South African English Research Articles

The influence of British and American Englishes on Lesotho English

Very little work has been done on Lesotho English. The aim of this study was to advance the literature on southern African English by exploring the influence of American English and British English on Lesotho English. Using data obtained from 45 speakers of Lesotho English who were selected using purposive sampling, the study compared the ways in which the two varieties have influenced the structure of Lesotho English and the way in which speakers of Lesotho English perceive its identity. To collect the data, the study employed a questionnaire, and to analyse the data, the study employed a qualitative analysis that included the use of descriptive statistics. The findings show that none of the respondents used the term ‘American English’ as the name of the variety spoken in Lesotho, with the significant majority (69%) naming it ‘British/UK English’, which indicates a strong influence of British English on how the respondents view the identity of Lesotho English. However, the results for the influence of the two varieties on the structure of Lesotho English as spoken by the respondents showed that American English has slightly more influence than British English. These findings have implications for the teaching and use of English in Lesotho, the major one being that the influence of American English may complicate English learning, since British English has traditionally served as a model for ‘correct English’ that provides norms in the teaching and learning of English in the country.

Code-Switching as a tactical approach to enhance learner engagement with intricate concepts in oral english presentations

The South African English language curriculum states that by the time students reach Grade 7, they should have mastered certain English language skills that enable them to communicate effectively at both personal and educational levels. Therefore, a study was conducted to investigate the potential benefits of code-switching in improving students' oral participation in English classes. The study took place in a primary school in the Malamulele East circuit and involved all fifty Grade 7 students. The students' oral presentations were part of their formative assessment. Researchers used a rigorous methodology, including convenience sampling, to select participants, with the first ten girls and the first ten boys considered for the study. Data was collected during presentations, where each student had an opportunity to present. The qualitative method was used, with audio recordings and observations as data collection tools. Content analysis was employed to analyse the data collected from the Grade 7 students. Based on the students' performance in their oral presentations, code-switching seemed to help them to effectively communicate complex concepts in their primary language when there were no equivalent English words. The findings of this study showed that code-switching enhances students' oral communication skills and makes learning more enjoyable. students achieve their communication goals through code-switching, offering the audience a hopeful outlook on the potential benefits of this approach.

The development of synthetic child speech in three South African languages

It is well-known that children with expressive communication difficulties have the right to communicate, but they should also have the right to do so in whichever language they choose, with a voice that closely matches their age, gender, and dialect. This study aimed to develop naturalistic synthetic child speech, matching the vocal identity of three children with expressive communication difficulties, using Tacotron 2, for three under-resourced South African languages, namely South African English (SAE), Afrikaans, and isiXhosa. Due to the scarcity of child speech corpora, 2 hours of child speech data per child was collected from three 11- to 12-year-old children. Two adult models were used to “warm start” the child speech synthesis. To determine the naturalness of the synthetic voices, 124 listeners participated in a mean opinion score survey (Likert Score) and optionally gave qualitative feedback. Despite limited training data used in this study, we successfully developed a synthesized child voice of adequate quality in each language. This study highlights that with recent technological advancements, it is possible to develop synthetic child speech that matches the vocal identity of a child with expressive communication difficulties in different under-resourced languages.

“Eish it’s getting really interesting”: borrowed interjections in South African English

Abstract This article offers a descriptive account of seven interjections, eish, yho, tjo, sho, hayi, hau, and mxm, which are adopted from different local South African languages into South African English. It investigates the frequencies, orthography, syntactic position, collocational forms and discourse-pragmatic roles of these seven interjections, through the lens of pragmatic borrowing and postcolonial corpus pragmatics. The data were retrieved from the South African segment of the Global Web-based English corpus and underwent quantitative and qualitative analysis. The findings indicate that the interjections are all emotive interjections, which mostly express negative emotions, except hayi, which is a phatic interjection that is largely used to show disapproval of some information. All the interjections favour clause-initial position except mxm, which is a loan interjection that represents the kiss-teeth or suck-teeth oral gesture that is common in some parts of Africa and the Caribbean. The article affirms that these loaned interjections accentuate the distinction of South African English from other varieties of English.

Threatening as a sociocultural–conceptual communicative act

AbstractThe present article revisits threatening discourses from the perspectives of anthropological linguistics, Cultural Linguistics, speech act theory and pragmatics. On the basis of linguistic data from 11th‐century Britain (Old English), 14th‐century Norway (Old Norse), 19th‐century Ireland (Early Modern Irish English and Modern Irish), 20th‐century Hong Kong (Hong Kong English) as well as 21st century South Africa (Black South African English), the discussion establishes verbal threats as socio‐pragmatic modes of action, that is, commissives that come as both illocutionary and perlocutionary acts. The main aim of the article is to elaborate on the central role that sociocultural norms and conventions play in the enregisterment of threat in a speech community at a given point in time. The article contributes to the development of forensic–linguistic threat assessment through a stronger focus on the sociocultural embeddedness of threatening discourses.

Discourse-Pragmatic Borrowing in South African English

This paper explores five borrowed discourse-pragmatic features—wena, mna/mina, yazi, phela, and ke—which are transferred from indigenous South African languages into South African English, with the objective of investigating their frequency, position, collocational patterns, and discourse-pragmatic functions. The data, which are taken from the South African component of the Global Web-based English corpus, are analysed quantitatively and qualitatively, from a postcolonial corpus pragmatic framework. The results show that the discourse-pragmatic features are generally infrequent, orthographically stable, and prefer the clause-initial position. The paper indicates that wena is used as an address term to call for the addressee’s attention, mna/mina is used to emphasise personal identity, while yazi seeks confirmation of and signals shared knowledge. Phela is an emphasis marker, while ke indicates contrast, textual coherence, and emphasis. This study underscores the contributions of indigenous South African languages to the discourse-pragmatic features of South African English.

Revisiting the aspectual BUSY in (South African) English

Abstract This paper investigates the so-called South African English busy progressive (for example, I’m busy working). Linguistic literature on South African English (SAfE) often states that this construction is a typical feature of this variety of English. The use and the frequency of this construction is mostly attributed to the influence of the Afrikaans [BUSYPROG XCOMP VINF] construction, as in Ek is besig om te werk (‘I am working’). The aim of this paper is twofold: Firstly, it critically evaluates some of the claims that have been made about the so-called “SAfE busy progressive” and, secondly, it uses a corpus- and usage-based approach that employs a greater assortment of available corpus data from SAfE and other English varieties, as well as available information on the Afrikaans and Dutch progressives, to explore the possibility of new insights into the use of busy in English aspectual constructions.

Bleeding Stubs and the Evolution of African Writing: Navigating Standard English and Uncertain Linguistic Futures

Several African novels and short stories have been analysed linguistically. The authors of those analytical articles found that some of the stories employed the linguistic style set by the authors Chinua Achebe and Flora Nwapa. A major characteristic of this writing style is the use of African English or a blend with standard English. Language evolves regionally, so for this article, standard English refers to any English used by the VOA, BBC, British Royal Family, or even Brits in a pub, including UK and US slang relevant to the novel’s setting. It excludes English spoken by learners. The researcher considers this definition broad and lenient. African English refers to varieties of the English language spoken and written across Africa, often influenced by local languages and cultures, resulting in unique expressions and idiomatic usage. It encompasses different forms, including Nigerian English, Kenyan English and South African English, reflecting the diverse linguistic landscape of the continent. African literary researchers often show a strong interest in novels written in African English because these works reflect the linguistic diversity, cultural identity, and lived experiences of African communities. Nevertheless, many African authors write in Standard English. The academic discussion reveals that the debate on language choice in African literature is ongoing. This paper provides an overview of the English styles used by African authors and highlights the uncertainty regarding the future of African literature due to a lack of credible sources on current trends. The paper then analyses the style of African works in standard English alongside African English. For the purposes of this article, the researcher chooses Donald Besong’s Bleeding Stubs, which has not been analysed previously, to represent standard English works. The selection of Bleeding Stubs is based on its brevity, recent publication, and its setting in Cameroon—a country with limited representation in fiction. The paper concludes that the preferred language style for African authors remains fluid. Finally, it recommends fostering improved reading habits on the continent, encouraging greater engagement with the global reading community. This would lead to better career progression in various fields, create more internationally marketable writers, and enable them to use their incomes to support the development of African languages, reducing the reliance on English for expressing African pride.

Stylising agency, identity and solidarities in South African English language classrooms

In a call for papers, the English Academy of Southern Africa (EASA) problematises what we perceive as the challenges of stylising agency, identity and solidarities in South African literature in English and English Language classroom encounters. The academy argues that speaking of literature and literacy in a single breath is to take for granted a linear relationship between literature and literacy. In interrogating ways of reading, this article contends that such proficiency is itself unstable and shifting, subject to different contexts and approaches inasmuch as these diverse ways are contingent upon material and technological changes. Literacy is a contested term: while it denotes the ability to read and write, a more nuanced understanding recognizes its capacity to confer value and influence aesthetic judgment. Already implicit in such an understanding is the mutually reinforcing relation between literature and literacy: the cognitive skillset which enables us to read is constantly being modified by what we read, and by the material forms which our reading takes. The entanglement of literature and literacy is embedded in cultures, compelling us to ask how particular teachers, writers and critical literary approaches shape our reading practices, our ways of seeing. The same entanglement generates questions about social justice, access to education, and material affordances.

Multilingual pragmatic markers in South African English

This article provides a descriptive account of five multilingual pragmatic markers – nje, mara, kanti, vele and kaloku – which are borrowed from indigenous South African languages into South African English, with a view to investigating their frequencies, spelling stability, syntactic positioning, distribution across text types, collocational patterns and discourse-pragmatic functions. The data, which are extracted from the South African component of the Global Web-based English corpus, are analysed quantitatively and qualitatively, from a postcolonial corpus pragmatic perspective. The results show that the multilingual pragmatic markers are generally infrequent compared to their English counterparts, their spellings are generally stable and their positions in the utterances are based on their functions. The article identifies nje as an attitudinal marker, a focus particle, an emphasis marker, an intensifier and a marker of shared knowledge, mara as a contrastive marker and kanti as a contrastive marker, an inferential marker and an emphasis marker. Vele is an emphasis marker, while kaloku is an attention marker, a topic orientation marker and an inferential marker. In conclusion, these multilingual pragmatic markers contribute to the distinctive nature of South African English at the pragmatic level.

The curious case of nomenclatures

When it comes to Englishes in Singapore, two terms come to the fore: Singapore English, and Singlish. As part of the methodology and motivation for this paper, I compiled 500 published works on Englishes in Singapore ranging from the 1970s to 2021. These published works include monographs, edited volumes, chapters in edited volumes, and articles in major peer-reviewed journals. 85% of the 500 publications used the term Singapore English, 27% of them had Singlish, and only a mere six publications (around 1%) used the term Singaporean English. One would expect that for a term that speaks of and to the being of the nation, the term Singaporean English would certainly be used with far more frequency. This is especially so when there is in fact nothing morphologically awkward in attaching the suffix -ean to ‘Singapore’. There are immensely more examples of Englishes around the world that have the suffix (or its near equivalent) than those without (American, Tanzanian, South African Englishes are just some of numerous examples); and the two well known Englishes that remain suffix-free are New Zealand English and Hong Kong English, which we can explain by way of a morphological misfit: the -er suffix does sound rather awkward. Since Singapore does not have this problem, why then does Singapore English resist the suffix -ean?

World, Class, Tragicomedy: Johannesburg, 1994

Abstract: Marlene van Niekerk's 1994 Triomf is a plaasroman , or farm novel, without the farm; it formally resembles a nostalgic pastoral genre initiated by the collapse of Southern African agricultural economy around the time of the Great Depression, but removes even the symbol of the farm as aesthetic compensation for material loss. In the process, van Niekerk composes a post-apartheid tragicomedy of a lumpenproletariat white supremacist family coming into long-belated class consciousness, an epiphany which, surprisingly, survives the novel's translations from Afrikaans to South African English to 'international' English. Crucially, this understanding is mediated by a critical tendency to appraise Triomf in the context of Faulkner and the Southern Gothic, a generic comparison which gets a lot wrong but is ultimately very revealing, less about Triomf than about the imperial world-system through which it circulates and is consecrated. Consequently, the novel stages globally what seems at first to be a parochial question: how is one supposed to imagine democratic reconciliation and integration after apartheid, when one of the classes to be reconciled lacks historical self-consciousness and has no obvious place in either the apartheid regime or the post-apartheid dispensation? By analyzing van Niekerk's novel and the institutions which consecrate it, the paper fleshes out critiques of world-literary hermeneutics, specifically for its naive handling of genre and context, and of post-apartheid 'reconciliation' under capital.

Phonological Inclusion, and Exclusion, Regarding South African English in the Online OED

This article approaches the subject of inclusivity and diversity from a phonological perspective, as applied to the online Oxford English Dictionary (OED). Specifically, the pronunciation guide within the OED entry for South African English (SAE) is investigated. On the one hand, that the OED provides a list of World Englishes is a step forward in terms of diversity, avoiding the linguistic hegemony of British and American English, for example. On the other hand, the pronunciation guide for SAE relies on a rather singular variety — that reflective of white South Africans. Moreover, the OED pronunciation guides for all varieties of English reflect "educated urban speakers of standard English". Therefore, the pronunciation guide is exclusive regarding race and class, and thus additional varieties of SAE are not represented. As such, while the OED, as a trusted source, has made efforts to address linguistic diversity, more work needs to be done in this area. Keywords: pronunciation, accent, White South African English, great trichotomy, exclusivity, language attitudes

African Englishes in the <i>Oxford English Dictionary</i>

In some of its recent quarterly updates, the Oxford English Dictionary has published particularly large batches of new and revised entries from South African English, Nigerian English, and East African English. The present article is a detailed discussion of the editorial work behind these updates for African varieties of English, whose distinctive vocabularies the OED is currently taking steps to cover more widely. The paper explains how words are selected for inclusion, how new entries are researched and written, how new sources of textual evidence such as social media give OED editors greater insight into African Englishes, and how the dictionary's African consult­ants and users contribute to ensuring the accuracy and authenticity of the OED's definitions, ety­mologies, pronunciations, and quotation evidence. The article also highlights a selection of African words and phrases that have recently been added to or revised in the OED, all of which show the many different forms of lexical innovation that shape the distinctive vocabularies of African Eng­lishes. Keywords: Oxford English Dictionary, historical lexicography, African Englishes, East African English, South African English, West African English, Nigerian English

The world in one country: English in South Africa

As the allusion in the title to the unintentionally humorous phrasebook published in the nineteenth century suggests, broken English and mistranslation have long been a source of humour and condemnation. Both of them abound due to the increasing prevalence of English in the world and the challenges posed by learning and using a foreign language, and by using translation to bridge the gap between English and other languages. If we add to this the appropriation of English by its speakers beyond the lands of the English, we appreciate some of the issues the spread of the English language in the world brings to the fore. The Englishes spoken in the 21st century are an outcome of the history of the English language, which is in turn bound up with the history of the speakers of the language. In what follows, we will start at the beginning and consider in broad strokes how English came to be, where it went, and how and why it spread. For this I will use as a framework the four diasporas, of spread. Thereafter, suggestions will be shared on how best to approach the study of world Englishes and global Englishes. First of all, how do Englishes vary? Secondly, how are the varieties of World Englishes distributed across the globe, and how can they be grouped into categories? Thirdly, theoretical models that researchers have suggested to help us understand the processes underlying the phenomenon will be presented. Kachru’s Three Circle Model (1992), Schneider’s Dynamic Model (2007) and De Swaan’s Global Language System (2004) have all had a major influence on this field of study and each of them can help us to make sense of the complexly interconnected, diverse aspects of World Englishes. In the final part of this paper, these themes are pulled together by looking at a concrete example. The focus will be on South Africa and how English is spoken there. Once again, we will look at how English came to be spoken there, where the language went and who its speakers were and are. To this end, the specific history of South Africa will be sketched, making the links with the spread of the English language, and relating its use to the use of other languages in the area. The paper will end with a description of the current language situation, the popular and academic debates about English in education, and a discussion of the ambiguous place South African English holds in the general scheme of World Englishes.

Perversity as a Literary Idea: Traces of Edgar Allan Poe in Fernando Pessoa's Modernism

Portekizli şair ve yazar Fernando Pessoa, farklı isim ve kimliklerle oluşturduğu külliyatıyla yirminci yüzyıl modernist edebiyatının en önemli figürleri arasında yer almıştır. Yaşarken yayımladığı yapıtlarının yanında, ölümünden sonra birkaç sandıktan çıkan ve zaman içerisinde okurla buluşan el yazmaları da Pessoa’nın iyi bir dünya edebiyatı okuru olduğunu açıklıkla gösterir. Çocukluk ve ilk gençlik yıllarını geçirdiği Güney Afrika’da İngilizce öğrenim gördüğü için Anglo-Amerikan edebiyatına özel bir ilgi duyan Pessoa, hayatı boyunca Amerikalı şair ve yazar Edgar Allan Poe’yu okumayı sürdürmüş, Poe’nun kimi yapıtlarını Portekizceye çevirmiş, kimi öykülerini çağrıştıran öyküler kaleme almıştır. Bu yazı, Poe’nun bir kompozisyon felsefesi oluştururken ortaya koyduğu terslik fikriyle Pessoa’nın modernist edebiyat anlayışı arasında önemli geçişler olduğunu öne sürmektedir. Poe’nun “Terslik Şeytanı” ve Pessoa’nın “Şeytanın Saati” öykülerinde terslik fikri şeytan figüründe somutlaşır ve anlatıların dinamiği tersliği edebî yaratıcılıkla ilişkilendirmemizi sağlar. Bu ilişkinin izini sürmek amacıyla söz konusu iki öyküye odaklanan ancak Pessoa’nın Huzursuzluğun Kitabı ve Poe’nun Eureka, “Boşboğaz Yürek”, “Kara Kedi”gibi yapıtlarından da yararlananan yazı, Pessoa’nın modernizminin önemli öğelerinden olan edebî belirsizlikle Poe’nun tek etki kuramını terslik ilkesi çerçevesinde tartışmaktadır.

Look At/Check X: An Attention-And-Approval-Seeking Device

ABSTRACT In the home, parents and children are often co-present but engaged with different tasks. When children wish to engage their parents about something they have produced/are producing and to monitor their understanding of it, they need a means of obtaining both parental attention and understanding. I examine instances of children using the look at X directive (and its variant in South African English, check X) as an attention-and-approval-seeking device, where parents either respond by looking and approving or children pursue approval. By examining naturally occurring video-recorded interactions in the homes of two families with four-year-old children, I demonstrate that the directive sets in motion a pair of conditionally relevant responses of attending and approving. Through this practice, children monitor their own understanding of their production as an accomplishment and together parent and child (re)inforce normative expectations of children as apprentices and parents as knowledgeable authorities. Data are in South African English.

Afrikaans English as a Southern Hemisphere English

Abstract Afrikaans English is seen as connected to White South African English (WSAfE), a Southern Hemisphere English. What makes Afrikaans-speakers’ English varieties distinctly WSAfE or distinctly Afrikaans in a context that has seen much convergence between English and Afrikaans? To answer this question, this study looks at experimental English and Afrikaans phonetic data simultaneously elicited from an informant sample representing three Afrikaans-speaking populations in Namibia, a former dependency of South Africa: the Afrikaners, Basters, and Coloureds. By comparing the informants’ English and Afrikaans vowels, the study establishes that their English varieties display unmistakable WSAfE features, especially found among the Whites, while some of their English vowels co-vary with their nearest Afrikaans equivalents. While generally showcasing the methodological benefits of bilingual data elicitation, the study concludes that postcolonial L2 English varieties are likely to mirror change-in-progress occurring in their historical L1 models, even where access to these models becomes disrupted.

South African English newspapers' depiction of learner-on-teacher violence

This paper reports on findings from a qualitative content analysis on South African English newspapers’ depiction of learner-on-teacher violence, and the effects thereof on the victimised teachers’ private and professional lives, as well as teaching and learning. Lindner’s humiliation theory underpins the study theoretically. The author uses a relational lens to focus on the destructive, humiliating relationship between teachers and learners in schools where learner-on-teacher violence is problematic. SA Media is the databank, and the data source is 57 newspaper articles that report on the incidence of learner-on-teacher violence. The findings indicate that newspapers depict learner-on-teacher violence as the physical, verbal, sexual and psychological abuse and humiliation of teachers. The analysed newspapers highlight the physicality and humiliating nature of attacks against teachers. The study finds that the disintegration of teaching and learning and the degradation of teachers’ private and professional lives are serious negative effects of learner-on-teacher violence in schools where violence is rampant. An important and recurring discourse in the newspapers’ construction of teachers as disempowered, humiliated and vulnerable individuals is that learners’ rights in South Africa supersede teachers’ rights. The study highlights the important role newspapers play in informing the public, education and community leaders and policymakers about learner-on-teacher violence as a serious problem that must be addressed.

Afrikaans discourse-pragmatic features in South African English

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.