Diversity and contested social identities in multilingual and multicultural contexts of the University of the Western Cape, South Africa

We draw on Rampton's Crossing: Language and Ethnicity Among Adolescents (2014. 2nd ed. New York: Routledge) notion of 'crossing' to explore contestations in ethnolinguistic, cultural and racial affiliations at the University of the Western Cape (UWC), a university built for 'Coloureds' in apartheid South Africa, but which rebelled by admitting students of all races and ethnic backgrounds. Using interviews and observation data, we show contestations around Xhosa and Afrikaans as languages for black and coloured solidarity, respectively. We argue that the multilingual and multicultural contexts in place entail that social legitimacy is not achieved through fixed linguistics forms, bounded ethnolinguistic categories and predetermined racial characteristics but in negotiated in-group and out-group codes all of which are part of the students' repertoire. We conclude that diversity is a function of discourses of convergence and divergence as social practice, which give the institution its unique character. The contestations and contradictions thus reflect the democratic conditions on which discourses of diversity are produced and consumed by the multiple socio-cultural range of student populace.IS

Reimagining diversity in post-apartheid Observatory, Cape Town: a discourse analysis

Philosophiae Doctor - PhDThe focus of the thesis is conceptually-based and problematizes the notion of a transformed society while addressing and evaluating its meaning in the multicultural post-apartheid neighbourhood of Observatory, Cape Town. Confluent concepts such as ‘multilingualism’, ‘hybridity’ and ‘community’ are discussed within the historical and contemporary context of a newly established democratic South Africa. Through a poststructuralist discourse analysis, the study endeavours to explore discourses of language and identity in the previously predominantly English-speaking community of Observatory. It is hoped that this research will build upon knowledge of inter alia social interaction, translocations and community membership, identity, language and integration in Observatory. Focus therefore rest on issues such as hybridity, identity options, translocal and transnational cultural flows, localization and globalization. All these issues fall under the broader theme of discourse of transformation and integration in multilingual spaces. The study strictly works within the framework of a qualitative approach with the focus resting on a discourse analysis of generated narratives supplied by informants during interviews and temporal and spatial descriptions of research sites. Arising from this study it is hoped that a deeper understanding of migration, transnational and transcultural flows, hybridity and identity will be reached. Critically, this study delves into two ‘new’ areas which subsume sociolinguistics, specifically semiotic landscape and place branding. Exploration into the appropriation of space by ‘newcomers’ and the subsequent reimaginings of space into place are of keen interest here. In this respect, this study aims at shedding light on recurrent, contesting and and new imaginings of diversity in post-apartheid living

A discourse analysis of narratives of identities and integration at the University of the Western Cape

Magister Artium - MAIn the thesis, I endeavour to create a platform on which to construct an understanding of 'integration' in a multilingual and multicultural setting, post-apartheid. I have selected UWC as the research site as it is an institution of higher education and an inherently South African one which houses a large number of diverse ethnicities, cultures and languages. I appeal to the poststructuralist approach as it is one that explores the possible sociopolitical, economic and historical influences on which I argue and which forms the backdrop to understanding integration amongst the various groups. I am especially drawn to the topic of integration as there is to date no well-defined definition of what that means in the 'new' South Africa. Different identities are explored in relation to how students identify themselves within their social networks, across various cultures and through language choices. In particular, I look at the three dominant 'South African' groups, namely: Indians, Blacks and Coloureds and also two international student groups, the Batswanas and Chinese. use a qualitative approach and undertake focus groups and one-to-one interviews as well as participant observations and analyzing documentation. Data analysis is achieved through Discourse Analysis of transcribed interviews. One of the conclusions is that integration will not occur overnight. However, the broadening and exercising of linguistic options could be seen as a step in right direction to integration across the various ethnic groups. The study ends with recommendations and gives an overall view of integration at UWC. One of the recommendations is that UWC needs to give students more opportunities to practice their multilinguality and thereby broaden their linguistic repertoire which could in turn facilitate integration.South Afric

dalawhatyoumust: Kaaps, translingualism and linguistic citizenship in Cape Town, South Africa

In 2016 Wayde Van Niekerk, a South African athlete of mixed-race heritage won an Olympic gold medal. In South Africa, his win caused hashtags such as #proudlysouthafrican, #blackexcellence and #colouredexcellence to trend online. By and large, these hashtags index the ongoing competitive discourses regarding nationalism, race and culture in Cape Town (cf. Author, 2018). Amongst these hashtags, however, was #dalawhatyoumust, a Kaaps hashtag generally meaning to “do what needs to be done”. Unlike the aforementioned hashtags, this one seems to cross the linguistic and racial divide despite its strong associations with Coloured1 people on the Cape Flats. The seemingly effortless uptake of this hashtag by diverse South Africans suggest that it has somehow become unmoored of its ethnic and linguistic inception. We explore the use of this Kaaps hashtag as a form of translingual practice which is affect-laden and trans portable across and between diverse users online and which promotes a particular “cool Capetonian” culture. Analyzing select posts from the #dalawhatyoumust thread on Facebook, we provide a nuanced look at #dala whatyoumust as an uplifting genre which proleptically advises nameless viewers of the importance of selfactualization, determination and aspiration. Additionally, we include Goffman’s (1974) framing foundation to investigate how positivistic discourse has been rhizomatically taken up by a ‘realm’ of implicit collective users online. This research interrogates long-held ideological boundaries between Kaaps and legitimized Standard Afrikaans and standard English. We conclude with a focus on Kaaps hashtags as semiotic acts of Linguistic Citizenship (cf. Williams and Stroud, 2013) which allows for the conjoining of Kaaps with diverse audiences, complex trajectories, and an assortment of accompanying semiotics. Following Stroud (2018:3) we argue that this Kaaps hashtag has become a form of languaging that facilitates “…the building of broad affinities of speakers that cut across…divisions and borders, and that negotiate co-existence/co-habitation outside of common ground in recognition of equivocation”. In South Africa, division was the order of the day and when we explore contemporary ordinary moments posted by heterogenous users using #dalawhatyoumust (henceforth #dwym) we aim to explore the ordinariness of languaging which brings people together despite their race, linguistic background, and ethnicity, that is to say an affinity of ‘cool Capetonian’ style

The commodification of women’s empowerment: The case of Vagina Varsity

Vagina Varsity is a South African online campaign aimed at selling Libresse sanitary products to ostensibly young women in South Africa, primarily through the medium of YouTube. In this paper, we investigate the privileging of white women’s bodies over those of women of colour in the campaign. In so doing, we tease out how patriarchy is multi-layered and experienced differently by women depending on their race and class. Moreover, we see that black South African women’s issues are being served by the campaign only to the extent which they coincide with those of the dominant group, i.e. white women in South Africa. To critically investigate this phenomenon, we use an intersectionality framework (Crenshaw, 1989) to discern latent differences in the treatment of black and white women’s bodies in the campaign. Multimodality (Kress, 2010; Iedema, 2003) allows us to analyse texts, sounds and images used in the campaign. Importantly, however, we also adopt Kulick’s (2003) notion of ‘dual indexicality’ to explore what is absent or silent in the campaign. We argue that the model of capitalism which commodifies women’s empowerment serves to multimodally exclude black women’s lived experience of patriarchy and pain

Observatory's linguistic landscape: semiotic appropriation and the reinvention of space

Using a longitudinal ethnographic study of the linguistic landscape (LL) in Observatory's business corridor of Lower Main Road, the paper explores changes brought about by the influx of immigrant Africans, their artefacts and language practices. The paper uses the changes in the LL over time and the development of an "African Corner" within Lower Main Road, to illustrate the appropriation of space and the unpredictability, which comes along with highly mobile, technological and multicultural citizens. It is argued that changes in the LL are part of the act of claiming and appropriating space wherein space becomes summarily recontexualized and hence reinvented and "owned" by new actors. It is also argued that space ownership can be concealed through what we have called "brand anonymity" strategies in which the identity of the owner is deliberately concealed behind global brands. We conclude that space is pliable and mobile, and that, it is the people within space who carve out new social practices in their appropriated space.IBS

Dialogicality and imaginings of two 'community' notice boards in post-apartheid Observatory, Cape Town

This article undertakes a poststructuralist multisemiotic analysis of posters and notices found on two 'community' notice boards in the trendy, multicultural neighbourhood of Observatory in Cape Town, South Africa. An analysis of the two notice boards endeavours to reveal different strategic uses of English as well as varying constructions of (transnational) place-making and community in Observatory. The two notice boards reveal voices of transient and permanent groups alike and index new imaginative constructions of this changing neighbourhood. Furthermore, this paper explores the implications of strategic linguistic processes in self-marketisation of transnational and 'local' community members in Observatory. We conclude by expounding on the new perspective of transcultural capital and what it means to the sociolinguistics of a super-diverse neighbourhood in the post-apartheid neighbourhood of Observatory in Cape Town, South Africa.IS

Talking parts, talking back

One of the greatest challenges of our times is that of lack of voice for abused bodies. These are the bodies of children and men and women who have inherited the brutalities of colonialism, plantation servitude and slavery and now re-live these miseries in the belly of a rampant global neoliberal and patriarchal capitalism. They are the racialized, sexualized, genderized and godless bodies that first took form in coloniality-modernity in conjunction with the emergence of MAN, the White, rational, disembodied male as HUMAN. They retain their shape today through technologies of vulnerability, with which the manufactured lack of voice works in dynamic synergy. This is particularly the case for South Africa, with its tender histories and distraught presents, raw emotion and sore vulnerabilities of racialized and neoliberal patriarchy. In this paper, we suggest that vulnerability, beyond its potentially devastating effect on souls and livelihoods, may also be a productive site for the articulation of alternative, and habitually silenced voices. In this regard, we explore how a focus on acts of Linguistic Citizenship may orientate thinking on voice and agency to different sites of the body, as well as allow insight into the complex technologies and practices of vulnerability