English-speaking South Africans Research Articles

‘Welcome Home’: White English-speaking South Africans and the Royal Visit of 1947

The article examines the visit of King George VI and the British royal family to the Union of South Africa in 1947 and places it in the context of the continuing links binding English-speaking South Africans to Britain and the Royal Family during the post-war period. The article draws on the coverage given to the visit in English-language newspapers, journals and school magazines as well as on information provided by a number of English South Africans. English-language newspapers served as a forum for British and imperialist ideology in South Africa and the article examines the way in which they covered the visit and used it to emphasise the continuing importance to South Africa of the Crown and of links with Britain and the Commonwealth. The emphasis is on English-speakers and the visit to the predominantly English urban centres. Coming as it did only two years after the end of the Second World War, the participation of the predominantly English-speaking members of the armed forces and veterans receives prominence. The article concludes with the observation that because of the National Party electoral victory of 1948 the Royal Visit was the last time that English-speaking South Africans defined themselves as a British people in a British nation.

Syntactic and prosodic focus marking in contact varieties of South African English

The article presents results of an elicited-production study investigating syntactic and prosodic consequences of language contact on two varieties of multilingual Black speakers of South African English, namely Black South African English (BlSAfE) and a newly emerging variety by Black speakers (“crossing over variety”). The results indicate that contact varieties of South African English share syntactic traits of General South African English (GenSAfE) relating to focus marking. At the same time, BlSAfE also shows differences in the frequency of use of the syntactic structures. The differences cannot be accounted for solely by L1 influence. Also, in prosody, significant differences between the varieties emerge. For BlSAfE, the differences can be related to L1 influence. A language can exert its influence differently on different areas of another language’s grammar: With respect to syntax the “crossing over” variety groups with GenSAfE, with respect to prosody it is in-between GenSAfE and BlSAfE.

‘Tell England, Ye Who Pass this Monument’: English-speaking South Africans, Memory and War Remembrance until the Eve of the Second World War

The article places remembrance in the context of the development of an English-speaking South African identity until 1939. It looks at the interconnectedness between identity and memory and traces the emergence of a group memory common to the majority of English-speakers and linking them to other members of the British diaspora, particularly in the other dominions. The way in which English-speakers commemorated and memorialised the wars in which they fought is the main focus, beginning with the Cape eastern frontier wars, the Anglo-Zulu War and the South African War. The article then concentrates on the commemoration and memorialisation of the First World War until 1939, examining the role of organisations such as the South African Legion of the British Empire Service League and the MOTHS and touching on the role of the patriotic associations, schools and churches. The emphasis is on the memorialisation of the battle of Delville Wood and the commemorations associated with Delville Wood and Armistice Days and the way in which the First World War reflected the continuing British identity of English-speakers as well as the growth of a South Africanist identity. The way in which honouring the fallen was linked to service and duty is examined.

South Africa and the Italo-Ethiopian War, 1935–6

The Italo-Ethiopian War led to an extensive debate in the Union of South Africa about the future of the League of Nations’ system of collective security. The different political and social groupings in the dominion interpreted the meaning of the war for the Union from a diversity of perspectives. The Italian aggression in East Africa reverberated in the context of concurrent debates about the Union's position in relation to the British Empire. These debates were influenced by the tensions between Afrikaners and English-speaking South Africans but also by disagreement within the Afrikaner community about South African policies vis-à-vis the British Empire. The Afrikaner-dominated Union Government had to navigate between its commitments to the League on the one hand and criticism from the extreme nationalist Afrikaner opposition on the other, which claimed that South Africa's sovereignty was diminished by Britain's leading role in the League. As a mandatory power in South West Africa, the Union was also concerned to sustain League principles in order to safeguard its sub-imperialist aspirations on the continent. The public debates were strongly influenced by a discourse on ‘civilisation’, which not only reflected ambiguous views of the status of Ethiopia as a member of the League of Nations, but also raised questions about the stability of white hegemony in a segregationist state.

“There’s a drumbeat in Africa”: Embodying imaginary geographies of transnational whiteness in contemporary South Africa

Emerging out of a study conducted in Durban of white, English-speaking South Africans (WESSAs) who had previously lived in the UK and elsewhere, this article argues that, because of South Africa’s past and current liminal position within a global meta-geography of whiteness, “imaginative geographies” are centrally important to the construction of transnational WESSA identities. This article uses an expanded concept of imaginative geographies that encompasses not only discursive modes of representation but also the direct, embodied experiences of differential spaces on the part of transmigrants, as informants emphasised their understandings of the spaces in which white bodies were in and out of place. The most frequently deployed imaginative geographies were meta-geographies of “first world” and “third world,” whilst South Africa was discussed as an African space of emotion, authenticity, and freedom and the UK a drab space of conformity, indignity, and discomfort. The data demonstrates that, for WESSA transnationals, South Africa and the UK emerge as geographies in relation to each other. Additionally, I argue that these unstable imaginative geographies offer potential routes to progressive means by which WESSAs can occupy the space of a democratic South Africa.

Homogeneity in subject-verb concord in South African English

This paper explores the strategies employed by speakers of South African English for subject-verb concord using a large-scale methodology. It is argued that there is a complex interplay between broad types of agreement (e.g., syntactic vs notional agreement) and specific strategies for agreement (e.g., agreement with head noun vs ‘attraction’ agreement with the linearly closest noun). It is demonstrated that a particular type of notional agreement, namely ‘Atomic-Homogeneous’ agreement plays the largest role in South African English; although other types of agreements are also present in the data set. Since this type of agreement has not been widely reported on in the literature on American and British English, it may be that South African English represents a departure from agreement in these varieties. The paper also demonstrates the viability of large-scale methodologies for this type of research.

CV Bate, grondlegger van die Potchefstroom Herald

The British-born newspaperman CV Bate founded the Potchefstroom Herald in 1908. He remained owner for 49 years during which time he established not only the paper but himself as a journalist of some repute. As a news medium Bate’s Potchefstroom Herald covered all the major international and national events, without neglecting the community news of an ever-changing Potchefstroom. He was also a crafty businessman and compassionate member of a community that did not always share his pro-British political views. More important was his strong support for reconciliation between the Afrikaans- and English-speaking South Africans. In support of this ideal, he established an Afrikaans paper, the Westelike Stem. While Bate’s sentiments left its marks on his reporting, his integrity was above reproach and he notably gave due prominence to the victory of the National Party in 1948 and the new prime minister’s visit to Potchefstroom. Subsequent to Bate’s retirement, his papers fell into the hands of Afrikaners who eventually transformed the Potchefstroom Herald into a predominantly Afrikaans publication. But when the Potchefstroom Herald celebrated its centenary, the paper had perhaps become what Bate always intended: a non-ideological paper that tried to serve the whole community of Potchefstroom. The Potchefstroom Herald thus remains a monument to one man’s tenacity and spirit.

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.

A Preliminary Investigation of the Suitability of the WAIS-III for Afrikaans-Speaking South Africans

The standardised version of the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale-III (WAIS-III) for English-speaking South Africans is currently widely used. Although an Afrikaans translation of the verbal subtests of the WAIS-III is provided in the manual, this translation has not been standardised. This preliminary investigation of the suitability of the translation for use with Afrikaans-speaking South Africans indicated comparability of the performance of an urbanised sample with good quality education and similar groups tested with the English version. The results also revealed significant differences between the urbanised Afrikaans speakers and a relatively non-urbanised group of Afrikaans speakers with inadequate quality education. There were no significant relationships of performance with gender and age. University graduates/students obtained higher scores than college graduates/students and subjects without tertiary education. Multivariate analyses of the contribution of demographic variables to variations in scores confirmed the significant effect of quality of education on test performance. The reliabilities for the verbal subtests ranged from acceptable to good, and inter-subtest correlations were at the expected level. An analysis of item difficulty revealed the expected sequence of progressively more difficult items, but with some exceptions. While some scoring criteria may need to be re-examined, inconsistencies also appear to be related to the role of schooling and social background. Limitations of the study pertain to the design and the small sample size that do not allow for conclusive evidence in terms of construct validity and in terms of measurement equivalence between the Afrikaans and English versions.

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.

‘An Unknown People’: Reconstructing British South African Identity

This article is part of a wider project, the writing of a biography of South Africans of British origin or descent. As a group, they have been neglected in South African historiography and the article traces the evolution of their identity during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, placing it in the context of studies both in South Africa and elsewhere in the Anglophone world on Britishness and also of studies on South Africanism. While acknowledging that there were a variety of British identities in South Africa, the article distinguishes the emergence of a hegemonic identity and teases out characteristics common to most of the group. The article concludes with an examination of how British, or, as they became known in the twentieth century, English-speaking South Africans, reacted to the changes taking place in the country since first 1948, and then 1994.

The Neuropsychiatry and Neuropsychology Of Lipoid Proteinosis

The Neuropsychiatry and Neuropsychology Of Lipoid Proteinosis

‘Their Finest Hour?' English-speaking South Africans and World War II

ABSTRACT The article, part of a wider study dealing with white English-speaking identity, examines English-speakers’ (hereafter the English) reactions to Britain's declaration of war on Germany in 1939. They displayed a remarkable unanimity of purpose during the war, supporting what they saw as both a British and a South African war. The article discusses their support for Smuts and the extent to which they volunteered for war service, in both South African and Commonwealth forces. Their support is compared with that of Afrikaners. The English supported the war effort in ways other than fighting; many men volunteered for the national reserve while women were essential for the war effort, serving in both the women's auxiliary defence corps and the women's auxiliary service. In the latter their contribution was remarkable, providing care and support for over a million South African and allied troops. The article examines reasons for English support for the war effort before turning to a discussion of how they saw the war as a British/Commonwealth war. The growth of South Africanist sentiments is then looked at, particularly among service men. This is followed by growing disenchantment with Smuts and the war effort after 1943. The article concludes with a discussion of whether the war was in fact ‘their finest hour’. This article was first presented as a paper at the British World Conference, ‘Defining the British World’, at the University of Bristol, 11–14 July 2007. I would like to acknowledge the financial support of the University of South Africa.

Critically examining language bias in the South African adaptation of the WAIS-III

In response to the growing demand for a test of cognitive ability for South African adults, the Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC) adapted the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scales, third edition (WAIS-III) for Englishspeaking South Africans. The standardisation sample included both first and second language English speakers who were either educated largely in English or Afrikaans. The purpose of this article is to critically examine the adaptation process undertaken by the HSRC when standardising the WAIS-III for English-speaking South Africans by deliberating whether sufficient attention was paid to establishing if the measure was equivalent for various groups of English first and second language test-takers. In performing this critical examination, international test adaptation guidelines and standards, psychometric conventions, and national and international research findings were contemplated. The general conclusion reached was that the equivalence of the WAIS-III across diverse language groups has not been unequivocally established and there are indications that some bias may exist for English second language test-takers, especially if they are black or Afrikaans-speaking. Based on these conclusions, recommendations are made regarding the way forward.

Educated mother-tongue South African English: A corpus approach

South Africa is anecdotally known for its complex system of speech varieties correlating with variables such as ethnicity, first language, class and education. These intuitions (e.g. Lass 1990) require further investigation, especially in the context of a changing South Africa where language variety plays a key role in identifying social, economic and ethnic group membership. Thus, in this research, the extent to which these variables play a role in variety is explored using a corpus approach (the nature of class and race in the corpus is discussed more fully later in the article). The corpus project, focusing primarily on accent, has been undertaken by members of the Department of English Language and Linguistics at Rhodes University in South Africa, collaborating with staff from the Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering from Stellenbosch University, South Africa. A corpus (the first of its kind) is being compiled, comprising the speech of educated, white, mother-tongue speakers of South African English (as distinct from Afrikaans English, Indian English, and the second language (L2) varieties of English used by speakers of indigenous African languages), and data collection is well under way. This short article aims to describe the aims of the project, and the methodological approach which underpins it, as well as to highlight some of the more problematic aspects of the research.

The death of trooper Alexander Aberline, F Squadron, NSW Imperial Bushmen at Lichtenburg 2 October 1900

Much of the history of the Anglo-Boer War is dour and brutal, as is to be expected of a three year struggle which many believed was genocidal in purpose. This war saw so many nationalities fighting against each other, and was at the same time a civil war involving Afrikaner against Afrikaner, and South African Englishspeakers, as well as many black combatants, fighting and dying on both sides. Yet, there was an emotional dimension to the war, although this level has so often been lost in the ‘grand overview’. This paper relates the story of one Australian combatant and his journey towards death in a foreign land. Trooper Aberline’s sacrifice was to have an impact on the Boers and his legacy went far beyond his rusting cross in the Lichtenburg cemetery which lies close to that of Edith Mathews who was buried nearby.

Psychometric Properties of the Self-Esteem Questionnaire for South African Adolescents

This article describes two studies investigating the reliability and factorial validity of scores on the Self-Esteem Questionnaire (SEQ) for assessing self-evaluations relating to peers, school, family, sports/athletics, body image and global self-worth in South African adolescents. Participants were 900 learners enrolled in Grades 8 and 11 at public schools In Cape Town, and 116 Grades 8 and 11 learners attending independent schools. The results provided general support for the six-factor structure proposed by DuBois, Feiner, Brand, Phillips and Lease (1996) and indicated that SEQ scores have good internal consistency and adequate test-retest reliability for English-speaking South Africans. However, minor revisions are needed for all scale scores to have acceptable internal consistency when translated into isiXhosa or Afrikaans.

An identity threatened: White English-speaking South Africans, Britishness and Dominion South Africanism, 1934–1939

Extracted from text ... An identity threatened: n White E English-speaking nglish-South A Africans fricans, Britishness and ritishness Dominion ominion South A Africanism fricanism, 1934?1939 , John Lambert* This article is part of a project rescuing the history of white English-speaking South Africans, a group described in 1956 by John Bond in They Were South Africans as the 'unknown people'.1 With historiographical interest in identity in South Africa focused primarily on Afrikaners and Africans the group has been marginalised, receiving comparatively little attention.2 It is only in recent years that there has been an awakening of interest amongst historians such as Paul Rich, ..

Children in language shift - the syntax of fifth generation, pre-school, Indian South African English speakers

Language shift, the process by which a second language ousts a community's first language as the everyday vernacular, almost inevitably throws up a vast array of morpho-syntactic and phonetic variety in the new vernacular. This paper seeks to ascertain what choices the first post-shift generation of child learners makes from such an array of competing forms. Data from longitudinal studies undertaken in the early to mid-1990s is presented from Indian South African English, focussing on fifth generation, monolingual, pre-school children in a natural (i.e. non-classroom) setting. The paper shows that while these children do make a selection of the morpho-syntactic variants in the elder's speech, there is no syntactic innovation. On the other hand, a surprisingly large number of former second-language features persist in post-shift speech, probably enhanced by the peculiarities of apartheid society, during which these children acquired their vernacular.

Use of the CID W22 as a South African English speech discrimination test

South Africa currently lacks a pre-recorded South African English (SAE) specific speech discrimination test. In the absence of such a test, the SAE speaker recording (Tygerberg recording) of the American (USA) English (AE) CID W22 wordlists--in combination with the original American CID W22 normative data--is the most widely used alternative. The reliability and validity of this method, however, has never been formally assessed. This study assessed the performance of 15 normal hearing, female, first language SAE speakers on the first two full-lists of Tygerberg CID W22 recording at 20, 30, 40, 50, 60 and 70 dBSPL, and compared their scores to the American CID W22 wordlist normative data. Overall, the South African subjects performed worse than the original American normative data at the lower presentation intensities (< 50 dBSPL). Use of the Tygerberg CID W22 recording--with the original American CID W22 normative data--for near threshold assessment of SAE speaking subjects was therefore concluded to be problematic. Use at suprathreshold intensities (> 40 dBSPL), however, was considered a viable option. These results reiterate the need for large scale, South African specific normative studies for the CID W22 wordlists if they are to continue their role as the dominant speech discrimination wordlists in South Africa.