RESILIENCE OF CONGOLESE NATIONAL LANGUAGES IN HIGHER AND UNIVERSITY EDUCATION IN THE DRC: SOCIOLINGUISTIC SURVEY CONDUCTED IN PUBLIC INSTITUTIONS IN THE CITY OF KISANGANI

Abstract

This article attempts to analyze how Congolese national languages and foreign languages manage to compete for certain functions in teaching-learning and in exchanges or interactions in the university environment. This testifies to the resilience of national languages, a guarantee of remarkable vitality. Consequently, no courageous reform has been undertaken so far to establish quality basic education in national languages. In addition, higher education and university disciplines have difficulty imposing competitive knowledge of national languages on the international scene. Indeed, despite the dominance of French, national languages retain an important place. This testifies to a local appropriation of academic spaces. This is the guarantee of linguistic duality in educational practices. Thus, foreign languages are invested with all social functions, including French, but they are not accessible to everyone. Indeed, foreign languages remain the languages of major events. In other words, they are legally dominant languages, but dominated by national languages in social practices.