Book contents
- Youth Language Practices and Urban Language Contact in Africa
- Cambridge Approaches to Language Contact
- Youth Language Practices and Urban Language Contact in Africa
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Tables
- Contributors
- Series Editor’s Foreword
- Preface
- Abbreviations
- Introduction
- 1 Language Contact and Structure in Urban IsiXhosa and Associated Youth Languages
- 2 Not ‘Deep’ but Still IsiXhosa:
- 3 Rethinking Youth Language Practices in South Africa:
- 4 Tsotsitaals, Urban Vernaculars and Contact Linguistics
- 5 Grammatical Hybridity in Camfranglais?
- 6 Sheng and Engsh in Kenya’s Public Spaces and Media
- 7 Exploring Hybridity in Ivorian French and Nouchi
- 8 Authenticity and the Object of Analysis:
- Index
- References
3 - Rethinking Youth Language Practices in South Africa:
An Interactional Sociocultural Perspective
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 20 August 2021
Book contents
- Youth Language Practices and Urban Language Contact in Africa
- Cambridge Approaches to Language Contact
- Youth Language Practices and Urban Language Contact in Africa
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Tables
- Contributors
- Series Editor’s Foreword
- Preface
- Abbreviations
- Introduction
- 1 Language Contact and Structure in Urban IsiXhosa and Associated Youth Languages
- 2 Not ‘Deep’ but Still IsiXhosa:
- 3 Rethinking Youth Language Practices in South Africa:
- 4 Tsotsitaals, Urban Vernaculars and Contact Linguistics
- 5 Grammatical Hybridity in Camfranglais?
- 6 Sheng and Engsh in Kenya’s Public Spaces and Media
- 7 Exploring Hybridity in Ivorian French and Nouchi
- 8 Authenticity and the Object of Analysis:
- Index
- References
Summary
This chapter argues for an alternative view of 'African youth languages' based on ethnographic and ecological approaches that link structural and discursive analyses of spontaneous communicative interactions with immediate situational and local social dynamics and then the broader sociocultural context of the speech community in which these practices occur. Using video recordings of naturally occurring conversations from twenty-two years of observation among male youth in a township in Johannesburg, South Africa, I demonstrate that so-called Tsotsitaal or tsotsitaals are interactive performative practices that constitute a performative register made up of a set of discursive strategies that draw on different linguistic resources in the quest for originality as part of male sociality during a particular life stage. I show that variation in choice of words and other semiotic features of this practice are best explained from a persona-constructionist perspective as part of male sociality where linguistic choices index attitudes, stances and identities in the service of social distinction. Innovations spread based on linguistic skill and status within male social networks. Multivalency accounts for the presence of some of the male youth lexicon in urban vernaculars. Implications for current approaches to the study of youth language in Africa are discussed.
Keywords
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2021
References
Agha, Asif. (2007). Language and Social Relations. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Bonner, Philip and Nieftagodien, Noor. (2012). Kathorus: A History. Cape Town: Maskew Miller Longman.Google Scholar
Brookes, Heather. (2004). A first repertoire of South African quotable gestures. Linguistic Anthropology, 14(2), pp. 186–224.Google Scholar
Brookes, Heather. (2005). What gestures do: Some communicative functions of quotable gestures in conversations among Black urban South Africans. Journal of Pragmatics, 37, pp. 2044–2085.Google Scholar
Brookes, Heather. (2014). Urban youth languages in South Africa: A case study of Tsotsitaal in a South African township. Anthropological Linguistics, 56(3–4), pp. 356–388.Google Scholar
Brookes, Heather. (2019). Youth language in South Africa: The role of English in South African tsotsitaals. In Hickey, R. (Ed.), English in a Multilingual South Africa. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, pp. 176–195.Google Scholar
Brookes, Heather and Kouassi, Roland. (2018). The language of youth in Africa: A sociocultural linguistic analysis. In Agwuele, A. and Bodomo, A. (Eds.), Handbook of African Linguistics. Oxford: Routledge, pp. 391–408.Google Scholar
Brookes, Heather and Lekgoro, Tshepiso. (2014). A social history of urban male youth ‘varieties’ in Stirtonville and Vosloorus, South Africa. Southern African Linguistics and Applied Language Studies, 32(2), pp. 149–159.Google Scholar
Bucholtz, Mary. (2009). From stance to style: Gender, interaction and indexicality in Mexican immigrant youth slang. In Jaffe, A. (Ed.), Stance: Sociolinguistic Perspectives. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, pp. 146–170.Google Scholar
Bucholtz, Mary and Hall, K. (2005). Identity and interaction: A sociolinguistic approach. Discourse Studies, 7(4–5), pp. 585–614.Google Scholar
Dorleijn, Margreet, Mous, Martin, and Nortier, Jacomine. (2015). Urban youth speech styles in Kenya and the Netherlands. In Nortier, J. and Svendsen, B. (Eds.), Language, Youth and Identity in the 21st Century. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, pp. 271–289.Google Scholar
Eckert, Penelope. (2003). Language and adolescent peer groups. Journal of Language and Social Psychology, 22(1), pp. 112–118.Google Scholar
Eckert, Penelope. (2012). Three waves of variation study: The emergence of meaning in the study of sociolinguistic variation. Annual Review of Anthropology, 41, pp. 87–100.Google Scholar
Githoria, Chege. (2016). Sheng: the expanding domains of an urban youth vernacular. Journal of African Cultural Studies, 30(2), pp. 105–120.Google Scholar
Halliday, Michael A. K. (1976). Anti-languages. American Anthropologist, 78(3), pp. 570–584.Google Scholar
Hollington, Andrea and Nassenstein, Nico (Eds.). (2015). Youth Language Practices in Africa and Beyond. Berlin: de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Hurst, Ellen. (2008). Style, Structure and Function in Cape Town Tsotsitaal. Unpublished PhD thesis. University of Cape Town.Google Scholar
Hurst, Ellen. (2009). Tsotsitaal, global culture and local Style: Identity and recontextualisation in twenty-first century South African townships. Social Dynamics, 35(2), pp. 244–257.Google Scholar
Hurst, Ellen and Mesthrie, Rajend. (2013). ‘When you hang out with the guys they keep you in style’: the case for considering style in descriptions of South African tsotsitaals. Language Matters, 44(1), pp. 3–20.Google Scholar
Hymes, Dell. ([1975] 1981). Breakthrough into Performance. In ‘In Vain I Tried to Tell You’: Essays in Native American Ethnopoetics. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, pp. 79–141.Google Scholar
Kießling, Roland and Mous, Maarten. (2004). Urban youth languages in Africa. Anthropological Linguistics, 46(3), pp. 303–341.Google Scholar
Labov, William. (1972a). Sociolinguistic Patterns. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.Google Scholar
Labov, William. (1972b). Language in the Inner City. Philadelphia: Universtiy of Pennsylvania Press.Google Scholar
Makhudu, Dennis. (2002). An introduction to Flaaitaal. In Mesthrie, R. (ed.), Language in South Africa. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 398–406.Google Scholar
Makukule, Idah. (2017). The Role of Language in the Performance of Male Township Youth Identities on Thokoza Street Corners. Unpublished PhD thesis, University of Cape Town.Google Scholar
Maribe, Tebogo and Brookes, Heather.( 2014). Vela, Re a Ringa: ‘Of course, we speak’ [boys’ talk]: the role of Tsotsitaal in the performance of Black, lesbian, youth Identities. Southern African Linguistics and Applied Language Studies, 32(2), pp. 119–214.Google Scholar
Mesthrie, Rajend. (2008). ‘I’ve been speaking Tsotsitaal all my life without knowing it’: towards a unified account of tsotsitaals in south Africa. In Meyerhoff, M. and Nagy, N. (eds.), Social Lives in Language – Sociolinguistics and Multilingual Speech Communities. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, pp. 95–109.Google Scholar
Mfenyana, Buntu. (1977). Isi-Khunsha Nesitsotsi: The Sociolinguistic of School and Town Sintu in South Africa (1945–1975). Unpublished MA thesis, Boston University.Google Scholar
Mfusi, Mmemezi. (1992). Soweto Zulu slang: a sociolinguistic study of an urban vernacular in Soweto. Language Matters, 23, pp. 39–83.Google Scholar
Mojela, V.M. (2002). The cause of urban slang and its effect on the development of the Northern Sotho lexicon: contemplative article. Lexikos, 12, pp. 201–210.Google Scholar
Msimang, Themba. (1987). Impact of Zulu on Tsotsitaal. South African Journal for African Languages, 7(3), pp. 82–86.Google Scholar
Nortier, Jacomine and Svendsen, Bente A. (eds.). (2015). Language, Youth and Identity in the 21st Century. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ntshangase, Dumisani K. (1993). The Social History of Iscamtho. Unpublished MA thesis, University of the Witwatersrand.Google Scholar
Ntshangase, Dumisani K. (1995). Indaba yami i-straight: language and language practices in Soweto. In Mesthrie, R. (ed.), Language and Social History: Studies in South African Sociolinguistics. Cape Town: David Philip, pp. 291–297.Google Scholar
Schuring, Gerhard. (1983). Flaaitaal. In Claassen, G. and Van Rensburg, M. C. J. (eds.), Taalverskeidenheid. Pretoria: Academica, pp. 116–133.Google Scholar
Silverstein, Michael. (1981). The limits of awareness. Sociolinguistic Working Paper No. 84. Austin, TX: Southwest Educational Development Lab, pp. 1–16.Google Scholar
Silverstein, Michael. (2003). Indexical order and the dialectics of sociolinguistic life. Language and Communication, 23, pp. 193–230.Google Scholar
Slabbert, Sarah and Myers-Scotton, Carol. (1996). The structure of Tsotsitaal and Iscamtho: code switching and in-group identity in South African townships. Linguistics, 34, pp. 317–342.Google Scholar