Using SNA to spread knowledge of a language

While South Sudan rejoiced when it became the world’s newest country in July, 2011, it was clear that the new state had a long road ahead before it could prove itself as a viable nation. In order to foster a national identity, South Sudan needs a focused approach to creating a nationalist sentiment and feeling of unity. An important factor in this regard is choosing a new national and official language. Earlier this month, South Sudan announced English as its new official language. Although there is a clear rationale for this choice (distinction from the North, ease of international communication), it also presents a unique challenge; currently only 8% of South Sudanese speak English proficiently[1]. To rectify this severe capacity gap and ensure that the South Sudanese language choice becomes a unifying, and not a divisive factor, social network analysis has an important role to play.

To the best of my knowledge, social network analysis has only been applied to pre-existing linguistic groups, rather than the dissemination of a new language among a population. Perhaps because the formation of a new country is so rare in this era, there is little precedent for a countrywide effort to build proficiency in a language as widely and quickly as South Sudan aims to.

In her book Language and Social Networks, published in 1980, Milroy addressed the social networks of Belfast, Northern Ireland as they related to particular vernaculars. While this research is not entirely applicable to the spread of a new language, it confirms the significance of language in structuring social networks and building identities. Milroy comments,

“Haugen hints at one obvious linguistic consequence of these changes in network structure, noting that ‘the modern nation state…extends some of the loyalties of the family and the neighbourhood or the clan to the whole state. Language and nation have become inextricably intertwined” (186)

Given that language is perhaps uniquely positioned to have such a unifying effect, I am particularly interested in how the new Government of South Sudan will facilitate the spread of English through the country in an effective and conflict sensitive manner. A well-designed Social Network Analysis could be a crucial step in identifying the best ways to achieve this.

Currently, the IIEP, a branch of UNESCO, is working with the new South Sudanese Ministry of Education on developing an Education Sector Strategic Plan, which will detail plans for enhancing the English language capacity of the education system with close regard to conflict sensitivity[2]. In order for a social network analysis to be feasible and productive, more information would need to be provided by this partnership about how the Plan envisions spreading English teaching resources. Documents currently available point to an ad hoc system, in which various NGO’s and Agencies have offered technical assistance sporadically. Unfortunately, South Sudan’s low levels of school enrollment and serious lack of infrastructure for schooling (which are emphasized in Marc Sommers’ book, Islands of Education, Schooling, Civil War and the Southern Sudanese) mean that an ad hoc system for improving English capacity is very likely to miss large portions of the population.

To start off on an equitable basis, the Government/international community could identify existing social network structures among the South Sudanese that could serve as useful channels for spreading English to those who may otherwise be left out. Beyond a hierarchical approach to English training (which may be seen as favoring a particular tribe, or fostering a new, elite class that has access to the international community), a social network analysis would allow us new ways to envision spreading language, and could consider utilizing the pre-existing network of trade routes. Once large markets are identified and trade routes are mapped, the next step would be to use a SNA to gauge how well connected the people/groups frequenting these markets are (and thus how likely to pass on newly acquired language skills). To measure this, it would be important to consider the following centrality measures:

· Degree Centrality: those markets/meeting centers that have the most trade routes to the most other markets/meeting centers

· Betweenness: those markets/meeting centers that the most people pass through to reach others

To gain a more complete understanding of how useful these trade centers could be as focal points for English training, a survey (or potentially a simple desk study) could address the following questions:

· How often do certain people/groups pass through the trade center?

· What language do they currently communicate in?

· How many different trade centers do they travel to?

· How long do they typically stay at a particular trade center?

· How much do they interact with people from different regions at the trade center?

Of course, once these measures have been studied, there remain many practical concerns, including the level of pre-existing institutional capacity to provide English training, and presence of teachers in the area. To ensure equitability, it would also be important to consider how the existing network of trade routes may already exclude particular groups, which could include particular income level, ethnic group, or gender bias. However, knowledge of how people throughout the country are actually interacting, combined with an understanding of the above factors, would be a very useful step in identifying key areas for spreading English quickly through a framework other than the flawed school system.

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[1] Ahmed Gumaa Siddiek, “Language and Education as Factors of Sustainable Relation between the Northern and Southern Sudan Post-Secession,” Research Journal of International Studies, no. 17 (November 2010): 68-87.

[2] “Why Education Will Foster Stability in an Independent South Sudan” (UNESCO, IIEP, July 9, 2011).