ASSIGNMENT 1 – 15/04/2021
I was born in Bloemfontein in the Free State and we lived there up until I turned
sixteen, there after we relocated to Durban, Kwa-Zulu Natal. While we lived in
Bloemfontein, I was in an Afrikaans medium school and transferred to an Afrikaans-
English medium school when we relocated. Before we moved to Durban, Afrikaans
was the language I was the most fluent in. I could speak English but only when it
was absolutely necessary, like for my English orals, other than that I spoke Afrikaans
everywhere I went because the two most common languages that are spoken in the
Free State is Sesotho (64.2%) and Afrikaans (12.7%) (Alexander, 2020) and
unfortunately, I do not understand Sesotho. However, moving to Durban helped me
to gain a deeper understanding of the English language and literature.
My family is English on my father’s side and Afrikaans on my mother’s side. This
resulted in me only speaking and understanding English for the first five years of my
life. When I started going to school, my mother registered me at an Afrikaans
medium school and this is where I learned to communicate in Afrikaans. As a young
adult I could speak both Afrikaans and English fluently but was also exposed to other
languages like, Sesotho, isiZulu, Xhosa and Hindi. I was exposed to these
languages through a list of people. For example, Sesotho by the farm workers on my
grandfather’s farm in Bloemfontein, isiZulu and Xhosa by the Zulu population of
Durban and Hindi by the Indian population of Durban. Although I never learned the
language, I did learn some words and phrases from each language which enriched
my knowledge of the different languages.
During my formative years, I was mostly exposed to Afrikaans as it is my mother
tongue and English as it is a universal language that most people understand. This
influenced my language identity because if I was raised in a house where we spoke
Sesotho, that would now be my mother tongue and I would most probably not even
understand Afrikaans. My mother tongue contributed to my identity. For example, in
school I achieved distinctions for every Afrikaans oral, assignment or exam.
Therefore, my classmates identified me as the kid in the class they could go to when
they struggled with the language. This wouldn’t have happened if I had not learned
how to speak Afrikaans. When I worked for a few months after matric, I quickly
realised that English is the common language in the workplace. This resulted in me
I was born in Bloemfontein in the Free State and we lived there up until I turned
sixteen, there after we relocated to Durban, Kwa-Zulu Natal. While we lived in
Bloemfontein, I was in an Afrikaans medium school and transferred to an Afrikaans-
English medium school when we relocated. Before we moved to Durban, Afrikaans
was the language I was the most fluent in. I could speak English but only when it
was absolutely necessary, like for my English orals, other than that I spoke Afrikaans
everywhere I went because the two most common languages that are spoken in the
Free State is Sesotho (64.2%) and Afrikaans (12.7%) (Alexander, 2020) and
unfortunately, I do not understand Sesotho. However, moving to Durban helped me
to gain a deeper understanding of the English language and literature.
My family is English on my father’s side and Afrikaans on my mother’s side. This
resulted in me only speaking and understanding English for the first five years of my
life. When I started going to school, my mother registered me at an Afrikaans
medium school and this is where I learned to communicate in Afrikaans. As a young
adult I could speak both Afrikaans and English fluently but was also exposed to other
languages like, Sesotho, isiZulu, Xhosa and Hindi. I was exposed to these
languages through a list of people. For example, Sesotho by the farm workers on my
grandfather’s farm in Bloemfontein, isiZulu and Xhosa by the Zulu population of
Durban and Hindi by the Indian population of Durban. Although I never learned the
language, I did learn some words and phrases from each language which enriched
my knowledge of the different languages.
During my formative years, I was mostly exposed to Afrikaans as it is my mother
tongue and English as it is a universal language that most people understand. This
influenced my language identity because if I was raised in a house where we spoke
Sesotho, that would now be my mother tongue and I would most probably not even
understand Afrikaans. My mother tongue contributed to my identity. For example, in
school I achieved distinctions for every Afrikaans oral, assignment or exam.
Therefore, my classmates identified me as the kid in the class they could go to when
they struggled with the language. This wouldn’t have happened if I had not learned
how to speak Afrikaans. When I worked for a few months after matric, I quickly
realised that English is the common language in the workplace. This resulted in me
