The preamble to the post-apartheid South African constitution states that ‘South Africa belongs to all who live in it, united in our diversity’ and promises to ‘lay the foundations for a democratic and open society in which government is based on the will of the people and every citizen is equally protected by law’ and to ‘improve the quality of life of all citizens’. This would seem to commit the South African government to, amongst other things, the implementation of policies aimed at fostering a common sense of South African national identity, at societal dev- opment and at reducing of levels of social inequality. However, in the period of more than a decade that has now elapsed since the end of apartheid, there has been widespread discontent with regard to the degree of progress made in connection with the realisation of these constitutional aspirations. The ‘limits to liberation’ in the post-apartheid era has been a theme of much recent research in the ?elds of sociology and political theory (e. g. Luckham, 1998; Robins, 2005a). Linguists have also paid considerable attention to the South African situation with the realisation that many of the factors that have prevented, and are continuing to prevent, effective progress towards the achievement of these constitutional goals are linguistic in their origin.

Language in South Africa (LiSA) debates the role of language and language planning in the reconstruction, development and transformation of post-apartheid democratic South Africa. The 1996 constitution of South Africa is founded on the political philosophy of pluralism and is directed at promoting democratic values, equity and non-discrimination, human rights, national unity and the development of all the country’s communities. The question asked in LiSA is how language planning can contribute towards the attainment of these national ideals. Set against the language political realities of the country — the a-symmetric power relations between the languages; the striking differences in the structural; functional and symbolic adaptation of the official languages; and the many language-related problems in the country — it debates the role of language in state administration, national integration, educational development and economic development. The volume concludes with a discussion of language development and language management.

A discussion of the role which language, or, more properly, languages, can perform in the reconstruction and development of South Africa. The approach followed in this book is characterised by a numbers of features - its aim is to be factually based and theoretically informed.

The appointment of Nelson Mandela as President of South Africa in 1994 signalled the end of apartheid and transition to a new democratic constitution. This book studies discursive trends during the first twenty years of the new democracy, outlining the highlights and challenges of transforming policy, practice and discursive formations. The book analyses a range of discourses which signal how and by what processes the linguistic landscape and identities of South Africa’s inhabitants have changed in this time, finding that struggles in South African politics go hand in hand with shifts in the linguistic landscape. In a country now characterised by multilingualism, heteroglossia, polyphony and translanguaging, the author debates where the discourse practices of those born post-1994 may lead.

Language is a critical factor in nation-building, and in a continent such as Africa, where language groups do not necessarily correspond with national boundaries, it is potentially contentious as well. Ayo Bamgbose's new book focuses on the problem of language exclusion, whereby certain languages -- and groups -- are omitted from language policies, particularly in countries in Sub-Saharan Africa. Originally based on a series of lectures given in South Africa, the individual chapters largely preserve the original style of presentation. Consequently, the book is readable, and a valuable introduction to some of the more important issues in African sociolinguistics. The book makes special reference to the language situation in post-apartheid South Africa. The appendices provide access to some of the most important documents on language policies such as the Organization of African Unity's Language Plan of Action For Africa (1986), the language provisions in the Constitution of the Federal Republic of South Africa (1996), and the Barcelona Universal Declaration on Linguistics Rights.

Compiled by noted South African intellectual and former revolutionary Neville Alexander shortly before his death, the essays gathered in this collection deal with the perceptions and beliefs that both drive and hinder post-apartheid South Africa and, in doing so, raise sometimes-uncomfortable questions about the "new" South Africa's standing on a global level. The pieces address three of the principle issues that concerned Alexander, namely, the fundamental necessity for South Africans to move away from race consciousness and think along the lines of the far more real and relevant categories of class, gender, and language; the importance of children learning to read, write, and think in their own mother tongue while understanding the need for mastery in an international language; and the struggle for a socialist world of justice and equality for all. These perceptive treatises shed light on the current South Africa, a nation working to reshape and reinvent itself on the international stage after years of political, racial, and social inequality.

This report provides a striking reminder that few state officials have considered the impact of language policy (and its absence) as broader issues of transformation. Although faced daily with language capacity problems, and the visible manifestation of contested uses of language, state officials interviewed tend not to see a link between their immediate concerns and the role of language policy in providing solutions in both the short and long term.

Political transformation has compelled South Africans to reflect on what goes into building a new nation. This book is a contribution to the debate on nation-building. Among the topics it covers are: Language and the national question; and Moulding a new society: The RDP in perspective.

Nation-building imperatives compel citizens to focus on what makes them similar and what binds them together, forgetting what makes them different. Democratic institution building, on the other hand, requires fostering opposition through conducting multiparty elections and encouraging debate. Leaders of democratic factions, like parties or interest groups, can consolidate their power by emphasizing difference. But when held in tension, these two impulses—toward remembering difference and forgetting it, between focusing on unity and encouraging division—are mutually constitutive of sustainable democracy. ?Based on ethnographic and interview-based fieldwork conducted in 2012–13, The Black and White Rainbow: Reconciliation, Opposition, and Nation-Building in Democratic South Africa explores various themes of nation- and democracy-building, including the emotional and banal content of symbols of the post-apartheid state, the ways that gender and race condition nascent nationalism, the public performance of nationalism and other group-based identities, integration and sharing of space, language diversity, and the role of democratic functioning including party politics and modes of opposition. Each of these thematic chapters aims to explicate a feature of the multifaceted nature of identity-building, and link the South African case to broader literatures on both nationalism and democracy.