrè, 1990) and ‘investment’ (Norton (Pierce), 1995; 1997). A further important strand in this study are the politics of English as a global language and language of power. The overall design of the project is qualitative, using ethnographic methods and drawing on the traditions of school ethnography. In analyzing the data, I argued that English constitutes and is experienced as a major part of the participants’ identities. I also state that through learners’ language practices and positioning of themselves and others as speakers of language, multiple and at times contradictory identities are continually being constructed and reconstructed. I also argue that the learners’ desire to be proficient in English and use of prestigious accents and varieties of English is not about a simple process of assimilation into dominant discourses. Assimilation as I contend, takes place under complex processes of contestation and appropriation that involves constant crossing of borders and authorization of hybridities. I have also argued that the post-apartheid youth find themselves in a situation where internalised racialised categories of apartheid ideology continue to be relevant in their understanding of issues but that they are not constrained by them in their lived experience of boundary crossing and fashioning of hybrid identities.

This research report engages with the concern that African learners attending English medium, multiracial schools are losing their proficiency in African languages. In so doing, the report explores the language practices of four multilingual Grade 9 learners at a desegregated private high school in Gauteng. In a school environment that does not overtly support the use of African languages, I explore the extent to which multilingual learners use African languages in the school context, to position themselves and others, as an identity building resource, and the extent to which the use of African languages is implicated in their identities. I also explore the possible influence of the learners’ cultural and ethnic backgrounds on their language practices, and related to this, the expression of their identities. I look at how their language practices help them shift identities with space and purpose, and the contradictions therein. The study draws on poststructuralist theories of language and identity (Weedon, 1997; Zegeye, 2001), in considering how language constitutes identity (Pennycook, 2004) and self and other ‘positioning’ (Davies and Harre`, 1990) It also draws on Bourdieu’s (1991) theorizing of language and power and language as a form of cultural capital. I draw on two traditions in qualitative research: case study and ethnography. In my analysis of the data, I argue that both African languages and English are important in learners’ identities. I indicate that through their language practices, the learners continue to position themselves in multiple and contradictory identities that continue to shift with context. I also argue that the learners’ proficiency in English has not led to them losing proficiency in their home languages, which are retained and used as a primary marker of ethnic identities and for ideas of ethnic purity. This purity is in turn not constructed in a staidly ‘traditional’ manner, but negotiated through joking and verbal competition. Notions of ethnic purity are also often discursively constructed through the use of English, illustrating the contradictory nature of identities. I also point out that some learners protected apartheid constructed ethnic compartmentalization by setting boundaries of belonging. I point to language being a site of struggle for power and contestation in an effort by the learners to resist linguistic assimilation.

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