The attitudes and opinions of young students towards their own language: The case of Tsonga-speaking students at the University of Johannesburg

Tsonga people are one of South Africa’s recognised ethnic groups with a population of over 4.5 million speakers in the country (Census 2011). This qualifies the language as one of the least spoken indigenous languages in the country when compared to Zulu, Xhosa, Pedi, Sotho, and Tswana. In cases where a language is spoken by the minority, there tends to be concomitant negative attitudes towards that particular language by speakers of the majority languages. This paper reports the findings of a study that investigated the attitudes and opinions of young Tsonga-speaking students towards their own language (or their perception of the self) at the University of Johannesburg in South Africa. Ten (N=10) Tsonga-speaking students were asked how they felt about their own language. Structured questionnaires that consisted of both open ended and closed ended questions were used. Results indicated that the participants of the study not only had positive attitudes and opinions towards their own language, but they also had the same with the other indigenous South African languages.