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Chapter 1 - English in South Africa: Contact and Change

from I - A Framework for English in South Africa

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 November 2019

By
Raymond Hickey
Edited by
Raymond Hickey
Raymond Hickey
Affiliation:
Universität Duisburg–Essen
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Summary

Since the introduction of democratic majority rule in the 1990s there has been major change in South African society. This change has affected language as well, with English expanding its role in the public domain and as a lingua franca in large parts of the country. Nonetheless, the other European-heritage language, Afrikaans, weighs in with more first-language speakers than English and is represented natively across different ethnicities. The black section of the population has also been experiencing language change with its greatly increased role in public and official life. New, emergent varieties, spoken especially by young black people, have enriched the linguistic landscape of South Africa and contributed significantly to its dynamism.

Keywords

South African EnglishAfrikaansBlack South African Englishsociolingiustic changerelationships of languagesemergent varieties
Type
Chapter
Information
English in Multilingual South Africa
The Linguistics of Contact and Change
 , pp. 3 - 15
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2019

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