African English Research Articles

South African English as an Index of Social History

South African English as an Index of Social History

Thinking in Xhosa and speaking in English: the theory and practice of contrastive analysis

The aim of this article is to highlight the role that cross-linguistic influences play in South Africa's multilingual context, specifically with regard to English and African languages. Past and present perspectives of the role of cross-linguistic influences from a second language acquisition and sociolinguistic position are discussed as a background to this study. Discourse and grammatical examples from African English are given as illustrations of the nature of cross-linguistic evidence. The pedagogical significance of the role of cross-linguistic influences is also briefly examined.

England, South Africa and That Encounter Article

THE SITUATION IN SOUTH AFRICA continues to attract world-wide attention; but little notice has been paid so far to an essential element in that situation-the whites. Last year in London this omission was finally rectified, if that is the word. An article entitled South Africa: Revolution or Partition* was issued to the public at No. 25, Haymarket, which as every postman knows, is the address of the metropolitan journal Encounter. This article dealt with the possibilities of Revolution in South Africa, the probability of Partition, and the attitudes and general demeanour of the white population. As to the Afrikaners, their ideas were criticised, but the general tone of the remarks upon them was favourable, if not indeed admiring. The non-white population was reasonably enough-not much considered in this particular article. The South African English were considered, and they got pretty short shrift.