The role of the news media in the dominance of English over the other ten official languages of South Africa

Mpho Moloele

Tongues, Reading and Understanding capacities bound in chains, chains of the English language being put by the news media prison warder, in hope of breaking through to other languages.  

As I gather my thoughts and put letters into words to compile a piece, I do so in a language which is known to be influential in a far distant land of its origin. A tongue that is not of my ancestors but of lost travellers commonly referred to as colonizers, who decided to settle in a land at the South of Africa. Not being part of the community while colonization was still at its peak I am still influenced by the English language as that is what the mass media communicates its information to the public. The massive exposure of the language gives it more authority and results in the majority overlooking their mother tongues. 

The natives of South Africa of the 19^th century saw the spread of English from coastal areas which then extended into inlands. This led to some Africans adapting to English norms and characteristics. In the 21^st century Black South Africans perceive English as a language of emancipation and unity where majority of them have knowledge of the language.

Although the South African Constitution guarantees equal status to all the 11 official languages, English seems to have more dominance especially looking at the mass media. The lingua Franca has been established to be the medium of communication that is generally understood by masses for business, politics and media regardless of it being a mother tongue to the minority.

While the media has evolved, the commercial language has been constant where little of the other languages has been utilised to report on current occurrences. Mass media consists of print, recordings, cinema, broadcast media (radio and television), digital media (internet and mobile phones). These have largely contributed to news media consumers to opt to English news programmes. “Afrikaans has some difficult words while English is easy to understand” says 22 year old, Lucrecia Markham. With information on her finger tips’ most of it is in the language of her preference.

English publications of newspapers nationally, provincially, student, online and regional takes the lead. While with commercial radio stations English still being the primary language of broadcast, the Public Service has stations broadcasting in all the official languages. Nyiko Ngobeni, a journalist at the Public broadcaster says he prefers reporting in English because he did a different language at school which has resulted in him not being able to read and write properly in his mother tongue TshiTsonga.

With IsiZulu being the largest ethnic group, King Goodwill Zwelithini royal traditional wedding has never been broadcasted live but that is a different case for the Britain royals Catherine Middleton and Prince William, the duke and Duchess of Cambridge. The news media informs and educates the South Africans more about the western culture.

Even with the inception of 24 hours news channels such as the SABC news, eNCA and ANN7, more coverage is given to English news programmes as compared to those in vernacular. How then can one become a patriot when all the media feeds does not acknowledge and embrace who they are? Without exposure of the other 10 official languages in the mass media they could be just an addition to the history of the languages of South Africa.

While for some English has become the only language they can read, write and understand, it appears to be a different case for other people says an article in the City Press on the 20^th of April 2014 titled English to blame for booing Zuma. The article states the residents of Malamulele in Limpopo did not clearly understand President Jacob Zuma as he was addressing a number of “Shangaan speaking” audience in English.

Media bosses have invested in news media as a commercial business where profit must be generated. In order for that to occur, the mass media should be able to reach and have a large audience consuming the media. For that to happen an internationally recognised business language declared to be English is used.

But a SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunity, Threats) analysis can be done. Where you can create a big demand for information in the other 10 official languages, supply and people will consume it. Practical example is the KwaZulu Natal province consisting of a large Zulu speaking population.

With Sunday Times Zulu edition closure in March 2013 due to it being a mere translation of the English edition, of high Living Standards Measure and selling at R8 while its competitors sold at R3. Isolezwe seems to be growing as the circulation and readership increases. Here human interest stories in the readers’ proximity are written in their mother tongue. More of these throughout the republic can result in grooming and educating a nation.

Prior 1994 one wouldn’t progress to the next grade if you failed a vernacular as a language, today you find schools only offering English and Afrikaans that also being the case with programming on televisions and the print media. “I went to an English speaking school and got used to it being my main language of communications” says Samkelisiwe Njapha, a Zulu speaker.

The news media’s role is to inform, entertain and educate in hope of enabling citizens to make informed judgement on issues of the time. How more informed decisions would be made with more of the inclusivity of the other 10 official languages in the news media?

That can be declared true liberation from the English language colonisation with more of such pieces being vernacular.