Multilingual Language Policy and Language Practice in Ethiopia: Opportunities and Challenges for National Unity and Development
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Date
2014-04
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Addis Ababa University
Abstract
This dissertation investigates educated people‘s attitudes towards and discourses about opportunities and challenges of the present language policy and practice for national unity and development. Specifically, it examines educated Amharic, Oromo, Tigrinya, and other mother tongue speakers‘ attitudes towards the role of employing numerous languages as media of instruction, administration, and mass communications on national unity and development as well as towards the use of Amharic only as a federal working language. Moreover, the study takes a firm look into educated people‘s discourses about the use of diverse mother tongues as media of multiple purposes as well as about the use of Amharic as a single federal working language.
To this effect, the research employed mixed methods research design - both qualitative and quantitative. Qualitative and quantitative data were collected through questionnaires from 218 postgraduate students of the Addis Ababa University. In addition, qualitative data were gathered from 20 key informants, who were engaged in various careers after graduating in bachelor, master‘s, and doctoral degrees through interviews and seven written policy statements were extracted from three government documents. To analyze the data one-way analysis of variance, the open code, and critical discourse analysis were employed.
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The results of the quantitative data indicated that educated Amharic, Oromo, Tigrinya, and other mother tongue speakers have positive attitudes towards the role of using a number of mother tongues as media of instruction, mass communications, and administration on national unity and national development. In contrast, they have divergent attitudes towards using Amharic only as a federal working language. The Amaric and Tigrinya mother tongue speakers have positive attitudes towards the use of Amharic as a federal working language, whereas the Oromo mother tongue speakers have negative attitudes towards the exclusive status of the language. Unlike the three mother tongue groups, other mother tongue speakers have a neutral position towards the use of Amharic as a single federal working language. There are also statistically significant differences between the means of the mother tongue groups regarding their attitudes towards the use of diverse languages as media of various purposes as well as towards the use of Amharic as a federal working language.
Besides, the results of the qualitative data revealed that the use of diverse languages in education, administration, and mass communications is decisive to confirm peoples‘ language rights, create stability, flourish diverse cultures, and exploit indigenous knowledge, which in turn helps to strengthen national unity and accelerate national development. On the contrary, the use of Amharic as a sole federal working language creates linguistic conflict and inequitable participation of linguistic groups in the social, cultural, political, and economic activities of the country. Therefore, it is recommended that the government should mitigate the federal linguistic friction by using either all the major indigenous languages or a foreign language, which is neutral to all nations and nationalities.
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Multilingual Language Policy and Language Practice in Ethiopia