Browsing by Author "Brown, Justin"

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    Children's Songs in Nawfija Community, Southeastern Nigeria: A sociolinguistic perspective
    (2023) Okeke, Chinazam; Deumert, Ana; Brown, Justin
    This thesis studies the Indigenous children's songs of the Nawfija community, in the Southeastern part of Nigeria. The language of communication in the community is the Nawfija variety of Igbo. The research was conducted from a sociolinguistic perspective, shaped by the participants' ideas and perceptions, thereby allowing their voices to be heard. Adopting a qualitative paradigm, the study employed interviews and observations for data collection. 20 participants were interviewed, and observations were carried out in five households. The study draws on language socialization and language ideologies as its theoretical frameworks. The study shows, firstly, that Indigenous songs serve as an important language socialization tool in the Nawfija community. Secondly, it shows that the songs have declined in their use over time. The decline can be linked to the histories of colonialism, a western education model, globalization, and religion. At the same time, new practices have emerged. For example, cell phones, toys, DVDs, and CDs are now often used in child care. In addition, localized English songs, afro-beats, reggae, and hip-hop, are used when looking after children. The research discusses three ideologies surrounding these Indigenous songs, two of which, (i) and (ii), may have contributed to their decline. The ideologies are (i) English equates to intelligence and success, (ii) English is the language of geographical mobility, and (iii) Igbo/Nawfija variety is a language of identity. The study concludes by arguing that, as a result of ideologies (i) and (ii), if these Indigenous children's songs were revitalized, possibly, not all community members would be committed to maintaining them. Therefore, for the revitalization to be successful, people need to appreciate the importance, beauty, and value of their languages and cultural practices (see ideology (iii)). Likewise, the Nigerian academic system should be shaped to reflect their uniqueness and promote their language and its practices, by adopting the local variety as the primary language of education. This will help to strengthen people's knowledge of their history, language, linguistic practices, culture, knowledge, present realities, and future challenges.
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    Focusing and diffusion in 'Cape Flats English': a sociophonetic study of three vowels
    (2012) Brown, Justin; Mesthrie, Rajend
    This research contributes to the wider fields of sociophonetics and the social dialectology of English in South Africa. The study looks at three vowel sets; GOOSE, BATH and KIT taken from Wells (1982). The study was designed to identify and attempt to explain potential differences in pronunciation amongst speakers in an English-speaking community living in Cape Town and classified as 'Coloured' during apartheid. The community in question has used English as their first language for several generations and has enjoyed some of the economic advantages attached to this while at the same time being the victims (historically) of discrimination and marginalization. The study looks at the speech of twenty speakers. Using the methods of variationist sociolinguistics, it aims to investigate what correlations can be drawn between these speakers. It examines whether the speech of the informants can be correlated along lines of social class, education, personal background and occupation. In addition, the study looks (albeit briefly) at issues of language usage and social identity with regard to these twenty speakers.
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    Kombuistaal innie Kaap1: Investigating Gender and Language Change in the development of Kaaps
    (2023) Thornton, Lizanne; Brown, Justin
    This thesis asks the question: How have women contributed to the maintenance of Kaaps? It takes as its point of departure the term kombuistaal (kitchen language), the forerunner of Kaaps, a stigmatised variety of Afrikaans. It aims to answer the following supplementary questions: 1) What possible role did women who occupied spaces historically associated with the Cape slave kitchen of the seventeenth to early nineteenth century play in language maintenance? 2) How do we go beyond the written records of the traditional archive and listen for the muted voices of those language pioneers who, by virtue of particular social and gendering processes, were uniquely placed to develop and maintain the language which has come to be known as Kaaps? By means of a historical sociolinguistic approach with a qualitative method of thematic narrative analysis, the study argues that women's historical contribution to the development of Kaaps has been underplayed and marginalised by virtue of the relegated social status effected through imposed gendered roles and enforced labour in specific and often largely invisible spaces of cultural reproduction. With a focus on language change and maintenance of Kaaps through a gendered lens, this study aims to highlight the contributions of Kaaps speakers who, by virtue of their gendered social positioning, became inextricably linked to a language which has been historically associated with the space of the kitchen.