“I’ve Really Let Go of the Language Thing.”: Language Learning in Transracial Adoptive Families in South Africa

Abstract

In South Africa, transracial adoption could result in the loss of birth language for the adopted child. Language is an important part of racial and cultural identity in South Africa. Not being able to speak a local African language causes Black African transracial adoptees to be judged by outsiders. Lack of fluency in an appropriate language limits social circles associated with biological family and makes reunion more complex. Many transracial adoptive parents wish to facilitate the learning of a local language for their adopted children or the entire transracial adoptive family. However, despite their best intentions, most transracial adoptive families fail in this endeavor. Reasons for this and recommendations for practice are discussed.

Keywords

transracial adoption South Africa language learning African language ethnoracial identity

Introduction

Transracial adoption is understood to involve adopting a child with a different race to the adoptive parents (Hrapczynski et al., 2022; Treitler, 2014). Defining transracial adoption is complex because there is no scientific validity to the concept of race, and different criteria are used in different historical times and geographical regions to distinguish between “races” (Bardien-Kruger & Muller-Nedebock, 2020; Treitler, 2014).

Racial and ethnic identity are interrelated. As commonly understood, despite the fact that “race” is not a scientific category, race is based mainly on observable differences in physical appearance, including skin color and eye color, but also on geographical location. Racial identity is defined as self-perception, including how one describes oneself, a sense of belonging to a particular group, and how one differentiates oneself from other groups (McRoy, 1994). Ethnicity refers to commonality of cultural factors, including nationality, cultural heritage, language, social practice, and religion (Ali, 2014; Bardien-Kruger & Muller-Nedebock, 2020). Cultural identity is the particular society a person belongs to as well as behaviors, beliefs, rituals, and values associated with that group (Baden & Steward, 2000). Language is a central feature of ethnicity as a consequence of its capacity to include and exclude (Alexander, 2004; Gumperz, 1982; Makoni & Trudell, 2006; Orman, 2009, p. 30).

Research on ethnoracial identity development has shown variable impact on adoptee outcomes (Butler-Sweet, 2011; Castle et al., 2011; Hollingsworth, 1997; Montgomery & Jordan, 2018), but providing racial–ethnic socialization is seen as one of the most important tasks of transracial adoptive parents (Steinberg & Hall, 2000). Cultural socialization is defined as teaching adopted children about the values, behaviors, and traditions of their birth culture or country, and includes activities that expose adoptees to their birth culture and support connections to their cultural group (R. M. Lee, 2003; Montgomery & Jordan, 2018; Vonk, 2001). As race rests primarily on observable differences, transracial adoptees struggle more than cross-cultural adoptees because they have to integrate an identity that includes their appearance (Vonk, 2001). Cultural competence for transracial adoptive parents includes three components: racial awareness, multicultural planning, and survival skills (Vonk, 2001).

Identity development for transracial adoptees is complex and includes aspects of individual identity, adoptive identity, and racial and ethnic identity (Steinberg & Hall, 2000). Identity is a psychosocial concept that operates at the boundaries of individual personality and social relationships, subjective awareness, and external context (Erikson, 1968). Identity development is a lifelong and nonlinear process that proceeds through phases of openness, when one is exploring, reviewing, or reconsidering life choices, as well as phases of consolidating and integrating commitments. Although the formation of identity has its roots in childhood, it takes on new prominence in adolescence (Erikson, 1968). The experiences, struggles, and outcomes are likely to vary for transracial adoptees depending on their countries of origin, their ethnicity, where they are being raised, whether the adoption is national adoption or intercountry adoption, and the age at which they are adopted (Ben-Zion, 2014; Grotevant et al., 2000; Luu et al., 2018; Padilla et al., 2010).

Loss of language may occur in intercountry and transracial adoption (Herman, 2008, p. 252). An important way in which adoptive parents can increase access to birth culture, including birth parents, is improving access to the language of the birth culture (Adesman & Adamec, 2004; Pinderhughes, 2019; Steinberg & Hall, 2000).

Transracial Adoption in South Africa

Transracial adoption became legal in South Africa in 1991 when previous discriminatory legislation was removed from the Child Care Act. Current legislation prohibits discrimination concerning adoptable children and prospective adoptive parents with regard to race, gender, language, religion, and disability. A placement may not be refused based on a racial mismatch status (Consolidated Regulations Pertaining to the Children’s Act, 2005, 2010; Constitution of South Africa, 1996; Louw, 2017). However, the law requires social workers to take into account “cultural and community diversity” when making an adoption match, and the court is required to consider the “religious and cultural background” of the child and the prospective adoptive parents when signing an adoption order (Bosman-Sadie et al., 2013; The Children’s Act, 2005).

The proportion of transracial adoptions compared with in-race adoption has increased in recent years, and currently constitutes 40% of adoptions registered annually (I. Chavalala, National Adoption Statistics 2013-2022. National Adoption Register, personal communication [email] April 28, 2022). South Africa provides a unique context for transracial adoption research because of certain features in South Africa which are different from the international context. For a full review, see Luyt & Swartz (2022a), but significant differences relevant to language learning are described below.

Labeling racial groups in research, especially in South Africa, is contentious (Durrheim, 2017; Jansen, 2020). Defining different “racial” categories in South Africa is contested (Durrheim, 2017), and the identity of the “Coloured” population is particularly contentious (Petrus & Isaacs-Martin, 2012). However, common-sense understandings of racial categories remain (Posel, 2001), and the understanding and experience of transracial adoption are impacted by racialized categories entrenched by apartheid. Membership of specific racialized groups has specific impact on language learning in transracial families, and different languages are predominantly spoken by certain groups in South Africa. In this article, we use the term Black as a generic term to identify all groups disenfranchised by apartheid. South Africa also uses specific racial labels, Black African, Coloured, Indian/Asian, and white, as currently employed in government reporting (Statistics South Africa, 2016).

South Africa remains a racially divided country (Durrheim, 2017; Durrheim et al., 2011; Posel, 2015), and transracially adoptive families exist in a society where engaging with race with regard to transracial adoption presents significant challenges (Luyt & Swartz, 2022b; Durrheim et al., 2011). Given the racial disproportionality of children in need of alternative care in South Africa, a de facto acceptance of the need for transracial adoption exists (Luyt & Swartz, 2022b) despite it being contentious (Doubell, 2014; Moos & Mwaba, 2007; Tanga & Kausi, 2017). A reason for negative attitudes toward transracial adoption in South Africa rests on the assumption that being raised by white parents will sever the connection of Black African children to their culture and language (Mosikatsana, 1995, 1997).

Domestic transracial adoptees in South Africa have more access and exposure to their cultures of origin than children adopted internationally (Breshears, 2022). In South Africa, Black Africans constitute 80% and Coloureds 9% of the population, while whites make up only 8% of the population (Statistics South Africa, 2016). South Africa may be the only country where white adoptive parents, from a numerical minority, adopt from the racial majority (Bowen, 2017).

Ethnic identity is related to language in complex ways in South Africa (Orman, 2009; Swanepoel, 2013). Although there is no essential link between ethnic identity and language, language is often a central and salient marker of ethnic identity (Makoni & Trudell, 2006; Orman, 2009). South Africa has 11 official languages, English and Afrikaans and nine indigenous languages (Orman, 2009). South African Sign Language is slated to become the 12th official language.

In South Africa, language influences the racial and adoptive identities of transracial adoptees differently if they are African or Coloured, as the birth language of Coloured children is likely to be Afrikaans. In general, white parents are more familiar with Afrikaans than an African language. Africans speak a larger variety of languages (“People of South Africa,” 2018) and can communicate with each other as a result of the mutual intelligibility of classes of African languages, but there are few factors motivating English and Afrikaans speakers to learn an African language (Orman, 2009, p. 121). English dominates the public and political sphere and is beginning to replace African languages at home in some Black African urban families (Alexander, 2004; Orman, 2009).

Learning a second language is a complex endeavor, which increases in difficulty with age (Dowling & Sipamla, 1991; Ntsukunyane, 1982). Motivation to learn a second language is an important factor in the successful acquisition of a second language (Gelb, 2017). Attitudes of parents toward the bilingual language learning for children have significant impact on the success of such learning, even where the parents are the first language speakers of the language (De Houwer, 1999, 2021). Where the parents are not the first language speakers of the language, creating the needed opportunities is more challenging. African second language learning provision is rare in South Africa, and both formal teaching and informal teaching of African languages in South Africa are poorly developed. The growth of teaching and learning of African languages in school setting has only recently started, and there is a lack of agreement about the best ways to teach African languages in these and other settings (Dowling & Sipamla, 1991; Dugmore, 1991; Gelb, 2017; Ntsukunyane, 1982; Suzman, 1999; Wildsmith-Cromarty, 2003).

There is no research focusing specifically on the use of language as part of racial and cultural socialization in South African transracial families, but research into the attitudes and experiences of transracial families and adoptees sheds some light on language as a racial and cultural socialization strategy. African transracially adopted children report that they are subjected to negative interactions with Africans when it becomes clear they do not speak a local African language (Bowen, 2017; Camara, 2014; Schroder, 2015). Social interactions become awkward because other South Africans cannot place them in terms of their cultural or ethnic heritage, resulting in negative assumptions that they have neglected their culture (Bowen, 2017; Robinson, 2018; Thomson, 2006).

The inability to speak an African language excludes transracial adoptees from participating in conversations with African peers at school and makes them vulnerable to rejection (Bowen, 2017; Schroder, 2015). This is significant during adolescence when the desire to fit in is heightened (Bowen, 2017; Schroder, 2015). Transracial adoptees’ contact with birth families is characterized by ambivalence. Differences between the transracial adoptees and birth families include cultural and socioeconomic aspects, and lack of fluency in the language their birth family speaks makes contact more difficult (Thomson, 2006).

Even where adopted children are encouraged by their adoptive parents to learn an African language, many do not wish to do so or struggle to learn it because it is not spoken within their families and immediate social circles. Some regret not being able to communicate in an African language and are motivated to learn later in life (Bowen, 2017).

The only research focusing specifically on ethnic racial socialization of adoptees in South Africa was conducted by Breshears (2022), who investigated the attitudes of South African transracial adoptive parents, based on the cultural competence framework outlined by Vonk (2001). This includes racial awareness, multicultural planning, and imparting of survival skills to their adopted children. All three components relate to language learning. Racial awareness incorporates the parents’ awareness of how race, ethnicity, culture, and language operate in their own and their children’s lives and would include knowledge of languages associated with their child’s racial or ethnic background. Multicultural planning refers to the creation of avenues for the transracially adopted child to learn about and participate in their culture of birth, including learning an African language. Transracial adoptive parents may consider teaching their children a local African language if their children are African, or Afrikaans if their children are Coloured, as one of the multicultural planning strategies (Gishen, 1996; Mona, 2002; Oosthuizen & Greeff, 2020; Robinson, 2018). Although some adoptive parents understand the importance of teaching a child a second language, this may present a challenge for transracial adoptive parents (Finlay, 2006; Jackson, 2018; Mona, 2002; Romanini, 2017). Although they hope that knowing the language gives their children more opportunities to engage with people from their birth culture, the adoptive parents recognize that this might not be enough to integrate their children into these spaces (Breshears, 2022). Survival skills, later called coping skills (J. Lee et al., 2018), refer to transracial adoptive parents’ recognition of the need to prepare their children to cope with racism and the ability to impart the necessary skills to do so (Vonk, 2001). Breshears found that South African parents focused more on survival skills than the other two aspects of cultural competence (Breshears, 2022). Breshears also found that adoptive parents tend to make use of naturally occurring avenues for cultural and racial socialization, rather than creating specific opportunities for these experiences (Breshears, 2022). For example, the intention to teach their child the language of their birth culture does not always translate into the needed steps to effect this (Breshears, 2022; Gishen, 1996). Some parents rely on naturally occurring experiences, such as school, to give their children access to African languages (Attwell, 2004; Robinson, 2018).

Social workers emphasize the importance of allowing an adopted child to have regular and positive contact with their culture of origin, which is facilitated by knowing the language of the community of origin (Doubell, 2014). Others recommend that the focus on the culture of origin of the adopted child should be for the benefit of the whole family, and not exclusively on the adopted child. This means all members of the adoptive family should learn the language of the child’s community of origin, which would ensure that the child is supported in learning the language, while belonging to the adoptive family is also emphasized (Ferreira, 2009).

Given what an important element of racial and ethnic socialization language learning is in South Africa, it is useful to explore that specific component of parenting transracial adoptees. This article reports on the aspects related to the use of language learning as part of cultural and racial socialization which emerged as part of a study of the experiences of transracial adoptive families.

Method

Participants were recruited via adoption networks through snowball sampling. A total of 26 families participated. The sample included 31 adoptive parents (25 woman and 6 men) and eight adoptees (five adopted girls, two adopted boys, and one female adult adoptee). Some families (15) had only adopted children, while others (11) had adopted and biological children. Families had between one and three adopted children. Most (17) families had adopted one child, seven had adopted two, and one family had adopted three children. The ages of the transracial adoptees ranged from under 1 year to early 20s. All the families lived in the Western Cape, with most families from Cape Town, and only two were living in smaller towns near Cape Town. The demographics of the Western Cape population are different from South Africa as a whole, in that it is one of only two provinces in South Africa where Black Africans are not the majority. Coloured people, who primarily speak Afrikaans, make up the majority of the inhabitants of the Western Cape (46%), followed by Black Africans (36%), whites (16%), and Indian/Asians (0.8%) (Provincial Profile: Western Cape, 2018). The Western Cape also has a higher proportion of transracial adoptions (52%) than the national average, which is at 40% (I. Chavalala, National Adoption Statistics 2013-2022. National Adoption Register, personal communication [email] April 28, 2022).

A series of 12 family interviews (four in-person and eight online) and six online focus groups of adoptive parents were conducted by the first author and a research assistant to gather the data. Free Association Narrative Interview (FANI) method (Hollway & Jefferson, 2000) was used, which meant that participants were asked general questions about their experiences of parenting transracially adopted children and had the freedom to comment on aspects of that experience that seemed significant to them. The interviewer asked questions of clarity but allowed the conversation to be as free flowing as possible. The focus groups were structured by themes. Interviews were audio recorded and transcribed. The transcriptions were read several times by the first author, and data were analyzed according to an iterative coding process in which themes that emerged from each reading were used to code the data in subsequent readings to reach a nuanced understanding of the content. Themes were generated using psychosocial studies as the theoretical framework for analysis. This approach emphasizes how personal experiences are influenced by individual psychological processes and social environments simultaneously (Frosh & Emerson, 2005; Frosh & Young, 2017). Results were grouped around themes that emerged, and exemplary quotes were used to illustrate the themes. The primary emphasis in the analysis was to understand the ways in which families understood the opportunities and challenges related to language learning.

Results

Many adoptive parents recognized the need of their child to be able to communicate with people of their own race and considered enabling their adopted child to learn an African language and learning an African language themselves.

Differences in Intention Facilitate Language Learning Over Time

The importance that adoptive families gave to learning the language associated with the biological family of the child varied over time. Families with younger children tended to be more insistent about their intention to teach their children the language associated with their biological family, while those with older children tended to be more circumspect about what was possible:

What we’re going to do is basically enrol [husband] and I as soon as lockdown is over. We’ll enrol in conversational Xhosa and then when [adopted child] is older we will take her along to baby Xhosa classes. (Adoptive mother—Family Interview 5)

Parents of adolescents and young adults comment on the importance of learning an African language, once they see the impact the lack of that language has on their child once they engage more with identity issues during adolescence:

We did [make] the mistake of not valuing the [African] language. And now we find ourselves in the situation where obviously most of the people assume that she understands Xhosa, whereas she doesn’t speak it, doesn’t understand it. And this was a mistake, this was a mistake. . . . And now we were paying the consequences, because that is automatically cutting her out from her own heritage, although she doesn’t obviously feel neither Xhosa nor Zulu. But by not knowing the language, she is completely cut off from that segment of the population. (Adoptive father—Focus Group 6)

Positive Consequences of Knowing an African Language

Some saw learning an African language important when living in a country with a Black African majority and as a means of nation building:

So even if they hadn’t been adopted, I would have done the same. But because they are adopted, I think it’s particularly important. (Adoptive mother—Family Interview 6)

Knowledge of an African language was seen as having an instrumental value, but some also acknowledged its importance in anticipation of the expectation that Black Africans can speak an African language.

In other cases, learning an African language was viewed as a coping skill (J. Lee et al., 2018) to protect their children from possible negative perceptions and associated with being seen to align themselves with “whiteness.” Adoptive parents anticipated their children being teased or spoken about negatively in their presence and wanted them to be able to understand what is being said:

[Black] African women might engage with [adopted child] and try and speak an African language and are a bit shocked when she doesn’t know anything. (Adoptive mother—Family Interview 9)

Some argued that the symbolism of attempting to learn to speak an African language was more important than having success in becoming fluent.

For white people adopting Coloured children, the language learning was easier because Afrikaans is the first language for many white people, and almost all White people have some fluency in Afrikaans. This made it easier to communicate with biological families in Afrikaans:

[I sent the message to the birth family] in Afrikaans, it’s so nice that we’ve got the language in common. (Adoptive mother—Family Interview 12)

Strategies for Giving an Adopted Child Access to an African Language

Adoptive parents relied on naturally occurring circumstances to create the learning opportunities. Some explicitly asked their Black African domestic workers to teach their children an African language, while others hoped it might happen naturally, but when the domestic staff were not working, the language learning stopped:

The biggest loss in lockdown, is that my children are now speaking English to each other. Before, their language to each other was Xhosa, but now [adopted child] won’t speak it because he didn’t hear it . . . . The nanny wasn’t here. (Adoptive mother—Family Interview 6)

Some expressed hope that their children will be taught an African language at school or may learn it from another person:

I hope that that something sticks or at least at one stage she gets a boyfriend who speaks Xhosa. (Adoptive mother—Family Interview 5)

Barriers to Teaching an Adopted Child an African Language

Some argued that it was not possible to teach their child their language of birth because the adoptive parents did not know what that language would have been, while others argued that learning a local African language was useful for a Black African adoptee, even if adoptive parents were not sure what the language of their biological family was.

Most white adoptive parents could not speak an African language, and despite the wish that the adopted child learnt an African language, adoptive parents struggled to implement a plan to enable language learning:

It’s something that people often ask me, why is she not doing an African language. The reality is: I don’t speak an African language. We only speak English at home. (Adoptive mother—Family Interview 9)

I’ve really let go of the language thing. I was hyper about that in the beginning. I was like, he’s going to be speaking Xhosa . . . . But it’s been so hard to do. It’s been so costly. But for me it is a no-brainer . . . to do this and if my life was any different, I would champion that. (Adoptive mother—Family interview 1)

Some expressed concern that teaching their child the language of the biological family or culture emphasized the differences between the adopted child and the rest of the family. For others, a way to avoid feeling being singled out was for the family to learn an African language together:

I never want to other my child, by learning another language, I don’t want to go “You need to go learn another language, because that’s your culture.” If you want to learn a language, let’s do [it] together as a family. (Adoptive mother—Focus Group 4)

Learning an African language Not Seen as Important

Less often, adoptive parents did not feel committed to teaching their child an African language. These adoptive parents emphasized that the child was part of the adoptive family and that the language of the adoptive family was more important than the birth language:

Then you also speak Afrikaans. Because you’re part of our family. (Adoptive mother—Family Interview 8)

Some adoptive parents argued that an African language is no longer as important to Black African people as it once was. They believed that knowing English is good enough to prepare their children for the future or that being able to communicate with people in their social circle in Afrikaans was more pressing:

The country is changing. The world’s changing. . . English is the lingua franca. (Adoptive mother—Family Interview 1)

[Adopted child] was struggling with Afrikaans. And obviously, just to get by, we need that. So that’s why we are going for the extra lessons [in Afrikaans]. But then, we need to start getting some Xhosa [lessons]. (Adoptive mother—Family Interview 10)

Some left the decision on learning an African language to their adopted child, rather than making decisions about language learning as the parent:

I want to do what’s respectful towards her, so I don’t want to push things on her and say, “You’re Xhosa.” . . . [I say] “Learn Xhosa if you want to learn Xhosa.” (Adoptive mother—Family Interview 8)

Discussion

It is clear from the limited research on the experiences of transracial adoptees that not speaking an African language impacts their ability to integrate into the Black African community, whether at school, in public, or with their extended or immediate birth family (Bowen, 2017; Schroder, 2015). In South Africa, Black African children are adopted from a numerical majority population and have more access to their birth culture than transracially adopted children adopted transnationally. This should mean that it is easier for South African transracial families to incorporate learning the birth language of their adopted children into the family. However, the teaching of African languages for second language learners is poorly developed in South Africa. Many adoptive families consider learning an African language or teaching it to their adopted child, although the commitment to teaching children an African language tends to diminish over time. Some adoptive parents do not see the value in learning an African language, and consistent with previous research conducted by Breshears (2022), most adoptive parents appear not to succeed, even if it was their intention. This research was able to outline more of the reasons for this failure. Most white people in South Africa do not speak an African language. Some adoptive families argue that they do not know which language to teach their child because they do not know what language their child’s biological family would have spoken. Parents seem to rely on external or circumstantial routes to language learning for their children, such as the school environment. However, it is clear that learning an African language in school is very difficult as a result of inadequate provision of second language tuition in the school context.

Given the importance of identity development for transracially adopted children, and the importance of accessing racial mirrors and facilitating contact with biological family, facilitating appropriate language learning is a very important responsibility of the adoptive parents. However, strategies currently being used by adoptive families do not seem to be working, and more thought needs to be given to how this important task can be addressed by transracial adoptive families.

Limitations to the Study

This research was based a small sample of families from Western Cape in South Africa. The experiences in this specific province may not be generalizable to other provinces, or South Africa as a whole. The data gathering relied primarily on reports from adoptive parents. Intention does not always lead to the intended reports from parents, which may not accurately reflect their day-to-day practice.

Future research could usefully focus on assessing the actual practices that families engage in to learn or use the language associated with the biological family of the adopted child, rather than attitudes toward learning the language only. Evaluation of specific language learning strategies would also be useful. Research into how lack of access to specific languages associated with their biological family impact on transracial adoptees would also be useful.

Recommendations for Practice

Language is an important part of cultural identity and speaking an African language gives adopted children access to African peers, the African community, and their birth family. It is important that adoption practitioners become comfortable addressing these issues in engaging with prospective adoptive parents and emphasize the importance of language learning to facilitate cultural and racial socialization.

Footnotes

Disposition editor: Cristina Mogro-Wilson

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

ORCID iD

Jean Luyt

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