Translanguaging practices in complex multilingual spaces: A discontinuous continuity in post-independent South Africa
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Leketi Makalela
Abstract
Whereas the use of discursive linguistic resources among multilingual speakers has been closely scrutinized in recent years, highly complex multilingual spaces have not been adequately documented in research. This article reports on new sociolinguistic developments in post-Apartheid South Africa and explores how people mobility and integration of a historically divided society produces hybrid ways of identifying and making sense of the world. Analysis of self-recorded student interactions from five townships in Johannesburg shows that traditional language boundaries have blurred and given way to a complex and multilayered variety, referred to as kasi-taal. The results also show that there is a high degree of mutual inter-comprehensibility that cuts across Sotho and Nguni language clusters. Using notions of sociolinguistics of mobility and translanguaging, I draw insights on these language developments to predict future directions of language use in a manner consistent with the “discontinuous continuity” processes that characterize the twenty-first century. Recommendations for further research are considered for super-diverse contexts at the end of the article.
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©2015 by De Gruyter Mouton
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Introduction
- Identity negotiation in a super-diverse community: The fuzzy languaging logic of high school students in Soweto
- Odonymic changes in Central Pretoria: Representation, identity and textual construction of place
- Failure to launch: matching language policy with literacy accomplishment in South African schools
- “Amaphi ama-subjects eniwa-enjoy-ayo esikolweni?”: Code-switching and language practices among bilingual learners in the Eastern Cape
- Investigating literacy narratives among ethno-linguistically diverse South African students
- Translanguaging practices in complex multilingual spaces: A discontinuous continuity in post-independent South Africa
- The social dimension of reading literacy development in South Africa: Bridging inequalities among the various language groups
- Book Review
- Pol Cuvelier, Theodorus Du Plessis, Michael Meeuwis, Reinhild Vandekerckhove and Vic Webb: Multilingualism for empowerment
- Small Languages and Small Language Communities 79
- An ethnography of the standardization reform: A case of policy-making in the context of the Upper Perené Arawak community of Peru
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Introduction
- Identity negotiation in a super-diverse community: The fuzzy languaging logic of high school students in Soweto
- Odonymic changes in Central Pretoria: Representation, identity and textual construction of place
- Failure to launch: matching language policy with literacy accomplishment in South African schools
- “Amaphi ama-subjects eniwa-enjoy-ayo esikolweni?”: Code-switching and language practices among bilingual learners in the Eastern Cape
- Investigating literacy narratives among ethno-linguistically diverse South African students
- Translanguaging practices in complex multilingual spaces: A discontinuous continuity in post-independent South Africa
- The social dimension of reading literacy development in South Africa: Bridging inequalities among the various language groups
- Book Review
- Pol Cuvelier, Theodorus Du Plessis, Michael Meeuwis, Reinhild Vandekerckhove and Vic Webb: Multilingualism for empowerment
- Small Languages and Small Language Communities 79
- An ethnography of the standardization reform: A case of policy-making in the context of the Upper Perené Arawak community of Peru
