Full Text Available
Note: Clicking the button above will open the full text document at the original institutional repository in a new window.
To bry or not to bry: the social meanings of Afrikaans rhotic variation in the South Cape
This dissertation investigates the social meanings of Afrikaans rhotic variation in a town in the South Cape region of the Western Cape Province in South Africa. The study combines approaches to 'place as location' (traditional dialectology and sociolinguistics) and 'place as meaning' (ethnography a...
Saved in:
| Main Author: | |
|---|---|
| Other Authors: | |
| Format: | Thesis |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Linguistics
2017
|
| Subjects: | |
| Tags: |
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
|
| _version_ | 1867613255464124416 |
|---|---|
| access_status_str | Open Access |
| author | Ribbens-Klein, Yolandi |
| author2 | Deumert, Ana |
| author_browse | Deumert, Ana Ribbens-Klein, Yolandi |
| author_facet | Deumert, Ana Ribbens-Klein, Yolandi |
| author_sort | Ribbens-Klein, Yolandi |
| collection | Thesis |
| description | This dissertation investigates the social meanings of Afrikaans rhotic variation in a town in the South Cape region of the Western Cape Province in South Africa. The study combines approaches to 'place as location' (traditional dialectology and sociolinguistics) and 'place as meaning' (ethnography and linguistic anthropology) to explore the relationship between geographical place, local social meanings and linguistic variation. Theoretically, I make use of the concept of indexicality, following Silverstein's (2003) indexical orders and Eckert's (2008) indexical fields. To date, there is no previous study that explores Afrikaans variation from these perspectives. The study therefore contributes to the development of Afrikaans linguistics. The participants are residents of Houtiniquadorp, which was a mission station in South Africa's colonial era and declared a Coloured residential area during apartheid. In South Africa, place has been politicised due to colonialism and apartheid. I argue that the racialisation of places contributes to Houtiniquadorpers' sense of locality and belonging. The linguistic form I focus on is Afrikaans /r/. Afrikaans phonetics texts describe alveolar-r [r] as standard, and uvular-r ([ʀ] or [ʁ]; bry-r) as a non-standard, regional feature. In Houtiniquadorp, [ʀ] and [r] variants of the (r) variable are used. My data collection methods were semi-structured interviews and ethnographic fieldwork. The linguistic variants were quantified from the interview data and description tasks. The qualitative data analysis focused on the participants' narratives about places, lived experiences, and meta-linguistic commentary. I discuss three different sets of results, all of which investigate how people in Houtiniquadorp use Afrikaans /r/ to index locality, belonging, and other forms of social meanings, particularly in the context of social and geographic mobility. I analyse metalinguistic comments, the frequency use of rhotic variants, and the use of variants in interaction. Uvularr forms part of many Houtiniquadorpers' repertoires, and the participants show varying degrees of awareness of the sound as locally, and socially, meaningful. The results show that while uvular-r is an emplaced sound (i.e. a regional stereotype or dialect feature), the sound has various other non-place meanings that index macro-social categories such as residential status, gender and age. Finally, by looking at participants who use both variants, I argue that they use variation to index meaningful moments during the interview interactions. |
| format | Thesis |
| id | oai:open.uct.ac.za:11427/22809 |
| institution | University of Cape Town (South Africa) |
| language | eng |
| last_indexed | 2026-06-10T12:33:13.838Z |
| license_str | Not specified — see source repository |
| provenance_str_mv | Harvested via OAI-PMH from UCTD — University of Cape Town Open Access Repository |
| publishDate | 2017 |
| publishDateRange | 2017 |
| publishDateSort | 2017 |
| publisher | Linguistics |
| publisherStr | Linguistics |
| record_format | dspace |
| source_str | UCTD — University of Cape Town Open Access Repository |
| spelling | oai:open.uct.ac.za:11427/22809 To bry or not to bry: the social meanings of Afrikaans rhotic variation in the South Cape Ribbens-Klein, Yolandi Deumert, Ana Mesthrie, Rajend Linguistics This dissertation investigates the social meanings of Afrikaans rhotic variation in a town in the South Cape region of the Western Cape Province in South Africa. The study combines approaches to 'place as location' (traditional dialectology and sociolinguistics) and 'place as meaning' (ethnography and linguistic anthropology) to explore the relationship between geographical place, local social meanings and linguistic variation. Theoretically, I make use of the concept of indexicality, following Silverstein's (2003) indexical orders and Eckert's (2008) indexical fields. To date, there is no previous study that explores Afrikaans variation from these perspectives. The study therefore contributes to the development of Afrikaans linguistics. The participants are residents of Houtiniquadorp, which was a mission station in South Africa's colonial era and declared a Coloured residential area during apartheid. In South Africa, place has been politicised due to colonialism and apartheid. I argue that the racialisation of places contributes to Houtiniquadorpers' sense of locality and belonging. The linguistic form I focus on is Afrikaans /r/. Afrikaans phonetics texts describe alveolar-r [r] as standard, and uvular-r ([ʀ] or [ʁ]; bry-r) as a non-standard, regional feature. In Houtiniquadorp, [ʀ] and [r] variants of the (r) variable are used. My data collection methods were semi-structured interviews and ethnographic fieldwork. The linguistic variants were quantified from the interview data and description tasks. The qualitative data analysis focused on the participants' narratives about places, lived experiences, and meta-linguistic commentary. I discuss three different sets of results, all of which investigate how people in Houtiniquadorp use Afrikaans /r/ to index locality, belonging, and other forms of social meanings, particularly in the context of social and geographic mobility. I analyse metalinguistic comments, the frequency use of rhotic variants, and the use of variants in interaction. Uvularr forms part of many Houtiniquadorpers' repertoires, and the participants show varying degrees of awareness of the sound as locally, and socially, meaningful. The results show that while uvular-r is an emplaced sound (i.e. a regional stereotype or dialect feature), the sound has various other non-place meanings that index macro-social categories such as residential status, gender and age. Finally, by looking at participants who use both variants, I argue that they use variation to index meaningful moments during the interview interactions. 2017-01-19T12:18:08Z 2017-01-19T12:18:08Z 2016 Doctoral Thesis Doctoral PhD http://hdl.handle.net/11427/22809 eng application/pdf Linguistics Faculty of Humanities University of Cape Town |
| spellingShingle | Linguistics Ribbens-Klein, Yolandi To bry or not to bry: the social meanings of Afrikaans rhotic variation in the South Cape |
| thesis_degree_str | Doctoral |
| title | To bry or not to bry: the social meanings of Afrikaans rhotic variation in the South Cape |
| title_full | To bry or not to bry: the social meanings of Afrikaans rhotic variation in the South Cape |
| title_fullStr | To bry or not to bry: the social meanings of Afrikaans rhotic variation in the South Cape |
| title_full_unstemmed | To bry or not to bry: the social meanings of Afrikaans rhotic variation in the South Cape |
| title_short | To bry or not to bry: the social meanings of Afrikaans rhotic variation in the South Cape |
| title_sort | to bry or not to bry the social meanings of afrikaans rhotic variation in the south cape |
| topic | Linguistics |
| url | http://hdl.handle.net/11427/22809 |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT ribbenskleinyolandi tobryornottobrythesocialmeaningsofafrikaansrhoticvariationinthesouthcape |