African Languages for Participatory Democracy and Sustainable Socioeconomic Development: The Case of Swahili in Tanzania

Chul-Joon Yang (양철준)

doi:10.14353/sjk.2020.28.2.05

African Languages for Participatory Democracy and Sustainable Socioeconomic Development: The Case of Swahili in Tanzania

The Sociolinguistic Journal of Korea
Abbr : 사회언어학
2020, 28(2), pp.127-154
DOI : 10.14353/sjk.2020.28.2.05
Publisher : The Sociolinguistic Society Of Korea
Research Area : Humanities > Linguistics
Received : May 2, 2020
Accepted : June 2, 2020
Published : June 30, 2020

Chul-Joon Yang ¹

¹한국외국어대학교

Accredited

ABSTRACT

That language plays a pivotal and integral role in making political processes participatory and inclusive, and socioeconomic development sustainable has been commonsensically presumed to be a well-established fact. Language is not simply a means of mutual communication, but also a potent tool for social inclusion and exclusion, resulting in having both a positive and negative social impact. In this sense the use of African languages in all social domains for making sure of the concretization of inclusive political participation and representation as well as sustainable socioeconomic development. Despite being considered to be an exemplary country that has pursued an active endoglosic language policy, Tanzania has an uphill task in facilitating participatory democracy and sustainable socioeconomic development by virtue of the ease of language understanding with which people can make them understood in everyday life. What is imperatively needed in making participatory democracy and sustainable socioeconomic development possible and feasible is a strong political will and its implementation. In tandem with a strong political will and its implementation in the conduct of national affairs, a ceaseless and concerted effort needs to be made with a view to capacitating Swahili to make a meaningful contribution to participatory democracy and sustainable socioeconomic development. Furthermore, corpus planning that refers to an institutional effort for creating standards for Swahili has to be done.

KEYWORDS

Swahili, Tanzania, endoglossic language policy (vernacularization), participatory democracy, sustainable socioeconomic development, agency, voice, participation

Citation status

* References for papers published after 2023 are currently being built.

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This paper was written with support from the National Research Foundation of Korea.

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The Sociolinguistic Journal of Korea 2023 KCI Impact Factor : 0.57

African Languages for Participatory Democracy and Sustainable Socioeconomic Development: The Case of Swahili in Tanzania

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* References for papers published after 2023 are currently being built.

The Sociolinguistic Journal of Korea 2023 KCI Impact Factor : 0.57

African Languages for Participatory Democracy and Sustainable Socioeconomic Development: The Case of Swahili in Tanzania

ABSTRACT

KEYWORDS

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