Afrikaans discourse-pragmatic features in South African English

Abstract

This study discusses the use of six Afrikaans discourse-pragmatic features – ag, ja, mos, né, nogal, and sommer - in South African English, with a view to exploring their meanings, frequencies, syntactic positioning, syntactic distribution, collocational patterns, and discourse-pragmatic functions. The data, which are extracted from the South African component of the corpus of Global Web-based English, are analysed quantitatively and qualitatively, using the theories of pragmatic borrowing and Fusion. The paper shows that ja is the most frequent discourse-pragmatic feature while sommer is the least used among these features. The paper also reveals that ja is used to show agreement, emphasise one’s own message, signal recollection of one’s own discourse, show understanding of an interlocutor’s message and it is used as an exclamation that indicates interest in a matter. Né functions as a question tag, while ag expresses emotions of irritation, resignation, sympathy, pleasure, dislike, disappointment, and lack of knowledge. Mos affirms or emphasises knowledge that is shared while nogal emphasises something as a remarkable thing; sommer signals something that is a simpler or obvious solution to a matter. In all, the study foregrounds the influence of Afrikaans on South African English at the discourse-pragmatic level.