Language plays a crucial role in a person's daily life, from communicating with friends, family, and peers to shaping how individuals think and critically engage with the world around them. As the world becomes increasingly interconnected, English has emerged as the dominant and widely accepted language for communication. This trend is also evident in student award competitions, such as the Loeries, where the vast majority of finalists and winning entries are in English, with very few submissions in native languages. This observation suggests that tertiary institutions offering design degrees may not actively encourage students to complete their projects in their mother tongues.

Language is deeply tied to an individual’s identity, heritage, and culture, influencing their worldview and approach to problem-solving. South Africa is a country rich in cultural diversity, with 12 official languages. By encouraging students to solve design problems in their own language, institutions enable them to approach challenges from their cultural perspectives, fostering innovative and nuanced solutions that are rich in cultural significance. Allowing students to explore and incorporate their native languages in design projects also promotes greater academic freedom. The Department of Higher Education recognises academic freedom as a fundamental principle in the transformation of higher education, defining it as the absence of external interference, censorship, or obstacles in the pursuit of academic work. Furthermore, academic freedom is considered a prerequisite for critical, experimental, and creative thought, as well as for the advancement of intellectual inquiry and knowledge (Department of Education 1997).

This paper explores the academic freedom students may experience when designing their communication design projects in their home languages. Engaging with a design brief in their first language enables students to integrate their cultural perspectives and lived experiences into their creative process, potentially leading to more diverse and innovative design solutions. Additionally, thinking and designing in their language empowers students to express their unique identities and creative styles more authentically in their work.

This study adopts an integrated literature review methodology, drawing on existing literature and employing a textual analysis. From a contribution perspective, this research provides a theoretical framework that explores how a student’s home language influences the quality and depth of their design work. It may also highlight the importance of institutions encouraging students to undertake more projects in their native languages. This research serves as a foundational step toward a broader qualitative study aimed at understanding how these dynamics manifest in practice. While the topic of students studying in their native languages has been extensively researched in education, the specific role that a student’s first language plays in their communication design work remains largely unexplored. This study seeks to address this gap by examining how linguistic and cultural contexts shape creative processes, design thinking and academic freedom.