Ellen Hurst
Biographic Data
| ID | 3922981 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Ellen Hurst |
| GIVEN NAMES | Ellen |
| FAMILY NAME | Hurst |
| SIGNATURE | HURST E |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Cape Town |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-4596-8459 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 14 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 13 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 14 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2009 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 2 |
Introduction to the special issue
This special issue examines linguistic justice as a critical but under-recognized dimension of sustainable development and equitable partnerships. Drawing on interdisciplinary research across diverse geographical and institutional contexts, the contributions demonstrate how linguistic marginalization shapes access to information, healthcare, disaster preparedness, civic participation, and other fundamental rights. It features authors who work in …
The Linguistics of Urban Youth Languages in Africa
This article provides an overview of research on African Urban Youth Languages focusing on common linguistic features identified in existing studies. It outlines a distinction between urban vernaculars that form the base languages of youth styles, and youth styles themselves, that draw on strategies of play or manipulation. It describes morphosyntactic, phonological, and lexical features that may be specific to youth language practices and that s…
Linguistic variation in urban vernaculars and rural and urban youth language in South Africa
This article describes and attempts to differentiate varieties of spoken isiXhosa in South Africa – including variations of the isiXhosa-based stylect commonly referred to as Tsotsitaal (plural tsotsitaals), and the urban vernacular form of isiXhosa. The article introduces some new Tsotsitaal data from a rural context and unpacks whether a comparison with both standard and urban forms of isiXhosa is a useful analysis, and whether we can look at t…
Global and Local Hybridity in African Youth Language Practices
This article investigates and describes youth language practices in Africa in the era of globalisation. It opens up debate over the impacts of globalisation on youth linguistic identities in Africa. Further, it suggests some aspects of youth participation in linguistic change in Africa and provides some examples of how youth linguistic cultures are practised in everyday interactions. The authors show the intersection of cultures in everyday disco…
Metaphors and their link to generational peer groups and popular culture in African youth languages
This article focuses on Sheng and Tsotsitaal metaphors in order to highlight the centrality of generational peer groups and popular culture in the formation of linguistic and social meaning within these language practices. Drawing on data from a comparative database, the analysis considers aspects such as generational narratives, the transition of a metaphor from a generational peer group context into a conventionalised metaphor, as well as multi…
Youth language in Africa
This article introduces this special issue of Linguistics Vanguard which focuses on youth language practices in Africa. The study of youth language and the linguistic practices of youth in the African continent is a rich field that has been expanding and deepening in recent years. This special issue emerged from a collection of papers presented at a workshop during the International Congress of Linguists (ICL20) in Cape Town, July 2018. The artic…
Tsotsitaal and decoloniality
This article focuses on South African tsotsitaal and other African (Urban) Youth Languages (AYL), which are youth language repertoires or styles of speaking the vernacular, and which are present in a wide range of African countries today. Halliday's (1976) concept of antilanguage has been applied by previous researchers to theorise youth language practices, and is a useful way to understand aspects of these phenomena such as relexicalisation and …
Regional flows and language resources
This chapter discusses regional flows and the dynamics of language resources within those flows. It outlines the scholarship on language as resource, particularly in terms of migration. The chapter gives an overview of regional flows of people and the role of language within that, outlines current literature on language as a resource in migration. It considers the issue of the changing value of resources in different contexts and what implication…
Hierarchies and coloniality
This paper focuses on the ideologies surrounding language that are produced by a cohort of students in their first year at a South African university, in order to investigate how dominant power- discourses are reproduced. An assignment asking students to relate their language histories reveals strong language ideologies relating to South Africa’s official, and not-so-official, languages. These ideologies are surfaced through a form of critical di…
Metaphor in South African tsotsitaal
Halliday’s concept of ‘anti-language’ has been applied to a number of African Urban Youth Languages (AUYLs) in recent literature. Halliday described the concept of antilanguage as a language generated by an ‘anti-society’ which is set up as a conscious alternative to established societal norms. Anti-language, then, is a conscious alternative to the language of the wider society and it distinguishes itself primarily through relexicalization (the p…
Local villages and global networks
African skilled migrants and their circular and return migration strategies have received relatively little attention in the literature, with the previous focus of much African migration literature being on the net loss of skills to countries with developed economies in the global north. This article considers 13 interviews with African skilled migrant academics on topics of migration, networks and language resources. The majority of the particip…
‘When you hang out with the guys they keep you in style’
The collection of South African urban language phenomena called Tsotsitaal, Scamtho, Ringas (in short ‘Tsotsitaals’) etc, have been described differently as code-switching, mixed languages, or essentially slang vocabulary. These descriptions however, fail to acknowledge the centrality of performance to these phenomena. Tsotsitaals draw on extra-linguistic modes of identity performance such as body language, clothing, and other facets of what coul…
Slang registers, code-switching and restructured urban varieties in South Africa
This paper examines the status of an informal urban variety in Cape Town known as Tsotsitaal. Similar varieties, going by a plethora of names (Flaaitaal, Iscamtho, Ringas) have been described in other South African cities, especially Johannesburg, Pretoria and Durban (see also Sheng in Kenyan cities). This paper seeks to describe the essential characteristics of Cape Town Tsotsitaal, which is based on Xhosa, and to argue for its continuity with s…
Tsotsitaal, global culture and local style
Tsotsitaal is a linguistic phenomenon which is inseparable from a style adopted by many youth living in urban townships in South Africa. The style is signalled by the unique and innovative lexicon of Tsotsitaal, and additionally indicated by clothing and other identity markers. Features of the style are ‘urban‐ness’, consumerism (in terms of brand names) and cultural iconography, such as music and sports. While many of these items are influenced …
Tsotsitaal, global culture and local style
Tsotsitaal is a linguistic phenomenon which is inseparable from a style adopted by many youth living in urban townships in South Africa. The style is signalled by the unique and innovative lexicon of Tsotsitaal, and additionally indicated by clothing and other identity markers. Features of the style are ‘urban‐ness’, consumerism (in terms of brand names) and cultural iconography, such as music and sports. While many of these items are influenced …
Local villages and global networks
African skilled migrants and their circular and return migration strategies have received relatively little attention in the literature, with the previous focus of much African migration literature being on the net loss of skills to countries with developed economies in the global north. This article considers 13 interviews with African skilled migrant academics on topics of migration, networks and language resources. The majority of the particip…
Global and Local Hybridity in African Youth Language Practices
This article investigates and describes youth language practices in Africa in the era of globalisation. It opens up debate over the impacts of globalisation on youth linguistic identities in Africa. Further, it suggests some aspects of youth participation in linguistic change in Africa and provides some examples of how youth linguistic cultures are practised in everyday interactions. The authors show the intersection of cultures in everyday disco…
Tsotsitaal and decoloniality
This article focuses on South African tsotsitaal and other African (Urban) Youth Languages (AYL), which are youth language repertoires or styles of speaking the vernacular, and which are present in a wide range of African countries today. Halliday's (1976) concept of antilanguage has been applied by previous researchers to theorise youth language practices, and is a useful way to understand aspects of these phenomena such as relexicalisation and …
Metaphor in South African tsotsitaal
Halliday’s concept of ‘anti-language’ has been applied to a number of African Urban Youth Languages (AUYLs) in recent literature. Halliday described the concept of antilanguage as a language generated by an ‘anti-society’ which is set up as a conscious alternative to established societal norms. Anti-language, then, is a conscious alternative to the language of the wider society and it distinguishes itself primarily through relexicalization (the p…
Tsotsitaal, global culture and local style
Tsotsitaal is a linguistic phenomenon which is inseparable from a style adopted by many youth living in urban townships in South Africa. The style is signalled by the unique and innovative lexicon of Tsotsitaal, and additionally indicated by clothing and other identity markers. Features of the style are ‘urban‐ness’, consumerism (in terms of brand names) and cultural iconography, such as music and sports. While many of these items are influenced …
‘When you hang out with the guys they keep you in style’
The collection of South African urban language phenomena called Tsotsitaal, Scamtho, Ringas (in short ‘Tsotsitaals’) etc, have been described differently as code-switching, mixed languages, or essentially slang vocabulary. These descriptions however, fail to acknowledge the centrality of performance to these phenomena. Tsotsitaals draw on extra-linguistic modes of identity performance such as body language, clothing, and other facets of what coul…
Slang registers, code-switching and restructured urban varieties in South Africa
This paper examines the status of an informal urban variety in Cape Town known as Tsotsitaal. Similar varieties, going by a plethora of names (Flaaitaal, Iscamtho, Ringas) have been described in other South African cities, especially Johannesburg, Pretoria and Durban (see also Sheng in Kenyan cities). This paper seeks to describe the essential characteristics of Cape Town Tsotsitaal, which is based on Xhosa, and to argue for its continuity with s…
Local villages and global networks
African skilled migrants and their circular and return migration strategies have received relatively little attention in the literature, with the previous focus of much African migration literature being on the net loss of skills to countries with developed economies in the global north. This article considers 13 interviews with African skilled migrant academics on topics of migration, networks and language resources. The majority of the particip…
Metaphor in South African tsotsitaal
Halliday’s concept of ‘anti-language’ has been applied to a number of African Urban Youth Languages (AUYLs) in recent literature. Halliday described the concept of antilanguage as a language generated by an ‘anti-society’ which is set up as a conscious alternative to established societal norms. Anti-language, then, is a conscious alternative to the language of the wider society and it distinguishes itself primarily through relexicalization (the p…
Regional flows and language resources
This chapter discusses regional flows and the dynamics of language resources within those flows. It outlines the scholarship on language as resource, particularly in terms of migration. The chapter gives an overview of regional flows of people and the role of language within that, outlines current literature on language as a resource in migration. It considers the issue of the changing value of resources in different contexts and what implication…
Hierarchies and coloniality
This paper focuses on the ideologies surrounding language that are produced by a cohort of students in their first year at a South African university, in order to investigate how dominant power- discourses are reproduced. An assignment asking students to relate their language histories reveals strong language ideologies relating to South Africa’s official, and not-so-official, languages. These ideologies are surfaced through a form of critical di…
Tsotsitaal and decoloniality
This article focuses on South African tsotsitaal and other African (Urban) Youth Languages (AYL), which are youth language repertoires or styles of speaking the vernacular, and which are present in a wide range of African countries today. Halliday's (1976) concept of antilanguage has been applied by previous researchers to theorise youth language practices, and is a useful way to understand aspects of these phenomena such as relexicalisation and …
Metaphors and their link to generational peer groups and popular culture in African youth languages
This article focuses on Sheng and Tsotsitaal metaphors in order to highlight the centrality of generational peer groups and popular culture in the formation of linguistic and social meaning within these language practices. Drawing on data from a comparative database, the analysis considers aspects such as generational narratives, the transition of a metaphor from a generational peer group context into a conventionalised metaphor, as well as multi…
Youth language in Africa
This article introduces this special issue of Linguistics Vanguard which focuses on youth language practices in Africa. The study of youth language and the linguistic practices of youth in the African continent is a rich field that has been expanding and deepening in recent years. This special issue emerged from a collection of papers presented at a workshop during the International Congress of Linguists (ICL20) in Cape Town, July 2018. The artic…
Global and Local Hybridity in African Youth Language Practices
This article investigates and describes youth language practices in Africa in the era of globalisation. It opens up debate over the impacts of globalisation on youth linguistic identities in Africa. Further, it suggests some aspects of youth participation in linguistic change in Africa and provides some examples of how youth linguistic cultures are practised in everyday interactions. The authors show the intersection of cultures in everyday disco…
Linguistic variation in urban vernaculars and rural and urban youth language in South Africa
This article describes and attempts to differentiate varieties of spoken isiXhosa in South Africa – including variations of the isiXhosa-based stylect commonly referred to as Tsotsitaal (plural tsotsitaals), and the urban vernacular form of isiXhosa. The article introduces some new Tsotsitaal data from a rural context and unpacks whether a comparison with both standard and urban forms of isiXhosa is a useful analysis, and whether we can look at t…
The Linguistics of Urban Youth Languages in Africa
This article provides an overview of research on African Urban Youth Languages focusing on common linguistic features identified in existing studies. It outlines a distinction between urban vernaculars that form the base languages of youth styles, and youth styles themselves, that draw on strategies of play or manipulation. It describes morphosyntactic, phonological, and lexical features that may be specific to youth language practices and that s…
Introduction to the special issue
This special issue examines linguistic justice as a critical but under-recognized dimension of sustainable development and equitable partnerships. Drawing on interdisciplinary research across diverse geographical and institutional contexts, the contributions demonstrate how linguistic marginalization shapes access to information, healthcare, disaster preparedness, civic participation, and other fundamental rights. It features authors who work in …
Sociology (12 works) · Multilingual Education and Policy (11 works) · Linguistics (9 works) · Political science (8 works) · Linguistic Variation and Morphology (7 works) · Gender Studies (5 works) · Law (5 works) · Computer Science (4 works) · Geography (4 works) · Aesthetics (3 works)