African English Research Articles

The treatment of assagai and zagaie by the OED, and of assegai by the Dictionary of South African English

This article consists of three parts. First, I argue that the OED is confused and mistaken in its treatment of the relationship between the cognate nouns assagai and zagaie in Early Modern English, and that it fails to distinguish a number of different senses in which both words are used. This I demonstrate by examining the etymologies of both words and analysing their relationship to one another. Next I consider the glosses supplied for assagai/assegai by both the OED and the Dictionary of South African English in order to show that both dictionaries conflate the word’s etymological sense with a later, transferred sense, from which the etymological sense should properly be distinguished. Finally, I argue that both the OED and the Dictionary of South African English overlook important evidence regarding the naturalisation of assagai in English. The strong influence of Dutch, I argue, needs to be accommodated in any etymological consideration of the English word, and in any analysis of its later development. The article closes with a suggested revised structure for the entry on assagai/assegai in both the OED and the Dictionary of South African English, followed by a brief consideration of issues concerning the transmission and semantic evolution of this word on which further research is needed.

Dentalisation as regional indicator in General South African English: An acoustic analysis of /z/, /d/ and /t/

Drawing on Bekker's (2007) study on the dentalisation of /s/ among young middle-class females from Johannesburg, this research aims to test whether the other traditionally alveolar oral obstruents, namely /z/, /d/ and /t/, are similarly fronted. The speech of two groups, one consisting of five females from prestigious private schools in Johannesburg and the other consisting of five females from similar schools in Cape Town, was recorded and the data analysed acoustically. For /z/, a spectral moments analysis was employed (Jongman, Wayland & Wong, 2000), which examined four parameters: centre of gravity, standard deviation, skewness and kurtosis. For /d/ and /t/, a metric established by Jongman, Blumstein and Lahiri (1984) was used, one which involves calculating the ratio of the root mean square (rms) amplitude at the onset of voicing against the rms amplitude of the stop burst. Results support the hypothesis that /z/ is dentalised by Johannesburg speakers, but do not support a similar hypothesis for /d/ and /t/.

Firming up the Foundations: Reflections on Verifying the 248 Quotations in a Historical Dict ionary, with Reference to "A Dictionary of South African English on Historical Principles"

A Dictionary of South African English on Historical Principles (DSAEHist) is rooted in quotation evidence. It contains just over 8 000 South African English entries, with about 45 000 citations to support those words included as headwords in the dictionary. Using the legacy electronic format in which DSAEHist was typeset, the Dictionary Unit for South African English embarked on a digitising process of DSAEHist, during which it became clear that the quotations would benefit from a full review involving the verification of all quotations against their original sources. This article examines the evolution of the quotation verification project from its beginnings as an entirely manual exercise to its current use of software developed for the purpose. Some of the project’s achievements, such as antedatings and primary source identification, are highlighted, and challenges, such as unverifiable quotations and sometimes highly convoluted research paths, are described. In addition to this, the article looks at the necessarily systematic nature of quotation handling and the main types of considerations determining methodology (for example, lexicographic, bibliographic and typographic requirements). Keywords: Dictionary, South African English, Historical Principles, Verification, Quotation, Citation, Accuracy

Complexity in word-formation processes in New Varieties of South African English

The research question posed in the article is whether South African English (SAE) has reached Phase four of Schneider's (2007) Dynamic Model of Postcolonial Englishes. This phase is characterised by early indications of linguistic convergence between the Indigenous and Settler strands. In the article, the focus is on lexical innovation and morphologically complex forms in a corpus of approximately 703 300 words from the Vaal Weekly community newspaper. The data are analysed according to semantic domains and morphological structure. To determine if SAE has gone beyond Phase three of Schneider's (2007) model, three criteria are proposed: generality, acceptability and codification in dictionaries. The results show that lexical innovations in the semantic domains are often loanwords originating from the culture of the indigenous strand. There is considerable evidence supporting Phase four among lexical innovations: widespread semantic diffusion, a considerable degree of acceptability, as indicated by use in other newspapers, and codification in the South African Concise Oxford Dictionary. The results for the morphology of complex words show that most of these forms are unique to the Vaal Weekly. The generality and more than negligible degree of acceptability of compounding also indicate that SAE has reached Phase four, but derivational processes, while revealing some generality for negation, otherwise fail to meet the criteria of acceptability and codification. The majority of the analyses support a conclusion that SAE has entered Phase four, but morphologically complex forms are not yet conclusive in this respect.

Register differentiation in East African English

The article examines register variation in East African English by submitting the East African component of the International Corpus of English (ICE) to a complete multidimensional analysis (Biber 1988). A six-factor model was extracted using 67 linguistic features (Biber 1988). The results show that the extent of register variation is not less in ICE-East Africa than in Biber (1988). However, East African English displays unique stylistic features across registers. The overall effect is that East African English leans more towards the formal side (especially Dimensions 3, 5 and 6). There is a strong emphasis on the involvement of the addressee, more formal features for the encoding of information, and delineation of reference by textual rather than contextual means, even when the information is not very abstract. The paper establishes a baseline of the extent of register variation in East African English, and identifies certain typical features across all registers.

Intonational Differences between L1 and L2 English in South Africa

Previous studies have shown that characteristics of a person’s first language (L1) may transfer to a second language (L2). The current study looks at the extent to which this holds for aspects of intonation as well. More specifically, we investigate to what extent traces of the L1 can be discerned in the way intonation is used in the L2 for two functions: (1) to highlight certain words by making them sound more prominent and (2) to signal continuation or finality in a list by manipulating the speech melody. To this end, the article presents an explorative study into the way focus and boundaries are marked prosodically in Zulu, and it also compares such prosodic functions in two variants of English in South Africa, i.e., English spoken as an L1, and English spoken as an L2/additional language by speakers who have Zulu as their L1. The latter language is commonly referred to as Black South African English. This comparison is interesting from a typological perspective, as Zulu is intonationally different from English, especially in the way prosody is exploited for signalling informationally important stretches of speech. Using a specific elicitation procedure, we found in a first study that speakers of South African English (as L1) mark focused words and position within a list by intonational means, just as in other L1 varieties of English, whereas Zulu only uses intonation for marking continuity or finality. A second study focused on speakers of Black South African English, and compared the prosody of proficient versus less proficient speakers. We found that the proficient speakers were perceptually equivalent to L1 speakers of English in their use of intonation for marking focus and boundaries. The less proficient speakers marked boundaries in a similar way as L1 speakers of English, but did not use prosody for signalling focus, analogous to what is typical of their native language. Acoustic observations match these perceptual results.

The appropriation of linguistic forms for better cognitive comprehension of the Nigerian pragmatic literature

The propensity of the English language to absorb native nuances by the African writers should be seen as a worthwhile stylistic device, despite the position of English language. Its adaptability to natural flavours should therefore be aimed at the writers’ intention to reach a wider audience. This also means that the attempt by writers to decolorize through literature the polluted African culture god through the use of appropriate notions and local nuances. The technique has, however, been to put on record traditional ways of life, the peoples’ customs, communal activities such as festivals, ceremonies, rituals, myths, folktales, proverbs, music, dance, songs, etc. in order to remind the African reader about the importance of these crucial aspects of the tradition in addition to the appropriation of language use. Hence most African writings can be said to have their foundations in the cultural heritage of their various groups. through the use of what one may call technically implanted African English, African coinages, direct translation, proverbs, local idioms transfers of mother tongues, local insertions/ect. Hence it is not enough to use the sociological and residual approaches to literature. The formalist and pragmatic approaches should also be considered paramount in the writing of African literature. For the choice of diction, narrative technique and the entire pragma-aesthetic implications of the African man’s speech is important to the reader of African literature, if he is to understand the theme

The effect of tertiary study at an English medium university on the written English of speakers of Black South African English

The effect of tertiary study at an English medium university on the written English of speakers of Black South African English

Rhoticity in Black South African English – a sociolinguistic study

This article investigates the phenomenon of rhoticity in the speech of black speakers of South African English. Historically, South African English is non-rhotic. Thus, any shift towards a rhotic variant is a significant language change. Thirty-nine interviews were conducted with both males and female participants. The two groups were evenly split into more and less affluent groups. It was found that rhoticity in Black South African English is preferentially a female phenomenon, found most frequently in affluent female speakers. Male speakers also exhibit this feature but less frequently so. Of the affluent females 90% displayed some degree of rhoticity. None of the less affluent males displayed any rhoticity. The data gathered seem to suggest that a covert prestige exists amongst men to use their African languages. This is in contrast to the overt prestige amongst women to use English. The research thus isolates an important socio-economic stratification, providing evidence that both gender and affluence influences the degree in which a group creates a new language variety. We also speculate about reasons for the adaptation of rhoticity in affluent, female speakers, thus providing the basis for a follow-up study in which the sociological dimension of this linguistic phenomenon is explored in more detail.

The African Association for Lexicography: After Ten Years

This year it has been ten years since the establishment of AFRILEX. After an expla-nation of what led to its forming, this article gives a short overview of its composition and activi-ties. Keywords: african association for lexicography (afrilex), african lan-guages association of south africa (alasa), bureau of the woordeboek van die afrikaanse taal (wat), dictionary of south african english (dsae), linguistic association of southern africa (lssa), national lexicography units (nlus), pan south african language board (pansalb)

The Heart of the Matter: Methodological Challenges in Developing a Contemporary Reading Programme for Monolingual Lexicography, from the Perspective of the Dictionary Unit for South African English*

The Heart of the Matter: Methodological Challenges in Developing a Contemporary Reading Programme for Monolingual Lexicography, from the Perspective of the Dictionary Unit for South African English*

Embedded Inversion Worldwide

AbstractThe inversion of (auxiliary) verb and subject in subordinate interrogative clauses (embedded inversion, or EI) is a feature that occurs in many non-standard varieties of English, especially in varieties that have developed in language contact situations, such as Irish English, East African English or Indian English. Various sources of origin have been proposed in previous research, among them substrate influence or transfer errors of learners in language contact situation. This paper introduces the phenomenon in question and provides an overview of previous research. Drawing on data of the International Corpus of English (ICE), it then presents the results of probabilistic statistic analyses (logistic regression) in order to identify which external and internal factors are strongest in elciting the inverted word order.

Zimbabwean English: A sociophonological exploration

The worldwide emergence of new Englishes and their subtypes known as African Englishes has been a subject of considerable theoretical and descriptive discussion. Although the variety of English that is spoken in Zimbabwe has distinct linguistic features and displays the key properties of new Englishes, it has not received significant attention from both theoretical and applied linguists. This study addresses this issue by presenting a sociophonological exploration of the hypothesis that the variety of English that is spoken in Zimbabwe is a type of new Englishes. This article starts by examining the sociolinguistic status and ‘ownership’ (Widdowson, 1994: 384; Chisanga & Kamwangamalu, 1997: 90) of the English language in Zimbabwe. This is followed by an exploration of the phonological processes that are operative in the spoken English of L1 Shona speakers such as substitution and underdifferentiation of monophthongal vowel phonemes and monophthongization of diphthongs and triphthongs through glide epenthesis and glide formation. The results reveal that these processes reduce the 25 English vowels to five monophthongs [i, e, a, o, u]. These processes are part of the hallmarks of African Englishes, which have not yet been comprehensively studied. This study fits well within the context of increasing interest in the description of African Englishes.

Towards a corpus of South African english: corralling the sub-varieties

Within the last twenty years, the use of a corpus for language research has become the sine qua non in many areas of linguistic enquiry. This trend is particularly evident in lexicogra-phy, a discipline which has become increasingly and overtly 'corpus-driven'. This article draws on research from a Master's project which involved the collection of a small corpus of Indian South African English (ISAE), an acknowledged component or sub-variety of South African English (SAE). The discussion highlights the importance of aiming for a balanced representation of the known sub-varieties of a language when compiling corpora for lexicographic and linguistic inves-tigation. Since ISAE is primarily an oral dialect, specific focus is given to the methodological chal-lenges involved in compiling a spoken corpus. Methodological insights from local as well as inter-national corpus research were used to guide and inform the process. These include the Xhosa Eng-lish Corpus, the New Zealand Corpus of Spoken English and the Hong Kong Corpus of Conversa-tional English. The various stages in the research process are described, together with explanations of how problems such as ways of corpus design, the selection of corpus contributors, the data-col-lection process and developing guidelines for consistency during the corpus compilation were addressed. The article provides a keyhole view of the main lexical and syntactic features of ISAE exemplified in the corpus and juxtaposes these against the backdrop of general SAE and trends in World English. The article concludes with a proposal for the collection of parallel corpora of other sub-varieties of SAE which will provide an objectively compiled repository of language in use to enable researchers to discern the linguistic features at the core and periphery of SAE. It is argued that the establishment of corpora of the various known sub-varieties of SAE could constitute an important step towards the creation of a truly representative large corpus of SAE and ultimately towards a better definition and understanding of SAE. Keywords: corpus, spoken corpus, design, south african english, sub-varieties, indian south african english, lexicography

National Character in South African English Children's Literature (review)

Reviewed by: National Character in South African English Children's Literature Meena Khorana (bio) National Character in South African English Children's Literature. By Elwyn Jenkins. New York: Routledge, 2006. Elwyn Jenkins takes on the enormous task of examining the historical, cultural, and sociopolitical influences on the development of South African children's literature in English written from 1883 to 2004 and tracing its transformative role in shaping an emerging national consciousness. This vast material is organized into nine chapters, each featuring a specific topic or genre that is analyzed chronologically, with detailed plot summaries of significant works. Wherever pertinent, the trends in this evolving body of literature are compared to similar phases in Afrikaner, British, American, Canadian, and Australian children's literature. National Character in South African English Children's Literature begins with books set in the countryside and the efforts of the early writers to firmly ground their stories in their adopted country, transforming the unique Karoo and bushveld regions of South Africa "into a mystic homeland" (1). Jenkins argues that most fictional works had predictable episodic plots, lacked in-depth characterization, and were written in a banal style. The conclusion to this chapter emphasizes that after the 1950s, when the apartheid policy had become firmly entrenched and opposition to it had gained momentum, the settings of children's books shifted to the city. However, literature could no longer foster a love of homeland because of the political upheaval. It is only after the democratic elections in 1994 that urban settings became sites of transformation for youth. While no specific books about city life are mentioned here, readers are referred to the final chapter. This circular organization is typical of National Character; themes are often introduced or briefly discussed but considered in more depth in a future or previous chapter. Furthermore, organizing each chapter chronologically proves to be both the strength and weakness of the book. While each chapter provides a complete survey of a particular topic or genre, from the nineteenth to the twenty-first centuries, it also leads to some repetition, gaps, and uneven emphasis. For instance, chapter 2 gives a brief overview of the canon of important South African authors and books that embody national identity, including black authors Es'kia Mphahlele and Njabulo Ndebele, while three chapters (4, 5, and 6) focus on fantasy, folktales, and the various subgenres of imaginative literature. The latter discussion ranges from efforts to forge a national literature in the first half of the twentieth century, when writers "naturalized" British and American fairy and animal fantasies into a South African setting—frequently with factual errors—to stories of realistic talking animals with the victory of the National Party and formalization of apartheid, because they struck a patriotic chord during World War II. Jenkins points to the [End Page 399] equally strong tradition of appropriating and romanticizing San, Khoi, and Xhosa oral tales. While the early writers promoted colonialist discourse and exploited indigenous beliefs, he praises a few recent authors, such as Marguerite Poland and Cicely van Straten, for their thorough research and respect for the intrinsic value of traditional lore; Gcina Mhlophe, Dinah Mbanze, Bob Leshoai, and Nombulelo Makhuphula for their authentic voices in retelling African stories; and collections such as African Myths and Legends and Madiba Magic: Nelson Mandela's Favourite Stories. Jenkins sees folktales as the most national form of literature because they "can bridge the gap between black and white children" (98) and serve as a unifying force in the new South Africa. Perhaps the most satisfying approach to National Character is to read each chapter as an individual essay. For example, chapter 3 is an informative account of books that reflect changing attitudes toward the construction of nature, from "colonial and imperialistic assumptions of power" (44) and the "right" to hunt wild animals and "strip colonized lands of their natural assets" (44); to books about natural history and domestication of the land in the twentieth century, when farms symbolized the "borderline between civilization" and the "untamed wilderness" (47); to the modern focus on ecological issues, harmony between humans and nature, and the African roots of conservation. Likewise, chapter 7 examines representations of the San, from...

Transgressing Boundaries? Romance, Power and Sexuality in Contemporary South African English Young Adult Fiction

Although sexuality is now regarded as one of the dominant ways of representing access to power in young adult fictions, adolescent sexuality, and even teenage romance, has remained relatively unexplored in South African examples of the genre. Works that do depict sexual relationships have generally worked to deliver didactic warnings of the potential dangers of engaging in any form of sexual activity. This article explores and examines whether, and how, adolescent sexuality is depicted and portrayed in contemporary South African young adult fiction written in English. The focus is on a range of works published during the years of the transition to democracy in South Africa, beginning in 1989. The article posits three broad categories of the genre, and concludes that the third of these at last gives evidence of a welcome move towards more openness and innovation.

Double Jeopardy? Female African and Caribbean Immigrants in the United States

This article uses United States census data from the 1990 and 2000 5 per cent Integrated Public Use Microdata Samples (IPUMS) to examine the earnings attainment for Black immigrant women (Africans and English-, French- and Spanish-speaking Caribbeans) and native-born Black women (African Americans). Data for both samples reveal sizeable earnings differences between the five groups. African, English and French Caribbean immigrant women exhibit noticeably higher average earnings than African Americans. However, with controls for earnings-related measures, the African immigrant advantage is eliminated in the 1990 sample, but not the English and French Caribbean immigrant advantage, nor the Spanish Caribbean immigrant disadvantage. No significant earnings difference was found between African Americans, English and Spanish Caribbean immigrants in the 2000 sample. Conversely, African and French Caribbean immigrants’ earnings were significantly lower than those for African Americans. For African immigrant college-degree holders especially, their higher education did not translate to high earnings. Notably, English-speaking Caribbean immigrant women, with a college degree or not, had a sizeable earnings advantage overall. The earnings for African and French Caribbean college-degree holders were significantly lower than those for English Caribbean college-degree holders. The theoretical implications of our findings are also discussed.

The relevance of spoken features in English as a foreign language (EFL)

ABSTRACTAn analysis of the need for attention to the spoken word and phonetics in the teaching of English world-wide. It is a truism that English is increasingly becoming a world language. Even in China a ‘craze for English’ has been, in view of the fact that over 200 million children (about 20% of all children in the world) now1 learn English in Chinese schools. McArthur has estimated that c.250 million Indians use English every day. All these speakers of English use it their own way. This localisation of English has been variously detected, for example in Hong Kong. It is also well known from versions of African English and, in fact, from most English varieties that have been attributed to the ‘Outer’ or ‘Extended. However, as early as 1983 Kachru voiced a caveat: ‘A large majority of the non-native speakers of institutionalised varieties of English use a local variety of English, but when told so, they are hesitant to accept the fact’.

A multidimensional analysis of student writing in Black South African English

Evidence for the status of Black South African English (BlSAfE) as a variety of English is ambiguous. This paper examines 67 linguistic features of a corpus of BlSAfE student writing, the Tswana Learner English Corpus (TLE), in comparison to a Standard English reference corpus, the Louvain Corpus of Native English Speaking Students (LOCNESS), within the framework of Biber’s (1988) multidimensional model, to determine if evidence for indigenisation and systematicity exists. Linguistic features that occur more frequently in LOCNESS than the TLE suggest that LOCNESS is characterised by greater elaboration of information and information density, more syntactically complex subordination, more reference cohesion and more specialised meanings. The TLE shows evidence of greater involvement of reader and writer of the text, although some features of informality also occur in LOCNESS. Based on comparison of the coefficients of variation in the two corpora, it is concluded that they exhibit similar ranges of variation and that variety status cannot be denied to BlSAfE on the grounds of variability. The application of the multidimensional model shows that the reference corpus, LOCNESS, is similar to academic writing in four of the six dimensions, but differs in being more involved in style and more overtly persuasive. Superficially, the TLE appears to be quite similar to LOCNESS in terms of the various dimensions, but closer examination reveals a number of differences, which largely confirm the findings that were made on the basis of individual feature comparisons: The TLE carries a lower informational density, and information is more often presented in hypothetical ways. It shows a number of similarities with the style and the information processing strategies attributed to spoken registers, but it still remains very clearly distinguishable from spoken language. Many similarities between the corpora are observed, which should be attributed to the register features of student writing. The paper concludes that there is sufficient evidence to acknowledge BlSAfE as a variety of English, on the ground of the stylistic differences between the TLE and LOCNESS, particularly its greater interpersonal as opposed to informational focus, as well as discourse-functional differences in the use of linguistic forms.

African Englishes: acoustic analysis of vowels

ABSTRACT: This paper focuses on acoustic analysis of African English (AfrE) vowels produced by a controlled sample of speakers from Kenya, Ghana, and Zimbabwe. Adopting quantitative methods of data sampling and analysis, and holding dialectal factors as homogeneous as possible, this exploratory study subjects Schmied's (1991a) claim – that a major source of regional variation is the ‘deviation’ in the production of RP central vowel [] (as in bird) – to empirical scrutiny. Schmied contends that [] backs and lowers to [] in West African English, fronts and lowers to [a] or fronts to [e] in East African English, while in (Black) South African English it fronts to [e]. However, analysis of acoustic waveforms of AfrE vowels, produced by educated speakers of Bantu and Kwa languages, partially corroborate Schmied's contention. For instance, Ghanaian and Zimbabwean respondents in this study front the RP vowel [] to [e], while Kenyans lower it to [a]. The paper provides a methodological framework that will at least address some research concerns voiced over the years: lack of “objective, systematic study” (Abdulaziz 1991: 393), “deficiency in methodology” (Adegbija 1994: 53), and “overgeneralization” (Simo Bobda 2000: 264). Sustained empirical studies could eventually lead to a fresh perspective on AfrE's phonological variation.