Discourse Patterns in First Language Use at Hcme and Second Language Learning at School: an Ethnographic Approach

Setting I 7Q

literacy campaigns, especially directed at women, would spread the use of
Portuguese in the families, and that

... adults would adopt it as the day-to-day language, for intimate
and personal matters; it would become, as the mother tongue, the
language used in current communication , in the moments of
happiness and sorrow of the family, in conversations among
friends. (Machel,G. 1979:11).

Group reports to the Seminars included recommendations to extend the
period devoted in schools to the acquisition of oral communication skills,
introducing reading and writing only when the child had already mastered
the process of communication, and not to prohibit the use of mother
tongues among children at school. They also gave a more realistic picture
of usage patterns, arguing that the spreading of Portuguese depended upon
opportunities and need for its use gradually created in the process of
development.

A 1982 UNESCO study was indirectly critical of current Ianguge policies
and recommended the development of Mozambican languages and their use in
education as the only model which would put the FRE.LI.XO. principles of
popular participation into practice. It argued that the proposed model of
'functional bilingualism' (JΓ.M.C.,1980b) would limit the use of Mozambican
languages to subordinate functions while Portuguese would remain the
language of high prestige (Yai 1982).

The characteristics of the language situation, in their historical context,
make it difficult to place Mozambique in typologies of linguistic policies
or practices (see Annex 2.1): while multilingualism is a fact, it is not
recognized as such in the educational system; on the other hand, the
former colonial language has not the same function as in other
Independent African Countries, or rather, it is not meant to have it in
the overt policy of the Government; teaching methods are still closer to
the 'submersion-type programmes'; and one perhaps can talk of
'neopIacement' (Portuguese introducing new language functions), rather
than 'displacement' or 'replacement' (partial or intended complete
Sabstitution). Meoplacement may be, however, Just the first phase of the
others (Phillipson and Skutnabb-Kangas ,1986b).

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