In a context where new English varieties from the Outer Circle have been receiving increasing att... more In a context where new English varieties from the Outer Circle have been receiving increasing attention, I propose to outline a descriptive approach to their uses and functions on the basis of their patterns of co-occurrence with local languages across intra and inter-ethnic boundaries. The case study I offer is Namibia, a multiethnic and multilingual African country where English has been the sole official language since 1990 without having had much local history prior to that date. The general question that I pose is to what extent and how English is used in informal interactions in Namibia. Considering Namibia's ethnolinguistic diversity as well as the locally widespread practice of code-switching, the questions I more specifically ask are: What are the patterns of code-switching with which English finds itself associated both within and across Namibia's inter-ethnic boundaries, and how can they be characterized in terms of social function? On the basis of a corpus of intra-and inter-ethnic interactions involving a range of Namibian ethnicities, I show evidence of a continuum of linguistic usage ranging from different patterns of code-switching involving English and local languages to more or less monolingual English varieties. I finally place that evidence within the perspective of new Englishes theory, emphasizing the possible relevance of code-switching patterns to the emergence of indigenized English varieties in general, and of an indigenized Namibian variety in particular.
Back in the days of colonial South Africa, "Cape Dutch" used to refer collectively to the Dutch-b... more Back in the days of colonial South Africa, "Cape Dutch" used to refer collectively to the Dutch-based varieties typical of the Cape. The most forma! version of these registers was close, if not similar to European Dutch. Conversely, the least forma! versions of these registers had a distincdy local character. The nationalist réveil of the late 19th century prompted the definition of a new language to be called 'Afrikaans', i.e. truly local, truly South African, and as such severed as much as possible from its Dutch connexion. Not as radical, the Afrikaans language activists from the period following the second Boer War (1899-1902) would rather endeavour to emphasize the Afrikaans linguistic identity within a Dutch context. The codification of Afrikaans has continuously been marked by thesometimes conflicting-concerns of nurturing 'truly Afrikaans' linguistic features, while cu!tivating similarities with Dutch for the sake of distantiation from English. However, Afrikaans norms have recendy tended to open up to language reality for the sake of scylistic and ethnic representativity.
International Journal of the Sociology of Language
This study generally looks at indigenization in languages historically introduced and promoted by... more This study generally looks at indigenization in languages historically introduced and promoted by colonial regimes. The case study that it presents involves Namibia, a Subsaharan African country formerly administered by South Africa, where Afrikaans was the dominant official language before being replaced by English upon independence. Afrikaans in Namibia still functions as an informal urban lingua franca while being spoken as a native language by substantial White and Coloured minorities. To what extent does the downranking of Afrikaans in Namibia co-occur with divergence from standard models historically located in South Africa? To answer this question, the study identifies variation patterns in Namibian Afrikaans phonetic data elicited from ethnically diverse young urban informants and links these patterns with perceptions and language ideologies. The phonetic data reveal divergence between Whites and Non-Whites and some convergence among Black L2 Afrikaans-speakers with Coloured...
Abstract This study discusses Kasietaal, a continuum of language practices associated with youth ... more Abstract This study discusses Kasietaal, a continuum of language practices associated with youth in the low-income areas of Windhoek, the capital of Namibia. To what extent does Kasietaal fit the description of an urban youth speech style or of a new lingua franca? To answer this question, this study discusses sociolinguistic perceptions of younger and older residents of Katutura, Windhoek's historically Black neighbourhood. It also uses linguistic materials produced by a Kasietaal performance elicited from a subset of the younger informants. The data suggest that Kasietaal is a post-independence phenomenon, with a manipulated lexicon of diverse origins as its most salient feature. But Kasietaal is not just a “floating lexicon” like South Africa's Tsotsitaal: It is tied to an Afrikaans variety with low-status lingua franca functions, with which it is likely to be co-evolving for want of other linguistic options for projecting urban inter-ethnic solidarity.
It is not clear which population group most qualifies as the 'founders' of Namibi... more It is not clear which population group most qualifies as the 'founders' of Namibian English. While Namibia's historical Afrikaans-speaking settler population has a tradition of Afrikaans-English bilingualism, English as a lingua franca was first introduced after independence by returning Black Namibian exiles with mostly Oshiwambo as a first language. This study seeks to determine which ethnolinguistic group plays the largest part in shaping contemporary Namibian English. Based on phonetic and ethnographic data, the findings suggest a loosening continuum between a White variety aligned with South African models and more locally rooted varieties. This partly reflects local language ideologies, which among the Blacks involve the pursuit of a Namibian urban identity set against both Namibian Whiteness and traditional Namibian ethnicities.
Pragmatics. Quarterly Publication of the International Pragmatics Association (IPrA)
This study addresses the question of how focused code-switching practices can become. It takes tw... more This study addresses the question of how focused code-switching practices can become. It takes two complementary approaches to determine sorts and degrees of focusing, namely, a sequential analyst perspective, and a holistic perspective involving general sociolinguistic data and member’s perspectives. The case study presented involves a multilectal interaction between urban speakers of Oshiwambo, the main ethnic language of Namibia, where it cohabits with English and Afrikaans, the country’s lingua francas. The analysis reveals a range of structurally or qualitatively distinctive CS patterns involving Oshiwambo (dialects), English, and Afrikaans, used by all participants. Mostly alternational CS and specific types of backflagging display sequential regularity, while other CS patterns seem randomly distributed, at first sight an attribute of ‘free variation’. However, the examination of social indexicalities attached to the observed CS patterns shows that they all contribute to the p...
L1 background is often described as the main factor accounting for variation in postcolonial ESL ... more L1 background is often described as the main factor accounting for variation in postcolonial ESL varieties. However, recent studies (e.g. Mesthrie 2009, 2017) suggest that variation patterns in ESL varieties can in some cases also be linked to identity factors rooted in local patterns of intergroup relations. This study examines the interrelation between L1 background and such identity factors in the phonetic patterns found in the English varieties spoken in Namibia. The data consist of a corpus of careful style elicited via sociolinguistic interviews from an ethnically stratified sample of L2 English speaking Namibian students with Afrikaans, Bantu languages (Oshiwambo and Otjiherero), and Khoekhoeghowab as L1s. Individual speakers tend to be related in their phonetic behaviors if they share the same L1. However, some features cannot be directly attributed to L1 background, so their distribution is best read against the background of Namibian inter-ethnic relations and ethnolinguis...
Despite regular objections, creole research tends to regard Europeans-to-non-Europeans ratios in ... more Despite regular objections, creole research tends to regard Europeans-to-non-Europeans ratios in colonial settings as a decisive factor in degrees of restructuring. As a result, relatively high proportions of Europeans are seen as the explanation for the emergence of partially restructured varieties. Quite problematic, however, is that some colonial settings with relatively low proportions of Europeans show little historical evidence of restructuring. To address this apparent paradox while avoiding too locale-specific explanations, I attempt to sketch a unified sociolinguistic account of restructuring, or the absence thereof. Central to the account I propose is the notion of upward social mobility in colonial societies, whose linguistic impact I illustrate by means of a comparison between Orange River Afrikaans (ORA) and Cape Malay Dutch (CMD), i.e. two partially restructured non-European varieties of Dutch that arose at the colonial Cape. I emphasize that ORA, which developed in so...
This study examined how six different ethnolinguistic groups in Windhoek, capital of Namibia, adj... more This study examined how six different ethnolinguistic groups in Windhoek, capital of Namibia, adjust their language use during intergroup encounters. Invoking communication accommodation theory, we predicted that relatively low-vitality groups (high-vitality groups) would be inclined towards linguistic convergence (maintenance), but that these general patterns would be moderated by prevailing sociocultural norms and each group’s language proficiency. These hypotheses were largely supported. Relatively low-vitality groups tended to linguistically converge (typically via lingua francas), whereas relatively high-vitality groups tended to engage in linguistic maintenance. This resulted in two distinct patterns of adjustment: (a) symmetrical accommodation in interactions involving groups of relatively equal vitality, typically consisting of mutual convergence to lingua francas or mutual maintenance of a shared heritage language and (b) asymmetrical accommodation in intergroup interaction...
wetenskap aan die University of the West Indies en navorsingsgenoot aan die Departement Afrikaans... more wetenskap aan die University of the West Indies en navorsingsgenoot aan die Departement Afrikaans van die Universiteit van Pretoria. Hy verwerf sy doktorsgraad in 2008 by die Vrije Universiteit Brussel. Sy proefskrif handel oor taalvariasie in die informele Afrikaanse gesprekstaal. Sy fokusgebiede sluit die verhouding tussen etnisiteit en taal, taalkontak, fonologiese en morfosintaktiese variasie in. Jongste publikasies omvat onder meer "Multilingual Accommodation in Namibia: An Examination of Six Ethnolinguistic Groups, Language Use in Intra-and Intergroup Interactions" (2016), "Ethnicity in discourse: The interactional negotiation of ethnic boundaries in post-apartheid Namibia" (2015), "Code-switching: Between Structural and Sociolinguistic Perspectives" (2015). Hy werk tans aan verskeie projekte, waaronder een wat handel oor die distinktiewe fonologiese en grammatikale kenmerke van informele variëteite van Afrikaans en Engels in Namibië. Gerald Groenewald is 'n medeprofessor in die Departement Historiese Studies aan die Universiteit van Johannesburg. Hy het onder meer 'n MA in Afrikaans en Neerlandistiek en 'n PhD in Historiese Studies aan die Universiteit Gerald Stell is an assistant professor of linguistics at the University of the West Indies and a research fellow in the Afrikaans Department of the University of Pretoria. He received his doctoral degree from the Free University of Brussels in 2008. His research so far has focused on language contact and language variation in Southern Africa with a specific focus on language variation in informal spoken Afrikaans. His focus areas include the relationship between ethnicity and language, language contact, phonological and morphosyntactic variation. Latest publications include "Multilingual Accommodation in Namibia: An Examination of Six Ethnolinguistic Groups Language Use in Intra-and Intergroup Interactions" (2016), "Ethnicity in discourse: The interactional negotiation of ethnic boundaries in post-apartheid Namibia" (2015), "Codeswitching: Between Structural and Sociolinguistic Perspectives" (2015). He is currently working on several projects, including one that deals with the distinctive phonological and grammatical features of informal English and Afrikaans varieties used in Namibia.
This article provides a qualitative description of current patterns of linguistic diversity in Na... more This article provides a qualitative description of current patterns of linguistic diversity in Namibia’s capital city, Windhoek, using as its main source of data perceptions elicited from an ethnically representative sample of Windhoek residents on language-related themes. The data suggest that the pre-independence diglossic pattern which involved Afrikaans as high-status language and ethnic indigenous languages as low-status languages is giving way to a triglossic pattern dominated by English – the country’s only official language since 1990. Indigenous ethnic languages are still hardly used for inter-ethnic communication, which seems to be a correlate of ‘hard’ inter-ethnic boundaries inherited from apartheid. Instead, the dominant linguistic patterns of informal inter-ethnic communication in Windhoek rely either mostly on English, or on mixed linguistic repertoires combining ‘Coloured Afrikaans’ and English. Which of the two linguistic options dominates depends on the interactant...
Afrikaans was first introduced in Namibia’s current territory by migrant Oorlam and Baster groups... more Afrikaans was first introduced in Namibia’s current territory by migrant Oorlam and Baster groups who imposed it in its Cape Dutch form as a prestige language and inter-ethnic medium of communication. The status of Afrikaans in Namibia was consolidated during the South African regime which systematically promoted it while preventing indigenous languages from spreading out of their intra-ethnic contexts of use. A linguistic consequence of independence, which Namibia gained in 1990, was that English suddenly became the country’s only official language, as well as the dominant language in education. Despite the hegemonic status that English acquired in Namibia, Afrikaans is today still popularly represented as the main lingua franca in Namibia, or at least as an important one. However, the position of Afrikaans in urban areas could nowadays be under threat from the sustained influx of migrants from Namibia’s northern districts, including those that constitute the traditional homeland o...
In this paper we present a case study of interethnic relations through language variation involvi... more In this paper we present a case study of interethnic relations through language variation involving two population groups supposedly belonging to one single speech community, namely the White and Coloured Afrikaans speakers of Namibia. The specific question that we wish to tackle in reference to that community is the extent to which Coloured and White identities are differentiable via linguistic means and how those identities are negotiated in intergroup settings where Coloured and White Afrikaans speakers are in mutual contact. The methodology used to answer this question is largely based on Communication Accommodation Theory (CAT), which entails the characterization of intergroup language variation in terms of convergence, divergence and maintenance, as well as the characterization of speakers' group identities in terms of 'subordinate' and 'superordinate' identities.
Cape Malay ethnic and religious imagery traces its origins to the time when the Dutch were practi... more Cape Malay ethnic and religious imagery traces its origins to the time when the Dutch were practising slavery across the Indian Ocean. Aiming to turn the Cape into a self-supporting VOC outpost, Commander van Riebeeck resolved in the 1650s to address the labour shortage by importing slaves. Because of the large gaps in the records surviving from the Dutch period, it is not easy to reconstruct a breakdown of the Cape slaves according to their ethnic origins, as sources of supply were subject to variation, and a growing number of slaves were born at the Cape. According to Armstrong and Worden (1979: 120-121), Madagascar was the main regional source of Cape slaves during the VOC period, whereas India (chiefly Bengal, followed by Malabar and Coromandel) and the Nusantaran archipelago (chiefly Macassar and Batavia) contributed much smaller numbers. However, computing various records covering the whole VOC period, Shell (1994: 41) arrived at the following proportions of slave imports to the Cape: 26.4% continental Africans, 25.1% Malagasies, 25.9% Indians, and 22.7% Nusantarans. These figures suggest an even balance between the African and Asian components. Despite the diversity of the Asian component, it seems that early Dutch records broadly referred to Asians as "Javaansche" or "Bataviaansche slaven", more in reflection of the geographic location of the VOC administrative headquarters than of their actual place of origin (Shell 1994:83). It is probable that the term "Malay" came to be used as a common term for Cape Asians as a result of the wholesale use made by Cape authorities of Malay imagery in reference to Asia (ibid.). The socioeconomic and cultural commonalities visibly shared by Cape Asians probably strengthened the ethnic generalizations made by the authorities. In turn, those same commonalities helped the Cape Asians to eventually form a close-knit community. Nusantarans, among all slaves, generally shared the highest social status with their Indian counterparts, because of the specific skills Asians contributed to the Colony. As a result, there was a preponderance of Asians in domestic or semiskilled labour, as opposed to Malagasy and African slaves who were predominantly put to work as fieldhands (Armstrong and
Code-switching Between Structural and Sociolinguistic Perspectives, 2015
The study of code-switching has been mostly undertaken from two perspectives that have developed ... more The study of code-switching has been mostly undertaken from two perspectives that have developed apart from one another, i.e. the grammatical perspective and the conversational perspective. I attempt in this chapter to join these two perspectives by testing the hypothesis that grammatical and conver- sational forms of code-switching can be jointly predicted via macrosociolinguis- tic factors. To that end, I first show on the basis of sociolinguistically diverse data from South Africa, featuring language with different degrees of typological distance (i.e. Afrikaans, English, Sesotho), that macrosociolinguistic factors by themselves can predict specific grammatical CS patterns irrespective of linguis- tic factors. I then proceed to show that under certain conditions, there is evi- dence in these data of one-to-one relationships between specific patterns of grammatical code-switching and those conversational code-switching patterns which Auer (1999) refers to as language mixing and language alternation.
Code-switching Between Structural and Sociolinguistic Perspectives, 2015
The study of code-switching has been undertaken from three distinct perspectives: linguistic, psy... more The study of code-switching has been undertaken from three distinct perspectives: linguistic, psycholinguistic and sociolinguistic. The linguistic perspective has been concerned with the search for universal grammatical constraints to code-switching. The psycholinguistic perspective has focused on how bilinguals' linguistic systems are stored and accessed in the cognitive system. Finally, the sociolinguistic perspective has paid attention to the social motivations behind code-switching. The methodologies employed in all three cases range from observation in naturalistic settings, more associated with the sociolinguistic perspective, to experimental elicitation, more associated with the psycholinguistic perspective. The linguistic perspective, in turn, does not necessarily identify explicitly with any methodology for data extraction. A need for bringing together these three perspectives has been increasingly felt, giving rise to a few multidisciplinary overviews of code-switching studies, among which the most recent is an edited volume by . The present volume emphasizes commonalities of approaches to codeswitching. Despite the theoretically and methodologically eclectic character of code-switching studies, it seems feasible to bring together various approaches to code-switching spanning all three perspectives as long as they meet the criterion of allowing for social explanations. This is the point of view that we took while editing this volume. This volume also seeks to widen the empirical basis of the study of code-switching by including a richly diverse range of contact settings encompassing countries such as Cameroon,
This volume brings together linguistic, psycholinguistic, and sociolinguistic perspectives on cod... more This volume brings together linguistic, psycholinguistic, and sociolinguistic perspectives on code-switching. Featuring new data from five continents and languages with a large range of linguistic affiliations, the contributions all address the role of social factors in determining the forms and outcomes of code-switching. This book is a significant addition to the empirical and theoretical foundations of the study of code-switching.
Stell, Gerald & Kofi Yakpo (eds.). Code-switching between structural and sociolinguistic perspectives. (Linguae et Litterae 43). Berlin: De Gruyter, 2015
This volume brings together linguistic, psycholinguistic and sociolinguistic perspectives on code... more This volume brings together linguistic, psycholinguistic and sociolinguistic perspectives on code-switching. Featuring new data from five continents and languages with a large range of linguistic affiliations, the contributions all address the role of social factors in determining the forms and outcomes of code-switching. This book is a significant addition to the empirical and theoretical foundations of the study of code-switching.
In a context where new English varieties from the Outer Circle have been receiving increasing att... more In a context where new English varieties from the Outer Circle have been receiving increasing attention, I propose to outline a descriptive approach to their uses and functions on the basis of their patterns of co-occurrence with local languages across intra and inter-ethnic boundaries. The case study I offer is Namibia, a multiethnic and multilingual African country where English has been the sole official language since 1990 without having had much local history prior to that date. The general question that I pose is to what extent and how English is used in informal interactions in Namibia. Considering Namibia's ethnolinguistic diversity as well as the locally widespread practice of code-switching, the questions I more specifically ask are: What are the patterns of code-switching with which English finds itself associated both within and across Namibia's inter-ethnic boundaries, and how can they be characterized in terms of social function? On the basis of a corpus of intra-and inter-ethnic interactions involving a range of Namibian ethnicities, I show evidence of a continuum of linguistic usage ranging from different patterns of code-switching involving English and local languages to more or less monolingual English varieties. I finally place that evidence within the perspective of new Englishes theory, emphasizing the possible relevance of code-switching patterns to the emergence of indigenized English varieties in general, and of an indigenized Namibian variety in particular.
Back in the days of colonial South Africa, "Cape Dutch" used to refer collectively to the Dutch-b... more Back in the days of colonial South Africa, "Cape Dutch" used to refer collectively to the Dutch-based varieties typical of the Cape. The most forma! version of these registers was close, if not similar to European Dutch. Conversely, the least forma! versions of these registers had a distincdy local character. The nationalist réveil of the late 19th century prompted the definition of a new language to be called 'Afrikaans', i.e. truly local, truly South African, and as such severed as much as possible from its Dutch connexion. Not as radical, the Afrikaans language activists from the period following the second Boer War (1899-1902) would rather endeavour to emphasize the Afrikaans linguistic identity within a Dutch context. The codification of Afrikaans has continuously been marked by thesometimes conflicting-concerns of nurturing 'truly Afrikaans' linguistic features, while cu!tivating similarities with Dutch for the sake of distantiation from English. However, Afrikaans norms have recendy tended to open up to language reality for the sake of scylistic and ethnic representativity.
International Journal of the Sociology of Language
This study generally looks at indigenization in languages historically introduced and promoted by... more This study generally looks at indigenization in languages historically introduced and promoted by colonial regimes. The case study that it presents involves Namibia, a Subsaharan African country formerly administered by South Africa, where Afrikaans was the dominant official language before being replaced by English upon independence. Afrikaans in Namibia still functions as an informal urban lingua franca while being spoken as a native language by substantial White and Coloured minorities. To what extent does the downranking of Afrikaans in Namibia co-occur with divergence from standard models historically located in South Africa? To answer this question, the study identifies variation patterns in Namibian Afrikaans phonetic data elicited from ethnically diverse young urban informants and links these patterns with perceptions and language ideologies. The phonetic data reveal divergence between Whites and Non-Whites and some convergence among Black L2 Afrikaans-speakers with Coloured...
Abstract This study discusses Kasietaal, a continuum of language practices associated with youth ... more Abstract This study discusses Kasietaal, a continuum of language practices associated with youth in the low-income areas of Windhoek, the capital of Namibia. To what extent does Kasietaal fit the description of an urban youth speech style or of a new lingua franca? To answer this question, this study discusses sociolinguistic perceptions of younger and older residents of Katutura, Windhoek's historically Black neighbourhood. It also uses linguistic materials produced by a Kasietaal performance elicited from a subset of the younger informants. The data suggest that Kasietaal is a post-independence phenomenon, with a manipulated lexicon of diverse origins as its most salient feature. But Kasietaal is not just a “floating lexicon” like South Africa's Tsotsitaal: It is tied to an Afrikaans variety with low-status lingua franca functions, with which it is likely to be co-evolving for want of other linguistic options for projecting urban inter-ethnic solidarity.
It is not clear which population group most qualifies as the 'founders' of Namibi... more It is not clear which population group most qualifies as the 'founders' of Namibian English. While Namibia's historical Afrikaans-speaking settler population has a tradition of Afrikaans-English bilingualism, English as a lingua franca was first introduced after independence by returning Black Namibian exiles with mostly Oshiwambo as a first language. This study seeks to determine which ethnolinguistic group plays the largest part in shaping contemporary Namibian English. Based on phonetic and ethnographic data, the findings suggest a loosening continuum between a White variety aligned with South African models and more locally rooted varieties. This partly reflects local language ideologies, which among the Blacks involve the pursuit of a Namibian urban identity set against both Namibian Whiteness and traditional Namibian ethnicities.
Pragmatics. Quarterly Publication of the International Pragmatics Association (IPrA)
This study addresses the question of how focused code-switching practices can become. It takes tw... more This study addresses the question of how focused code-switching practices can become. It takes two complementary approaches to determine sorts and degrees of focusing, namely, a sequential analyst perspective, and a holistic perspective involving general sociolinguistic data and member’s perspectives. The case study presented involves a multilectal interaction between urban speakers of Oshiwambo, the main ethnic language of Namibia, where it cohabits with English and Afrikaans, the country’s lingua francas. The analysis reveals a range of structurally or qualitatively distinctive CS patterns involving Oshiwambo (dialects), English, and Afrikaans, used by all participants. Mostly alternational CS and specific types of backflagging display sequential regularity, while other CS patterns seem randomly distributed, at first sight an attribute of ‘free variation’. However, the examination of social indexicalities attached to the observed CS patterns shows that they all contribute to the p...
L1 background is often described as the main factor accounting for variation in postcolonial ESL ... more L1 background is often described as the main factor accounting for variation in postcolonial ESL varieties. However, recent studies (e.g. Mesthrie 2009, 2017) suggest that variation patterns in ESL varieties can in some cases also be linked to identity factors rooted in local patterns of intergroup relations. This study examines the interrelation between L1 background and such identity factors in the phonetic patterns found in the English varieties spoken in Namibia. The data consist of a corpus of careful style elicited via sociolinguistic interviews from an ethnically stratified sample of L2 English speaking Namibian students with Afrikaans, Bantu languages (Oshiwambo and Otjiherero), and Khoekhoeghowab as L1s. Individual speakers tend to be related in their phonetic behaviors if they share the same L1. However, some features cannot be directly attributed to L1 background, so their distribution is best read against the background of Namibian inter-ethnic relations and ethnolinguis...
Despite regular objections, creole research tends to regard Europeans-to-non-Europeans ratios in ... more Despite regular objections, creole research tends to regard Europeans-to-non-Europeans ratios in colonial settings as a decisive factor in degrees of restructuring. As a result, relatively high proportions of Europeans are seen as the explanation for the emergence of partially restructured varieties. Quite problematic, however, is that some colonial settings with relatively low proportions of Europeans show little historical evidence of restructuring. To address this apparent paradox while avoiding too locale-specific explanations, I attempt to sketch a unified sociolinguistic account of restructuring, or the absence thereof. Central to the account I propose is the notion of upward social mobility in colonial societies, whose linguistic impact I illustrate by means of a comparison between Orange River Afrikaans (ORA) and Cape Malay Dutch (CMD), i.e. two partially restructured non-European varieties of Dutch that arose at the colonial Cape. I emphasize that ORA, which developed in so...
This study examined how six different ethnolinguistic groups in Windhoek, capital of Namibia, adj... more This study examined how six different ethnolinguistic groups in Windhoek, capital of Namibia, adjust their language use during intergroup encounters. Invoking communication accommodation theory, we predicted that relatively low-vitality groups (high-vitality groups) would be inclined towards linguistic convergence (maintenance), but that these general patterns would be moderated by prevailing sociocultural norms and each group’s language proficiency. These hypotheses were largely supported. Relatively low-vitality groups tended to linguistically converge (typically via lingua francas), whereas relatively high-vitality groups tended to engage in linguistic maintenance. This resulted in two distinct patterns of adjustment: (a) symmetrical accommodation in interactions involving groups of relatively equal vitality, typically consisting of mutual convergence to lingua francas or mutual maintenance of a shared heritage language and (b) asymmetrical accommodation in intergroup interaction...
wetenskap aan die University of the West Indies en navorsingsgenoot aan die Departement Afrikaans... more wetenskap aan die University of the West Indies en navorsingsgenoot aan die Departement Afrikaans van die Universiteit van Pretoria. Hy verwerf sy doktorsgraad in 2008 by die Vrije Universiteit Brussel. Sy proefskrif handel oor taalvariasie in die informele Afrikaanse gesprekstaal. Sy fokusgebiede sluit die verhouding tussen etnisiteit en taal, taalkontak, fonologiese en morfosintaktiese variasie in. Jongste publikasies omvat onder meer "Multilingual Accommodation in Namibia: An Examination of Six Ethnolinguistic Groups, Language Use in Intra-and Intergroup Interactions" (2016), "Ethnicity in discourse: The interactional negotiation of ethnic boundaries in post-apartheid Namibia" (2015), "Code-switching: Between Structural and Sociolinguistic Perspectives" (2015). Hy werk tans aan verskeie projekte, waaronder een wat handel oor die distinktiewe fonologiese en grammatikale kenmerke van informele variëteite van Afrikaans en Engels in Namibië. Gerald Groenewald is 'n medeprofessor in die Departement Historiese Studies aan die Universiteit van Johannesburg. Hy het onder meer 'n MA in Afrikaans en Neerlandistiek en 'n PhD in Historiese Studies aan die Universiteit Gerald Stell is an assistant professor of linguistics at the University of the West Indies and a research fellow in the Afrikaans Department of the University of Pretoria. He received his doctoral degree from the Free University of Brussels in 2008. His research so far has focused on language contact and language variation in Southern Africa with a specific focus on language variation in informal spoken Afrikaans. His focus areas include the relationship between ethnicity and language, language contact, phonological and morphosyntactic variation. Latest publications include "Multilingual Accommodation in Namibia: An Examination of Six Ethnolinguistic Groups Language Use in Intra-and Intergroup Interactions" (2016), "Ethnicity in discourse: The interactional negotiation of ethnic boundaries in post-apartheid Namibia" (2015), "Codeswitching: Between Structural and Sociolinguistic Perspectives" (2015). He is currently working on several projects, including one that deals with the distinctive phonological and grammatical features of informal English and Afrikaans varieties used in Namibia.
This article provides a qualitative description of current patterns of linguistic diversity in Na... more This article provides a qualitative description of current patterns of linguistic diversity in Namibia’s capital city, Windhoek, using as its main source of data perceptions elicited from an ethnically representative sample of Windhoek residents on language-related themes. The data suggest that the pre-independence diglossic pattern which involved Afrikaans as high-status language and ethnic indigenous languages as low-status languages is giving way to a triglossic pattern dominated by English – the country’s only official language since 1990. Indigenous ethnic languages are still hardly used for inter-ethnic communication, which seems to be a correlate of ‘hard’ inter-ethnic boundaries inherited from apartheid. Instead, the dominant linguistic patterns of informal inter-ethnic communication in Windhoek rely either mostly on English, or on mixed linguistic repertoires combining ‘Coloured Afrikaans’ and English. Which of the two linguistic options dominates depends on the interactant...
Afrikaans was first introduced in Namibia’s current territory by migrant Oorlam and Baster groups... more Afrikaans was first introduced in Namibia’s current territory by migrant Oorlam and Baster groups who imposed it in its Cape Dutch form as a prestige language and inter-ethnic medium of communication. The status of Afrikaans in Namibia was consolidated during the South African regime which systematically promoted it while preventing indigenous languages from spreading out of their intra-ethnic contexts of use. A linguistic consequence of independence, which Namibia gained in 1990, was that English suddenly became the country’s only official language, as well as the dominant language in education. Despite the hegemonic status that English acquired in Namibia, Afrikaans is today still popularly represented as the main lingua franca in Namibia, or at least as an important one. However, the position of Afrikaans in urban areas could nowadays be under threat from the sustained influx of migrants from Namibia’s northern districts, including those that constitute the traditional homeland o...
In this paper we present a case study of interethnic relations through language variation involvi... more In this paper we present a case study of interethnic relations through language variation involving two population groups supposedly belonging to one single speech community, namely the White and Coloured Afrikaans speakers of Namibia. The specific question that we wish to tackle in reference to that community is the extent to which Coloured and White identities are differentiable via linguistic means and how those identities are negotiated in intergroup settings where Coloured and White Afrikaans speakers are in mutual contact. The methodology used to answer this question is largely based on Communication Accommodation Theory (CAT), which entails the characterization of intergroup language variation in terms of convergence, divergence and maintenance, as well as the characterization of speakers' group identities in terms of 'subordinate' and 'superordinate' identities.
Cape Malay ethnic and religious imagery traces its origins to the time when the Dutch were practi... more Cape Malay ethnic and religious imagery traces its origins to the time when the Dutch were practising slavery across the Indian Ocean. Aiming to turn the Cape into a self-supporting VOC outpost, Commander van Riebeeck resolved in the 1650s to address the labour shortage by importing slaves. Because of the large gaps in the records surviving from the Dutch period, it is not easy to reconstruct a breakdown of the Cape slaves according to their ethnic origins, as sources of supply were subject to variation, and a growing number of slaves were born at the Cape. According to Armstrong and Worden (1979: 120-121), Madagascar was the main regional source of Cape slaves during the VOC period, whereas India (chiefly Bengal, followed by Malabar and Coromandel) and the Nusantaran archipelago (chiefly Macassar and Batavia) contributed much smaller numbers. However, computing various records covering the whole VOC period, Shell (1994: 41) arrived at the following proportions of slave imports to the Cape: 26.4% continental Africans, 25.1% Malagasies, 25.9% Indians, and 22.7% Nusantarans. These figures suggest an even balance between the African and Asian components. Despite the diversity of the Asian component, it seems that early Dutch records broadly referred to Asians as "Javaansche" or "Bataviaansche slaven", more in reflection of the geographic location of the VOC administrative headquarters than of their actual place of origin (Shell 1994:83). It is probable that the term "Malay" came to be used as a common term for Cape Asians as a result of the wholesale use made by Cape authorities of Malay imagery in reference to Asia (ibid.). The socioeconomic and cultural commonalities visibly shared by Cape Asians probably strengthened the ethnic generalizations made by the authorities. In turn, those same commonalities helped the Cape Asians to eventually form a close-knit community. Nusantarans, among all slaves, generally shared the highest social status with their Indian counterparts, because of the specific skills Asians contributed to the Colony. As a result, there was a preponderance of Asians in domestic or semiskilled labour, as opposed to Malagasy and African slaves who were predominantly put to work as fieldhands (Armstrong and
Code-switching Between Structural and Sociolinguistic Perspectives, 2015
The study of code-switching has been mostly undertaken from two perspectives that have developed ... more The study of code-switching has been mostly undertaken from two perspectives that have developed apart from one another, i.e. the grammatical perspective and the conversational perspective. I attempt in this chapter to join these two perspectives by testing the hypothesis that grammatical and conver- sational forms of code-switching can be jointly predicted via macrosociolinguis- tic factors. To that end, I first show on the basis of sociolinguistically diverse data from South Africa, featuring language with different degrees of typological distance (i.e. Afrikaans, English, Sesotho), that macrosociolinguistic factors by themselves can predict specific grammatical CS patterns irrespective of linguis- tic factors. I then proceed to show that under certain conditions, there is evi- dence in these data of one-to-one relationships between specific patterns of grammatical code-switching and those conversational code-switching patterns which Auer (1999) refers to as language mixing and language alternation.
Code-switching Between Structural and Sociolinguistic Perspectives, 2015
The study of code-switching has been undertaken from three distinct perspectives: linguistic, psy... more The study of code-switching has been undertaken from three distinct perspectives: linguistic, psycholinguistic and sociolinguistic. The linguistic perspective has been concerned with the search for universal grammatical constraints to code-switching. The psycholinguistic perspective has focused on how bilinguals' linguistic systems are stored and accessed in the cognitive system. Finally, the sociolinguistic perspective has paid attention to the social motivations behind code-switching. The methodologies employed in all three cases range from observation in naturalistic settings, more associated with the sociolinguistic perspective, to experimental elicitation, more associated with the psycholinguistic perspective. The linguistic perspective, in turn, does not necessarily identify explicitly with any methodology for data extraction. A need for bringing together these three perspectives has been increasingly felt, giving rise to a few multidisciplinary overviews of code-switching studies, among which the most recent is an edited volume by . The present volume emphasizes commonalities of approaches to codeswitching. Despite the theoretically and methodologically eclectic character of code-switching studies, it seems feasible to bring together various approaches to code-switching spanning all three perspectives as long as they meet the criterion of allowing for social explanations. This is the point of view that we took while editing this volume. This volume also seeks to widen the empirical basis of the study of code-switching by including a richly diverse range of contact settings encompassing countries such as Cameroon,
This volume brings together linguistic, psycholinguistic, and sociolinguistic perspectives on cod... more This volume brings together linguistic, psycholinguistic, and sociolinguistic perspectives on code-switching. Featuring new data from five continents and languages with a large range of linguistic affiliations, the contributions all address the role of social factors in determining the forms and outcomes of code-switching. This book is a significant addition to the empirical and theoretical foundations of the study of code-switching.
Stell, Gerald & Kofi Yakpo (eds.). Code-switching between structural and sociolinguistic perspectives. (Linguae et Litterae 43). Berlin: De Gruyter, 2015
This volume brings together linguistic, psycholinguistic and sociolinguistic perspectives on code... more This volume brings together linguistic, psycholinguistic and sociolinguistic perspectives on code-switching. Featuring new data from five continents and languages with a large range of linguistic affiliations, the contributions all address the role of social factors in determining the forms and outcomes of code-switching. This book is a significant addition to the empirical and theoretical foundations of the study of code-switching.
Tydskrif vir Geesteswetenskappe vol. 56, no. 4-2, Dec 2016
Afrikaans was first introduced in Namibia’s current territory by migrant Oorlam and Baster groups... more Afrikaans was first introduced in Namibia’s current territory by migrant Oorlam and Baster groups who imposed it in its Cape Dutch form as a prestige language and inter-ethnic medium of communication. The status of Afrikaans in Namibia was consolidated during the South African regime which systematically promoted it while preventing indigenous languages from spreading out of their intra-ethnic contexts of use. A linguistic consequence of independence, which Namibia gained in 1990, was that English suddenly became the country’s only official language, as well as the dominant language in education. Despite the hegemonic status that English acquired in Namibia, Afrikaans is today still popularly represented as the main lingua franca in Namibia, or at least as an important one. However, the position of Afrikaans in urban areas could nowadays be under threat from the sustained influx of migrants from Namibia’s northern districts, including those that constitute the traditional homeland of the Ovambo, the country’s numerically dominant group, where English is better known than Afrikaans. An indication of the pressure that Afrikaans might be subject to in Windhoek, Namibia’s capital city, is the demographic preponderance that the Ovambo group has locally acquired within the last three decades. Based on a qualitative survey conducted among an ethnoracially representative sample of young Namibians, this article provides a description of the status and use of Afrikaans in contemporary Windhoek, as well as a reflection on its potential for locally maintaining itself as a lingua franca. It generally shows that Afrikaans has to compete with English in that function, while indigenous languages are still largely restricted to intra-ethnic contexts of use. Afrikaans is clearly perceived as the lingua franca with more “covert prestige” in that it is associated with informality and a sense of local identity. By contrast, English is generally associated with overt prestige and formal functions, and it is characteristically used as a lingua franca within groups that do not understand Afrikaans, such as among particular Ovambo migrants. It is not enough, however, to give an account of Windhoek’s sociolinguistic profile in which English and Afrikaans are presented as the two main lingua francas without specifying which form of Afrikaans is used in which contexts as a lingua franca. Standard varieties of Afrikaans do not seem to possess enough neutrality to function as a medium of inter-ethnic interaction as they are perceptually amalgamated with “White Afrikaans”, that is, the linguistic marker of an ethnoracial group, namely, the Afrikaners, that is still largely seen as self-insulating in the context of Windhoek. Those varieties of Afrikaans perceived as more neutral for the purpose of inter-ethnic communication are Coloured varieties of Afrikaans, with which various Non-Coloured ethnic groups seem to identify. However, there are indications that English rather than those varieties tends to be used by Non-Whites in communication with Whites, even when Afrikaans is notionally shared as a native language. Where Standard Afrikaans is used in inter-ethnic communication, it is mostly unilaterally by Afrikaners, as it is apparently not widely used in informal contexts outside of that group. Also relevant to a description of the uses of Afrikaans as a lingua franca in the context of Windhoek is the practice among Non-Whites of combining it with English in the form of Afrikaans-English mixed codes. As regards the long-term prospects of Afrikaans in Windhoek, the data suggest that Afrikaans in its local Coloured varieties has potential for spreading as an attribute of a local urban identity among migrant groups, as it already has done among Ovambo born in the city or in the southern districts in general, to the point that language shift might be taking place among them from Oshiwambo to combinations of Afrikaans and English.
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urban areas could nowadays be under threat from the sustained influx of migrants from Namibia’s northern districts, including those that constitute the traditional homeland of the Ovambo, the country’s numerically dominant group, where English is better known than
Afrikaans. An indication of the pressure that Afrikaans might be subject to in Windhoek, Namibia’s capital city, is the demographic preponderance that the Ovambo group has locally acquired within the last three decades. Based on a qualitative survey conducted among an
ethnoracially representative sample of young Namibians, this article provides a description of the status and use of Afrikaans in contemporary Windhoek, as well as a reflection on its
potential for locally maintaining itself as a lingua franca. It generally shows that Afrikaans has to compete with English in that function, while indigenous languages are still largely restricted to intra-ethnic contexts of use. Afrikaans is clearly perceived as the lingua franca
with more “covert prestige” in that it is associated with informality and a sense of local identity. By contrast, English is generally associated with overt prestige and formal functions, and it is characteristically used as a lingua franca within groups that do not understand Afrikaans, such as among particular Ovambo migrants. It is not enough, however, to give an
account of Windhoek’s sociolinguistic profile in which English and Afrikaans are presented as the two main lingua francas without specifying which form of Afrikaans is used in which contexts as a lingua franca. Standard varieties of Afrikaans do not seem to possess enough
neutrality to function as a medium of inter-ethnic interaction as they are perceptually amalgamated with “White Afrikaans”, that is, the linguistic marker of an ethnoracial group, namely, the Afrikaners, that is still largely seen as self-insulating in the context of Windhoek. Those varieties of Afrikaans perceived as more neutral for the purpose of inter-ethnic
communication are Coloured varieties of Afrikaans, with which various Non-Coloured ethnic groups seem to identify. However, there are indications that English rather than those varieties tends to be used by Non-Whites in communication with Whites, even when Afrikaans is
notionally shared as a native language. Where Standard Afrikaans is used in inter-ethnic communication, it is mostly unilaterally by Afrikaners, as it is apparently not widely used in informal contexts outside of that group. Also relevant to a description of the uses of Afrikaans as a lingua franca in the context of Windhoek is the practice among Non-Whites of combining it with English in the form of Afrikaans-English mixed codes. As regards the long-term prospects of Afrikaans in Windhoek, the data suggest that Afrikaans in its local Coloured varieties has potential for spreading as an attribute of a local urban identity among migrant groups, as it already has done among Ovambo born in the city or in the southern districts in general, to the point that language shift might be taking place among them from Oshiwambo to combinations of Afrikaans and English.