English as Medium of Instruction: Epistemic Violence or Enabling Violation

• Published in: English in Africa Vol. 51; no. 3; pp. 11 - 109
• Main Author: Chetty, Rajendra
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Grahamstown Institute for the Study of English in Africa 01.12.2024
• Subjects: African languages; Alternative approaches; Cognition & reasoning; Cognitive ability; Colonial languages; Colonialism; Consciousness; Critical race theory; Cultural capital; Curricula; Education policy; English language; Epistemology; Exclusion; Higher education; Indigenous languages; Knowledge; Language; Learning; Literacy; Local knowledge; Medium of instruction; Multiculturalism & pluralism; Politics; Race; Schools; Students; Transnationalism; Violence; Xenophobia; South Africa
• ISSN: 0376-8902
• DOI: 10.4314/eia.v51i3.2

It is evident that African countries viewed colonial languages like English as significant for development, and schools and universities placed greater value on English to the detriment of local languages. The exclusion of indigenous knowledge in favour of Western ways of knowing and languages is a devastating impact of colonialism. The concept of epistemic violence refers to the numerous ways that violence is exercised in the exclusion of knowledge. Violence is perpetuated, especially against subaltern subjects, by denying people their languages and epistemic agency and making them into objects. The notion of cultural capital and high-status knowledge has refined the sociological analysis of this phenomenon as it manifests itself in multilingual societies. The purpose of this article is to investigate the tension between English and the politics of African liberation using a decolonial lens. Further, this article introduces an alternative approach that leans on Gayatri Spivaks notion of English as an enabling violation and that seeks a path towards a counter-hegemonic stance that values transnational literacy.