Resumen de Globalization, the African Renaissance, and the role of English

Liesel Hibbert

• The way in which economic trends such as globalization and cultural trends such as the African Renaissance become economically as well as linguistically influential has repercussions for the quest for new political, cultural, and linguistic identity formations in the “New South Africa.” Background knowledge about the cultural, linguistic, and political identification processes that speakers are engaged in is a crucial part of the meaningful linguistic interpretation. In this paper, the role of English in national reidentification in South Africa is discussed against the backdrop of these two major sociopolitical trends. Issues relating to the position of African languages are also alluded to. Finally it is argued that “creeping global monolingualism” can only be countered by large-scale financial investment in large-scale language-policy planning in Africa which may elevate the status of African languages in the different regions.