Ethnic labels in South African English

Abstract

ABSTRACT: The urge to label others is a universal phenomenon that is attested in all of the world's languages. South African English, a transplanted language according to Kachru (1990), distinguishes itself from other varieties of English through its unique ethnic labeling terminology. Throughout South African history, the indigenous peoples received a good number of labels, most of which were derogatory in nature ‐ always denoting the superiority of the whites who were doing the labeling. Among others, the terms include Non‐White, Non‐European, Native, Bantu, Hottentot, Bushmen, Coloured, Plural, and so on. It should be noted that the indigenous peoples already had a system of labeling terms that they used to self‐identify as ethnic groups, namely Xhosa, Zulu, Venda, Tswana, Khoikhoi, San and more.British colonial rule as well as the system of Apartheid, which is based on racial segregation, led to the institutionalization of many of these terms, for example, Native, Non‐European, Coloured, Plural, etc. However, political and social developments originating from constant protests by the oppressed, as well as reactions from the government, affected the semantic connotations of some of these terms as well as the creation of new ones. The semantic shifts involved a redefinition of some of the existing terminology ‐ such as Black ‐ from color connotations to political connotations. Other meaning shifts ranged from the melioration (acquiring good value judgements) to the pejoration (acquiring bad value judgements) of some of the terms.This paper focuses on the socio‐political factors that are leading to the shifts in connotation in the post‐Apartheid system by examining the consequences of those shifts for the English lexicon in South Africa.