Language, power, and emancipation in South Africa

ABSTRACT: Against the background of the widely divergent perspectives on language and power of the last decade, this paper seeks to develop a more general model of the ‘power of language’. A first section considers various explanations of the concept of ‘power’ as developed in the political sciences. Certain of these insights are then applied to the phrase ‘the power of language’, and a model is developed, differentiating between, on the one hand, overt pragmatic and symbolic power, and on the other, covert signitive power. This model is then used to analyse aspects of the power of English in South Africa; in particular, possible unforeseen consequences of instituting English as a lingua franca are considered. The question is posed as to whether it might be possible to escape from this discourse of power and become, in some degree, emancipated: it is suggested that an emancipatory language policy can make a substantial contribution to this. Against this background a final section considers possible roles of the indigenous languages at the English‐medium universities in South Africa.