Plain language and multilingualism in South Africa: a focus on literacy and understanding in law drafting

Maziba, Gugu

Plain language and multilingualism in South Africa: a focus on literacy and understanding in law drafting

Thesis / Dissertation

2025

Publisher

University of Cape Town

Department

African Studies

Faculty

Faculty of Humanities

Abstract

Multilingualism and plain language are underexamined concepts in the prescripts of South African law, in which their minimal representation has deterred the ordinary citizen from linguistic liberty, due to complex and insufferable legalese. Madiba (2014) and Moen et al. (2023) studied literacy and multilingual classrooms in South Africa where indigenous knowledge creation and sustenance were discovered as literacy interventions. This study focuses on multilingualism and plain language within the prescripts of South African law drafting in assembling plausible resolutions for legal illiteracy among ordinary consumers. Previous studies looked at multilingualism and plain language as a lacking factor in the judiciary and recommended that rigorous indigenous language implementation be adopted by the law for fair consumer protection. The study focuses on the challenges faced when decoding legalese and enquires as to whether plain language would be more helpful for a select sample of South Africans. This study looks at how the judiciary can use plain language as a principal framework for legal indigenous language glossaries and vocabularies. The study conducted interviews and observations using law order documentary evidence. The participants were provided with a law order to read, which was followed by a semi-structured interview and discussion. The study discovered that the select sample in the study tentatively points to a preference to read law documents in English. Indigenous languages were referred to as optional languages or ‘niceto-haves' for law orders to be provided in. The English desire emanated from the economic and social status of the language, which provided more improved educational and employment outcomes than indigenous languages. English dominates legal communication even though citizens struggle with its legal understanding. Legalese tends to be upheld by law professionals in which commitment to law literacy interventions for unlearned citizens needs to be consigned to. Moreover, the study found that media viewership influenced citizen emotions and perceptions of the law as legal televised programming often provides law education and insight.

Keywords

multilingualism

Reference:

Collections

Masters

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