The interface between language attitudes and language use in a post-conflict context: the case of Rwanda

Abstract

The study investigates the interface between the variables - language attitude and language use in a development context, and attempts to determine the contribution of language to Rwanda's post-conflict development, reconstruction and reconciliation. It examines the language attitudes and language use patterns of 53 students from Rwanda's public universities focusing on how students, who are all Rwandan citizens, view the role of Kinyarwanda, French, English and Kiswahili languages in twelve core areas of post-conflict development. Although post-conflict development is socio-economic, previous historical and political factors affecting Rwanda's violent past play a role as new forms of linguistic categorization - Anglophone and Francophone - emerge which may be used to camouflage previous ethnic categorizations that have had disastrous effects in Rwanda. Further, social categorizations laden with salient features of linguistic identity may influence the implementation of the post-conflict development programmes, and also affect the pace and pattern of reconciliation in Rwanda. Conclusions are based on eclectic sources: quantitative, qualitative, historical and participatory, with patterns of analysis established from secondary and historical data. The study is also grounded in the Communication Accommodation Theory that rests on issues of divergence and convergence during interaction where emerging language identities dovetail with language attitudes and language use, resulting in an interface that influences the implementation of Rwanda's post-conflict development programmes. Additionally, it is argued that the African languages such as Kinyarwanda and Kiswahili, should be considered as vehicles for Rwanda's post-conflict development, although Kinyarwanda, the home language, has in the past really not served an intranational unifying function. On the other hand, Kiswahili, unlike Kinyarwanda, has no divisive myths and identities that would inhibit post-conflict development; it is an important language in the East and Central African region where post-conflict Rwanda will play a positive and active role, and would be a language to be positively developed.