As part of a broader student campaign for ‘free decolonized education’, protests over language policies at select South African universities between 2015 and 2016 belied widespread positive appraisals of these policies, and revealed what is possibly an internal contradiction of the campaign. The discourse prior to the protests (e.g. “excellent language policies but problematic implementation”), during the protests (e.g. silence over the role of indigenous African languages in the “Afrikaans must fall” versus “Afrikaans must stay” contestations), and after the protests (e.g. English becoming a primary medium in some institutional policy reviews) warrant attention to critical literacy in language policy scholarship. Based on a theoretical account of speaking with a forked tongue, this article analyzes the language policy text of one South African university. The analysis suggests, simultaneously, why similar policies have tended to be positively appraised, why students’ calls for policy revisions were justified, but why the changes clamoured for arguably amount to complicity in self-harm.

中文翻译：

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用分叉的语言谈论南非大学语言政策中的多种语言

作为更广泛的“免费非殖民化教育”学生运动的一部分，2015 年至 2016 年间南非部分大学针对语言政策的抗议掩盖了对这些政策的广泛积极评价，并揭示了该运动可能存在的内部矛盾。抗议之前的话语（例如“优秀的语言政策，但实施有问题”），抗议期间（例如，对非洲土著语言在“南非荷兰语必须倒下”与“南非荷兰语必须留下”争论中的作用保持沉默），以及之后抗议（例如英语成为一些机构政策评论的主要媒介）需要关注语言政策学术中的批判性素养。基于用分叉的舌头说话的理论说明，本文分析了南非一所大学的语言政策文本。分析同时表明，为什么类似的政策往往受到积极评价，为什么学生要求修改政策是合理的，但为什么要求的改变可以说是自残的共谋。