Language Loyalty or Ethnicity? A Comparative Study of isiZulu- and Afrikaans speakersin South African Higher Education

关于南非语言和种族之间的联系有大量的文献，但尚未有全面的研究在高等教育双语背景下探讨这种联系。从后结构和后殖民身份理论出发，本项目旨在通过研究两个研究地点的语言和种族结构之间的关系，并参考两种语言来填补这一研究不足：1)夸祖鲁-纳塔尔大学（UKZN）的isiZulu语，以及2)Stellenbosch大学（SUN）的南非荷兰语。这个项目考察了南非高等教育领域，英语的主导地位渗透到学术生活中，非洲种族是否可能不那么明显，更具可塑性和竞争性。本研究采用复杂的跨学科方法，包括焦点小组、教学录音、个人访谈和参与者观察，旨在探究语言忠诚和语言意识形态与民族和其他社会身份的地方建构之间的关系。isiZulu（在UKZN）和Afrikaans（在SUN）的地位和意义通过定性方法在异构高等教育环境中探索-à-vis英语。尽管这两种语言在两所大学的语言地位、语料库发展、习得计划历史和相对地位上都有很大的不同，但这两种语言的使用者都很难在高等教育体系中找到除英语之外的语言认可和支持。在后种族隔离时代，说南非荷兰语和伊苏鲁语的人公开宣称自己的种族，这一事实为对这两个语言群体进行社会和民族语言的比较分析提供了丰富的基础。研究结果将为语言和种族的关系提供更广泛的新见解，更具体地说，是非洲语言。这项研究还将开辟新的视角，从全球的角度来看，多方面的社会语言学相关性如何影响高等教育领域。

There is an extensive literature on the link between language and ethnicity in South Africa but no comprehensive study has yet explored this link against the background of higher education bilingualism. Drawing from post-structural and post-colonial theories of identity this project aims to fill this research paucity by examining the relationship between language and constructions of ethnicity at two research sites and in reference to two languages: 1) isiZulu at the University of KwaZulu-Natal (UKZN), and 2) Afrikaans at the University of Stellenbosch (SUN). This project examines whether the South African higher education sphere where the dominance of English permeates academic life is one domain where African ethnicities may be less pronounced and more malleable and contested. Through a complex and interdisciplinary methodological approach, including focus groups, tutorial recordings, individual interviews and participant observation, this study aims to interrogate language loyalty and language ideologies in relation to local constructions of ethnicity and other social identities. The status and significance of isiZulu (at UKZN) and Afrikaans (at SUN) are explored vis-à-vis English through a qualitative approach in a heterogeneous higher education environment. Although these two languages greatly differ in terms of language status, corpus development, acquisition planning history and their relative position in the two universities, both of their speakers struggle to find linguistic recognition and support next to English in the higher education system. The fact that especially Afrikaans and isiZulu-speakers have publicly asserted their ethnicities in the post-apartheid state offers fruitful ground for a comparative socio- and ethno-linguistic analysis of these two language groups. The research findings will contribute new insights to the relationship of language and ethnicity more broadly, and to African languages more specifically. The study will also carve out new perspectives on how multifaceted sociolinguistic correlations affect the higher education domain from a global perspective.