Examine the representation of the relationship between language and power inSouth African Literature
Evelyn Naudorf
Essay from the year 2001 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Literature, grade: B, University of London (Faculty of English Literature), course: Literature in History: Race and Subjectivity in South African Writing, language: English, abstract: ‘The choice of language and the use to which language is put is central to a people’sdefinition of themselves in relation to their natural and social environment, indeed inrelation to the entire universe.’1This quote by the Kenyan writer Ngugi expresses the exceedingly important relationshipbetween language and the individual in general. This relationship is gaining even moreimportance for a continent such as Africa, in which large parts of the native population wereoppressed by European colonial powers for centuries. One important instrument of oppressionwas definitely language and the feeling of European superiority resulting out of culturaltraditions, such as literature. In South Africa, where two major colonial powers were fightingfor supremacy and many different native ethnic groups were combined in one state, thequestion of language would almost naturally provoke conflicts and crisis. In this essay, Ishould like to have a closer look at this delicate relationship between language and power inSouth African literature with the example of a Black and a White African writer, Sol T.Plaatje and Nadine Gordimer. In his historical overview, Leonard Thompson already describes the South Africa of the 18thcentury as a ‘linguistic Babel’2. Afrikaans, a simplified form of Dutch and at first only used inoral communication, would gradually develop into the lingua franca of South Africa. Today,its greatest competitor among European languages is English and both languages, togetherwith nine African languages, belong to the eleven official languages of the postapartheidSouth African State. The right of every South African to use the language of his or her choiceis now embedded in the constitution. However, the situation of having eleven officiallanguages is truly unique world-wide. One of the most pressing question is whether there is anecessity to agree on a single language as the official one, with the other ten languagesreceiving an equally high status, in order to support the current process of nation-building? Ifso, should it be English, Afrikaans or one of the African languages? [...]1 Ngugi wa Thiong’o. Decolonising the Mind, page 4
