Youth multilingualism in South Africa’s hip-hop culture: A metapragmatic analysis

Abstract

Williams, Q. (2016). Youth multilingualism in South Africa's hip-hop culture:A metapragmatic analysis. Sociolinguistic Studies, AbstractThis paper describes the practice of youth multilingualism in South Africa's hip-hop culture, in an online social media space and an advertising space. Based on a multi-sited ethnographic fieldwork study of youth multilingual practices, comprising of the following data sets -multilingual interviews, observations, multilingual interactions and performances, documents and online social networking interactions -the paper reports on how young multilingual speakers active in the hip-hop culture of the country talk and write about the intermixing of racial and ethnic speech forms, as well as use registers in the practice of gendered identities. The argument I put forth in the paper is that the examples of youth multilingualism suggest a complex picture of youth multilingual contact in postcolonial South Africa, and one that require a sociocultural linguistic response that accounts for the cultural influence of youth multilingualisms in local hiphop culture. To such an end, I suggest that multilingual policy planning in the country should be readjusted to the complex sociocultural changes we see emerge with youth multilingual practices.

Global hip-hop culture and the scopophilic spectacle of women in South African hip-hop music videos

“…Hip-hop culture is called a global or an international culture as it has spread across the globe, influencing countries such as Japan, Australia, Kenya and many developing countries including South Africa. South Africa is a diverse country, where young people differ across geographical contexts in the way they combine and mix the forms of multilingualism in cultural expressions (Williams, 2016). Williams notes how young multilingual speakers, active in the hip-hop community in South Africa, draw on various languages and other semantic resources to form cultural expression.…”

Parodies of whiteness: Die Antwoord and the politics of race, gender, and class in South Africa

“…These include the de-aspiration of voiceless stops in words like showtime (line 1); the use of obstruent (as opposed to approximant) /r/ in motherfucker (line 1), dropping (line 2), sorry (line 6) and elsewhere; a very high DRESS vowel in the word again ([əgen], line 6); the devoicing of word-final consonants in is ([is], line 13); and a very high-front KIT vowel in the same word (see also e.g. Williams 2016 on what he terms Cape Flats English). Lastly, there are a number of terms that can be said to derive broadly from Hip Hop Nation Language (Alim 2004), including rock and bling (line 12), not to mention the generalized use of braggadocio (e.g.…”

“…Because of this, certain scholars and cultural commentators have argued that Die Antwoord could represent a breakthrough in postapartheid race relations, a possible way forward toward a ‘postracial’ South Africa (Ballantine 2004; du Preez 2011; Marx & Milton 2011; C. Scott 2012). According to this account, Die Antwoord promotes not only a ‘mixing’ of cultures and styles across racial boundaries but also a view of whiteness itself as a situated racial category, one with its own conventions, histories, and internally stratified structure (Kreuger 2012; Williams 2016, cf. also Heavner 2007).…”

“…Scott 2012). According to this account, Die Antwoord promotes not only a 'mixing' of cultures and styles across racial boundaries but also a view of whiteness itself as a situated racial category, one with its own conventions, histories and internally stratified structure (Kreuger 2012;Williams 2016, cf. also Heavner 2007.…”

Talking Parts, Talking Back: Fleshing Out Linguistic Citizenship

“…The way beyond the stiffness and clumsiness of their tongues is to cultivate a flexible tongue by acrobatic skate-boarding across language forms. They do this by cultivating a 'youth multilingualism', (Williams, 2016), that is 'the playful and didactic intermixing of everyday multilingual practices and events as a way to (re) invent themselves and alternative futures in both online and offline spaces'. 'Youth Multilingualism' is not just about practices and events of multilingualism, it is also about how young multilingual speakers talk about multilingualism and language; "about how established forms of speech permeate their lives amidst ideological tensions, both in urban and rural spaces" (op cit: 4).…”