Xhosa in town (revisited) - space, place and language

Bibliographic Data

ID4178596
AuthorsAna Deumert (0000-0002-0199-8955, corresponding author)
Year2013
Volume2013
Issue222
Publication date2013-01-16
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueInternational Journal of the Sociology of Language (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0165-2516 • E-ISSN: 1613-3668
PublisherWalter de Gruyter GmbH (PUBLISHER • DE)
DOI10.1515/ijsl-2013-0032
OpenAlexW2325543361
LanguageEN
Citations received8

This article looks at a particular type of migration, that is, the often cyclical and pendulum-like movements from the villages of the Eastern Cape to Cape Town (South Africa). The ethnographic analysis focuses on the semiotic practices migrants engage in as they make the city their home, and develop urban styles of speaking and being (i.e. fashion themselves as urban personae). Drawing on Bank (2011) and Dick (2010, 2011), these two processes are referred to as place-making and people-making . Two urban ways of speaking are discussed in some detail: the emblematic use of English material in an isiXhosa frame (indexing aspiration and mobility), and the symbolic meanings of Tsotsitaal as a quintessentially urban speech style which indexes social as well local (neighborhood) identity. However, as speakers navigate the complex, shifting and often stylized variety space of the city they draw not only on speech forms which are indexical of urbanity, but also on “deep” isiXhosa, that is, a style of speaking which evokes the normativities of traditional, rural authenticity

Aesthetics · Archaeology · Art · Indexicality · Linguistics · Semiotics · Sociology · Urbanity · Vernacular · Xhosa · Anthropology · History · Language, Discourse, Communication Strategies · Linguistic Variation and Morphology · Multilingual Education and Policy