A survey of non-Isizulu students’ attitudes towards learning Isizulu as a communicative language at a University in the Gauteng Province, Pretoria.
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Date
2023
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Abstract
Several students come from different provinces and enrol at a University of Technology (UoT) in Gauteng for the Language Practice programme, because it offers a range of five indigenous African languages as subjects: isiZulu, Sepedi, Setswana, Tshivenda, and Xitsonga. Students who are not native speakers of these languages are expected to choose and learn one of them for communicative purposes. Nevertheless, when non-isiZulu students are offered isiZulu as an option to study, they seemed to be hesitant. Hence, this study aimed to discover the reasons for that perceived reluctance, and to determine if the sampled non-isiZulu students have negative attitudes toward learning isiZulu language, the language itself, and its speakers. The survey has sampled a total of 46 participants, only the Language Practice students within the university. A interpretivism paradigm was adopted in order to explore and understand the participants’ views, background and experiences on the current study, since it aimed to understand the human experience in the world and their impact on social reality. Furthermore, the study implemented a mixed research approach (qualitative and quantitative) which used questionnaires and semi structured interviews for data collection. The Attribution and Self Determination theories underpinned this study. The researcher used descriptive statistics to discuss the quantitative data and thematic analysis for qualitative data. It was found that non isiZulu language students have positive attitudes and used various approaches when learning isiZulu as an additional language at university level. Respondents and participants indicated that they realised the significance of learning isiZulu as an additional language and that they were of the view that learning isiZulu has many benefits and facilitates the promotion of the isiZulu language in South Africa.
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Submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the field of African Languages and Culture, Faculty of Arts at the University of Zululand.