Ideological ways researchers talk about the language Afrikaans

What is it about?

Essentialism is the idea that things have an essence that really makes it what it is. When applied to language, essentialist ideas typically portray a particular language as in a deep, natural relationship with a nation, as having distinct boundaries, and as natural expressions of nationalist identities. When researchers talk about a language in this way, it can obscure certain facts, and present others as self-evident when they are not. In this article, I explore the essentialist ways many researchers talk about the language Afrikaans, and the consequences of these ideas. I also point to some researchers who either avoid this, or actively work against it.

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Why is it important?

In recent decades, there have been numerous Afrikaans language debates, especially about the role of Afrikaans in multilingual South Africa, and how it is losing public functions. Ideologically loaded ideas about language, assumptions about language(s) and people, about culture and society are deeply embedded into these debates. However, these views are often not treated as the interpretation of certain facts that they are, but as THE facts. Unmasking ideological interpretations and views for what they really are might help the participants in the language debates in South Africa to consider alternative ideas that are currently rejected out of hand, and that might prove more useful to the majority of speakers (and not just the elite).

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