The dance of an intellectual mandarin : a study of Neville Alexander's thoughts on the language question in South Africa

Abstract

This study distils some of the principal political and sociological lines of enquiry that Neville Alexander embarked upon in his published writings. It initially sets out to sketch the political, economic and intellectual milieu that he encountered after his release from Robben Island in 1974, and then it addresses the language question, as a part of the national question, in South Africa. The researcher argues that Alexander’s “dance” in the world of political and educational interventions has at times been solitary but that his discourse is substantively girded by the writings and experiences of established practitioners in the fields of sociolinguistics, political economy and cultural activities. The study concludes that his policy proposals on language in particular, in spite of the fact that the constitutional and institutional infrastructure exists for their implementation, have been put on the back burner because the dominant linguistic interests of the post-apartheid government correspond with the communication interests of market-driven institutions in the country, and not with the interests of the linguistic majorities who populate the nation.