Access to English and the Englishes of the Disadvantaged: Examples from Uganda and South Africa

Abstract

This chapter offers a comparative look at the histories of English in Uganda and South Africa and a concise description of what access to both formal and informal acquisition of English has been like in the two countries, post-independence and in the 2000s. Against this background, excerpts of data obtained from grassroots speakers in the Cape Town and Kampala regions, whose work and businesses involve the regular use of English, are presented and analysed qualitatively. The results reveal how access to English and to formal education in South Africa and Uganda has shaped the Englishes of those speakers of English who are not as advantaged as others. They indicate that the utterances of older South Africans reflect their informal acquisition of English through interaction with lower class whites and contain features typically associated with learners, second language varieties, and pidginised forms of English. Younger speakers who have attended English-medium schools post-Apartheid as well as the Ugandan speakers seem more conscious of mistakes and correct themselves. The chapter finishes with an outlook into how grassroots speakers can (and need to) be integrated in models of world Englishes.