Abstract
D.Litt. et Phil. (African Languages)
Destination language acquisition is a subject that has received quite a considerable attention in most European developed countries that have a higher rate of international migration intake. This attention was motivated by the fact that language is predominant among challenges immigrants face in their early days of stay in the new host societies. The demise of the apartheid era in South Africa in the year 1994, marked the beginning of a new trend of the country’s migration whereby many African citizens from various countries within the continent flooded the country. This scenario however, provokes a new interest in linguistics research whereby African indigenous languages are increasingly emerging to be an important area of inquiry. This is because, unlike white immigrants, African immigrants live amongst the native black South Africans who speak various indigenous languages, hence the need to learn them as destination languages. The main purpose of this study is to explore, compare and analyse Malawian and Nigerian immigrants’ experiences with regard to the acquisition of isiZulu as a destination language in Johannesburg. The central objective is to determine the extent to which the two groups respond to the acquisition of isiZulu, and at the same time explain the possible reasons or factors contributing to differences in the trend of acquisition. The study’s main question examines the participants’ accounts of their isiZulu encounters in Johannesburg, as it also focuses on uncovering how they respond to such situations. The study is descriptive, investigative and exploratory in nature. It has adopted a phenomenological research design and qualitative as its main research approach. In order to get to the bottom of the phenomenon under investigation, a qualitative method of interview was used. The researcher conducted one-on-one semi-structured recorded interview with each respondent, and the resultant data was analysed thematically. The overall results from the data indicates that Malawian nationals respond better to the acquisition of isiZulu, than their Nigerian counterparts, who, according to the empirical findings, do not seem to make any significant progress in isiZulu acquisition beyond the level of greetings. Several reasons or factors contribute to the differential rate of isiZulu acquisition between the two groups. Among the key contributing factors are: differences with respect to the social contexts under which...