Language Policy and Social Control

Language Policies in Conquest, Colonization, and Nationalism

Throughout time, language has played a central role in conquest, colonization, and the formation of nations, as speakers of different languages are brought into contact amid power struggles, usually resulting in language spread. The spread of Latin during the Roman Empire, Arabic during Islamic expansion, and French during the 17th century offer instances of groups using language to promote their economic, political, or religious missions. Language has often been used to advance the goals of colonial leadership and, as a result, English has been promoted in East Africa, Russian in the former Soviet Union, and Japanese in Korea. Newly democratized or independent nations such as South Africa, Estonia, and Bangladesh have also relied on language policy to symbolize a reenvisioned national identity.

The colonization of the African continent offers many illustrations of the central role of language policy in wide-scale efforts to gain social control. French colonization in West Africa was characterized by efforts to assimilate Africans into French culture and thereby “civilize” them, and by a belief in the superiority of the French language. The exclusive use of standard French was formalized in the Brazzaville Conference of 1944, when a recommendation was made to designate it as the exclusive language of schools, and any use of local languages was forbidden. As a result, many local languages were lost.

Under apartheid, the official languages of South Africa were English and Afrikaans. In 1974, the government issued a decree that made Afrikaans, seen as the language of the oppressors, as a medium [Page 453]of instruction for 50% of subjects from the last year of primary school to the last year of high school. The enforcement of this policy spawned the student uprising of 1976 in Soweto, to which the government responded violently. To reverse exclusive apartheid policies after the end of apartheid, a new constitution was formally adopted in 1996 that recognized 9 local languages in addition to English and Afrikaans. This has created a unique context in South Africa, which now has 11 official languages.

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