Young white Afrikaans speakers in South Africa: A case of liminal identity?

Abstract

Studies on post-apartheid South Africa have revealed the persistence of important social challenges in this country. From a sociolinguistic viewpoint, the ethnic diversity and the co-existence of the eleven official languages seem to play an important role in the identity formation of South Africans and the development of intergroup relations. Against the background of key socio-historical events, this article investigates the situation of young white Afrikaans South Africans. It is hypothesized that individuals belonging to this particular ethno-linguistic group represent a case of

Implicit Language Attitudes Toward Historically White Accents in the South African Context

“…Recent student movements like #AfrikaansMustFall , with significant support from the Black youth, have succeeded in removing Afrikaans as a language of instruction in different South African universities. In line with this social phenomena, Afrikaans (but not English) seems to still represent an oppressing language in the eyes of our participants, a fact that also underlines the prevalence of predemocracy stereotypes associated with this language group (Álvarez-Mosquera, 2017b). As the IAT results suggest, this negative load from the past seems to have been transferred to their accent in the English language.…”

“…In the first place, negative attitudes toward Afrikaans-accented English seem to be prevalent among the youngest (and most educated) L1 South African indigenous language speakers living in multicultural South African cities such as Cape Town. There are different social–cultural factors that could potentially explain this current overall social negativity toward Afrikaans/Afrikaans-accented English among the youth, including (auto)segregation and the lack of intergroup social contact, among others (see Álvarez-Mosquera, 2017b; Dixon et al, 2010; Finchilescu, Tredoux, Mynhardt, Pillay, & Muianga, 2007; Tredoux, Dixon, Underwood, Nunez, & Finchilescu, 2005). Recent student movements like #AfrikaansMustFall , with significant support from the Black youth, have succeeded in removing Afrikaans as a language of instruction in different South African universities.…”

“…In this sense, the functional utility of attitudes might determine the categorization of an Afrikaans speaker, and ultimately, the behavior of the perceiver. As we have seen in the introduction, these attributions of social or moral values to a particular language group tend to be simplistic and very often are reductive and distorted rationalizations of existing practices (Bucholtz & Hall, 2004; Woolard, 1998), while the consequences for the speakers of such varieties are profound and the identity implication complex (Álvarez-Mosquera, 2017b).…”

“…1 This led us to take into consideration some fundamental aspects of their original speaking communities. On the one hand, Afrikaans has been socially perceived in a negative way mostly by the Black population of South Africa due to its association with the previous regime (see Álvarez-Mosquera, 2017b; Painter & Dixon, 2013). Among the sociohistorical elements that have contributed to the negative perception of this variety, we should mention the effect of the Bantu Education Act (1953) which eventually led to the emergence of Afrikaans as the language of oppression (Kamwangamalu, 2003).…”

“…Within this approach, Woolard (1998) and Kulick (1992) among other authors (see also Bucholtz & Hall, 2004) warned that this attribution of social, moral, and other meanings to specific language varieties tends to be simplistic in that it erases any contradictions and variation, a fact that has a negative impact on the perception of speakers of such varieties (see also Makihara & Schieffelin, 2007). More precisely, the interference of language ideology in intergroup perception is due to the fact that these beliefs and expectations (of how people should speak or even behave) are very often reductive and distorting rationalizations of existing practices (Bucholtz & Hall, 2004; Woolard, 1998), and they affect the social categorization process of such speakers (Álvarez-Mosquera, 2017b).…”