Identity construction through phonetic crossing among young Capetonian gang members

Abstract

Uncountable gangs operate in post-Apartheid South Africa, particularly in greater Cape Town, competing over turf and controlling the drug trade. Consequently, gang violence is rife in Western Cape and especially widespread in urban areas. In this paper young Capetonians’ narratives of gang violence are analyzed. In the narratives of attacks on Black or White South Africans by Coloured gang members, the Coloured narrators make use of their victims’ varieties of English, more precisely, of phonetic features. Hence, the aggressors do language crossing towards their targets when narrating their feats. Rampton (1995a:485) considers language crossing a ‘code alternation by people who are not accepted members of the group associated with the second language that they are using (code switching into varieties that are not generally thought to belong to them)’. This switching involves a transgression of social or ethnic boundaries that allows the young gangsters to construct, negotiate, uphold and manage their social identities, as language still functions as an utterly important identity marker in post-Apartheid South Africa.

“I Am Actually Sitting With Fear”: Narratives of Fear of Crime and Actual Victimization in the Western Cape Province, South Africa

“…strong gang formation in the Cape Flats [an area in Cape Town near the location of this present study] is seen as a result of the forced removals under apartheid that left the local people displaced from their communities, although this is by no means a complete explanation for the problem (Chariatte, 2016, p. 51).…”

“…Gangs are common in South Africa, with Greater Cape Town being one of the areas most affected by gang-related activities and violence (Glaser, 2000; Leggett, 2004; Walsh & Mitchell, 2006). According to Chariatte (2016), social issues like unemployment, social marginalization, and drug abuse has led to increased levels of gang-related violent crime. Furthermore:strong gang formation in the Cape Flats [an area in Cape Town near the location of this present study] is seen as a result of the forced removals under apartheid that left the local people displaced from their communities, although this is by no means a complete explanation for the problem (Chariatte, 2016, p. 51).…”

“…"In the case of individual crimes, theft of personal property was the most dominant accounting for about 41% of individual crimes" (Victims of Crime Survey, 2018). Known as "gangsterism" among South Africans, gangs are involved in turf wars ranging from theft to drug dealing to extortion (Chariatte, 2016) and low-income urban communities in the country are characterized by a cycle of violence (Hinsberger et al, 2016). Seedat et al (2009) found that violence in the country is largely at the hands of young men.…”