Repertoires Overshadowed

Linguistic Negotiations and Interactions Outside Comfort Zones

Bibliographic Data

ID20406234
AuthorsGwendoline Tatah (University of the Western Cape, corresponding author)
Year2017
Volume48
Issue2
Pages47-68
Publication date2017-05-04
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueLanguage Matters (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1022-8195 • E-ISSN: 1753-5395
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/10228195.2017.1367320
OpenAlexW2754203687
LanguageEN
References cited18

This article illustrates the interplay of negotiations and categorisations that characterise the trajectory of Cameroonian immigrant learners as they move through diasporic and linguistic spaces in Cape Town. In the process of these negotiations, features of their linguistic repertoire and other material market (culture, race, dress types, etc.) become unregistered as linguistically “other.” In the South African context they are considered as outsiders or described as “others” while what marks them as competent linguistic, social and highly valued Cameroonians learners is erased and replaced. Making use of an Interactional Sociolinguistics (IS) analytical framework Conversation Analysis (CA) it becomes visible how discursive processes construct new selves for these learners in different interactional spaces. In tracing the complex processes of negotiations and categorisations, I argue that what is absent from accounts of identity construction and identification in all settings is attention to absences: to what should be of value is not, what is deliberately obscured, what slips quietly out of view, or tainted deliberately

Aesthetics · Conversation · Conversation analysis · Linguistics · Negotiation · Repertoire · Situated · Social science · Sociolinguistics · Sociology · Communication · Computer Science · History · Language, Discourse, Communication Strategies · Linguistic Variation and Morphology · Multilingual Education and Policy

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