English in Southern Africa

Abstract

This chapter argues that the English language assumed the hegemonic status of language of access to political power and social and economic opportunities in southern Africa from the early years when it was introduced by the first waves of British immigrants. The superior and preponderant position of the English language that was imposed through the Anglicization policy that followed British occupation of the Cape Colony continues to this day. Therefore, the social and political history of English in southern Africa reflects the history of the global spread of the Anglophone version of Euro-North American modernity such as colonial imperialism, Western models of development (‘progress’) and Christianity as the ‘normative’ religion. For this reason, it is concluded that any discussion on the English language in southern Africa and the African continent in general has to be always located within broader social, political and economic contexts of world history dating back to the onset of the expansion of the so-called Western civilization.