Abstract This paper seeks to provide an analysis of obstacles that hinder progress in promoting the functional status of African languages in the South African higher education sector. African languages suffer marginalisation despite the existence of various empowering and restorative legislative provisions and policies. In this study, we argue that African languages have a central role in driving the transformation agenda in the South African higher education sector. In particular, marginalising African languages has disastrous implications for the achievement of social justice and cohesion, and the access to and success of indigenous African language-speaking students. A language management approach was adopted as a foregrounding theory for this paper. A language planning and policy framework was also employed as a complementary theory. The study is based on data collected through semi-structured interviews with academics in the college of humanities at a university in the province of KwaZulu-Natal. The study revealed a number of challenges, ranging from negative linguistic ideologies, orthography, weak bilingualism, among other factors. In rising to these pertinent challenges, higher education institutions need therefore to consider language management strategies designed to address language problems, particularly in multilingual contexts.

中文翻译：

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阻碍非洲语言在高等教育中发挥作用的障碍

摘要本文旨在对阻碍南非高等教育部门提升非洲语言功能地位的障碍进行分析。尽管存在各种赋权和恢复性的立法规定和政策，非洲语言仍遭受边缘化。在这项研究中，我们认为非洲语言在推动南非高等教育领域的转型议程中起着核心作用。尤其是，使非洲语言边缘化对实现社会正义和凝聚力以及使讲非洲土著语言的学生获得机会和取得成功具有灾难性的影响。本文采用语言管理方法作为前瞻性理论。语言计划和政策框架也被用作补充理论。这项研究基于对夸祖鲁-纳塔尔省一所大学的人文学院学者进行的半结构化访谈所收集的数据。这项研究揭示了许多挑战，包括负面语言意识形态，拼字法，双语能力弱等。因此，在面对这些相关挑战时，高等教育机构需要考虑旨在解决语言问题的语言管理策略，尤其是在多语言环境中。