An Inclusive Linguistic Framework for Botswana: Reconciling the State and Perceived Marginalized Communities

摘要

A people s language and increasingly information communication technologies (ICTs) have emerged as powerful forces in enhancing political and socio-economic development. In Botswana there are several ethnic groups with diverse linguistic dialects. Each of the ethnic groups desires its dialect to be recognized by the state as official or national languages - integrated in education, media, and governance. The government recognizes only Setswana as the officialdom language and perceives agitation for multiple language use in officialdom as divisive and a threat to the long standing political and economic stability of the nation. This paper sought to examine Botswana's perceived marginalized linguistic dialects by the state and proposes a linguistic framework for Botswana incorporating institutional and ICT aspects, which would appeal to both government and the ethnic groups concerned. The proposed linguistic framework for Botswana is applied as the methodological tool to examine the exclusion of the minority languages from the officialdom. The findings suggest that several ethnic groups in Botswana perceive their linguistic dialects as marginalised by the state. They seek the support of regional advocacy groups to help them promote their language values and culture, and they employ ICT to achieve their aims. However, the groups have not explored the existing international, regional, and national institutional frameworks to address their linguistic plight. Besides, they have not leveraged local content and indigenous knowledge systems approaches to address the language problem in Botswana. This paper proposes an inclusive linguistic framework for Botswana to address the language problem in Botswana that could have positive policy and managerial ramification for both the state and the leadership of the so-called marginalised groups in Botswana.