On Language and Development in Africa

Abstract

"In their search for solutions to the development problems of Africa, students of African development have often ignored linguistic and other socio-cultural resources (Prah 1993). When linguistic issues are addressed at all, the fact that there is a multiplicity of languages in African countries is often seen as a hindrance to the development of the continent. This paper focuses on the relationship between language and development and offers a specific proposal for addressing issues of language policy and planning in Africa. Taking the language situation in Ghana as a case study, a model of development communication and education termed localised trilingualism is proposed; a model, it is believed, will enable Africa to harness its multilingual resources for accelerated and sustainable socio-cultural, economic and technological development in the 21st century."

This 21-page paper introduces its topic with an illustration of the cursory attention that has often been given the language issue in Africa's development discourse. There are, according to the author, two reasons for this apparent neglect of the language issue. The first is that development is often conceived as based on the gross national product (GNP) and other economic notions such as income per capita, resulting in the view that the role of language in Africa's development is too marginal to be taken seriously.

The other problem cited by the author is that the nature and role of language in society is often misunderstood leading to thinking that African development is language-neutral - that Africa's economic indicators can be bettered just by sheer hard work by Africans speaking whatever language, be it English or French, and that it may even be better to use ’scientific’ languages such as English and French since African languages are incapable of expressing certain political notions and all the technical expressions that are inherent in many academic fields.

From the introduction:
"Refuting these contentions, this paper shows that Africa's own languages are central to African development and ought to occupy an important place in the development discourse. We claim that once we liberate the notion of development from the narrow corridors of GDPs, GNPs and the like and reinterpret it in newer paradigms involving a comprehensive transformation of Africa's socio-cultural, economic and technological structures we can begin to appreciate the importance of language in such a transformation".

After discussing the interrelationship between language and development, giving a synopsis of the language situation in Ghana as an example of the multilingual nature of Africa, and addressing the challenges of interpreting development in a wider perspective, the paper examines issues such as mass participation and local initiative. As a result of concluding that the present linguistic organisation and language policy practices, especially in the educational sector, do not favour notions of development as mass participation and local initiative, the author proposes a new multilingual model of communication in Africa which can facilitate such a view of development.

With his model, Localised Trilingualism, the author attempts a multilingual communication model, emphasising "the use of the mother tongue and other indigenous languages at various levels of social organisation while allowing for a concurrent use of non-indigenous languages at the national and international levels." He develops his model using a three-way categorisation of the administrative/educational structures of African societies, in order to examine the constituted use of languages in each category. "We believe that the best language policy is one that can promote communication between discourse participants at each of these levels and between each immediate level in multilingual set-ups. In short, we observe here that language policy must have a strong interrelationship with social organisation. In addition we formulate the principle of the most appropriate language of development: for effective development communication in each social set up, the most appropriate language must be used in both spoken and written discourses."

In order to implement the system of trilingualism proposed, the author postulates that the average African citizen needs to be trilingual in spoken and written discourse. He recommends that the predominant local language be used in primary school instruction, that a regional/national language be added in secondary school, and that a world language be added in tertiary instruction. The theory details the possibilities of increased local participation using the local language at the local levels of development projects, education and administration/government.

The paper then locates the use of regional language as appropriate in political and administrative institutions and in regional development discourse. "We claim again that more often than not, in the African linguistic situation, we have homogenous administrative regions in the sense that one main language is naturally used as inter-ethnic communication, without any policy imposition from above." The author proposes the possible step of demarcating regions along linguistic and cultural lines.

The designation of African countries as 'anglophone', 'francophone' or 'lusophone' is criticised by the author who proposes the term afriphone. He further proposes that countries drop the use of European languages and attempt to promote one or two dominant indigenous languages as the national languages. In concluding, the author recognises the complexity of his proposed model, but indicates that: "It is only when new ideas are communicated, when technology transfer is done, in the indigenous African languages that Africans can begin to get nearer an increased participation in the development discourse."