Book contents
- English in Multilingual South Africa
- Studies in English Language
- English in Multilingual South Africa
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Maps
- Tables
- Contributors
- Preface
- I A Framework for English in South Africa
- II Sociolinguistics, Globalisation and Multilingualism
- III Language Interfaces
- Chapter 12 Present-Day Afrikaans in Contact with English
- Chapter 13 Shift Varieties as a Typological Class?
- Chapter 14 Language Use and Language Shift in Post-Apartheid South Africa
- Chapter 15 English Prepositions in isiXhosa Spaces: Evidence from Code-Switching
- Chapter 16 Aspects of Sentence Intonation in Black South African English
- Chapter 17 The Development of Cognitive-Linguistic Skills in Multilingual Learners: A Perspective of Northern Sotho–English Children
- Chapter 18 Linguistic Interference in Interpreting from English to South African Sign Language
- Timeline for South African History
- Glossary
- Index
- References
Chapter 15 - English Prepositions in isiXhosa Spaces: Evidence from Code-Switching
from III - Language Interfaces
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 07 November 2019
Edited by
Book contents
- English in Multilingual South Africa
- Studies in English Language
- English in Multilingual South Africa
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Maps
- Tables
- Contributors
- Preface
- I A Framework for English in South Africa
- II Sociolinguistics, Globalisation and Multilingualism
- III Language Interfaces
- Chapter 12 Present-Day Afrikaans in Contact with English
- Chapter 13 Shift Varieties as a Typological Class?
- Chapter 14 Language Use and Language Shift in Post-Apartheid South Africa
- Chapter 15 English Prepositions in isiXhosa Spaces: Evidence from Code-Switching
- Chapter 16 Aspects of Sentence Intonation in Black South African English
- Chapter 17 The Development of Cognitive-Linguistic Skills in Multilingual Learners: A Perspective of Northern Sotho–English Children
- Chapter 18 Linguistic Interference in Interpreting from English to South African Sign Language
- Timeline for South African History
- Glossary
- Index
- References
Summary
This chapter explores the consequences on isiXhosa of its long contact with the socio-politically dominant English language. It is shown that after nearly two centuries of English hegemony isiXhosa speakers have become increasingly bilingual in English and regularly switch between English and isiXhosa in their daily conversations. This in turn has led to heavy borrowing from English into isiXhosa. Based on code-switching data drawn from twenty naturally occurring conversations recorded in Gauteng and the Eastern Cape, the chapter reveals that English prepositions occur regularly in isiXhosa speech, including in contexts that would easily qualify as isiXhosa monolingual speech. The occurrence of these English closed-class items in isiXhosa spaces suggests that English has or is about to penetrate the grammatical structure of isiXhosa. The findings of this study point to a possible weakening of isiXhosa grammatical structure under heavy pressure from the more dominant English language.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- English in Multilingual South AfricaThe Linguistics of Contact and Change, pp. 310 - 328Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2019
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