The use of Iscamtho by children in white city-Jabavu, Soweto: slang and language contact in an African urban context

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dc.contributor.advisorMesthrie, Rajenden_ZA
dc.contributor.advisorHurst, Ellenen_ZA
dc.contributor.authorAycard, Pierre Benjamin Jacquesen_ZA
dc.date.accessioned2015-05-18T14:20:34Z
dc.date.available2015-05-18T14:20:34Z
dc.date.issued2014en_ZA
dc.descriptionIncludes bibliographical references.en_ZA
dc.description.abstractThe work presented in this thesis relies on language recordings gathered during thirty months of fieldwork in White City-Jabavu, Soweto. The data was collected from children between the ages of two and nine, following anthropological participant observation, and through the use of an audio recorder. Strong attention was given to the sociolinguistics and structure of the language collected. This thesis is interested in issues of slang use among children and language contact, as part of the larger field of tsotsitaal studies. It is interested in: sociolinguistic issues of registers, slang, and style; and linguistic issues regarding the structural output of language contact. The main questions answered in the thesis concern whether children in White City use the local tsotsitaal, known as Iscamtho; and what particular kind of mixed variety supports their use of Iscamtho. Particularly, I focus on the prediction of the Matrix Language Frame model (Myers-Scotton 2002) regarding universal constraints on the output of language contact. This model was used previously to analyse Iscamtho use in Soweto. Using methodologies from three different disciplinary fields (anthropology, sociolinguistics, and linguistics) as well as four different analytic perspectives (participatory, statistical, conversational, and structural), I offer a thorough sociolinguistic and linguistic description of the children's language. I demonstrate that the universal constraints previously identified do not apply to a significant part of the children's speech, due to stylistic and multilingual practices in the local linguistic community. I further demonstrate that style, slang, and deliberate variations in language, can produce some unpredictable and yet stable structural output of language contact, which contradicts the main hypotheses of universal natural constraints over this output formulated by the Matrix Language Frame model.en_ZA
dc.identifier.apacitationAycard, P. B. J. (2014). <i>The use of Iscamtho by children in white city-Jabavu, Soweto: slang and language contact in an African urban context</i>. (Thesis). University of Cape Town ,Faculty of Humanities ,Linguistics. Retrieved from http://hdl.handle.net/11427/12813en_ZA
dc.identifier.chicagocitationAycard, Pierre Benjamin Jacques. <i>"The use of Iscamtho by children in white city-Jabavu, Soweto: slang and language contact in an African urban context."</i> Thesis., University of Cape Town ,Faculty of Humanities ,Linguistics, 2014. http://hdl.handle.net/11427/12813en_ZA
dc.identifier.citationAycard, P. 2014. The use of Iscamtho by children in white city-Jabavu, Soweto: slang and language contact in an African urban context. University of Cape Town.en_ZA
dc.identifier.ris TY - Thesis / Dissertation AU - Aycard, Pierre Benjamin Jacques AB - The work presented in this thesis relies on language recordings gathered during thirty months of fieldwork in White City-Jabavu, Soweto. The data was collected from children between the ages of two and nine, following anthropological participant observation, and through the use of an audio recorder. Strong attention was given to the sociolinguistics and structure of the language collected. This thesis is interested in issues of slang use among children and language contact, as part of the larger field of tsotsitaal studies. It is interested in: sociolinguistic issues of registers, slang, and style; and linguistic issues regarding the structural output of language contact. The main questions answered in the thesis concern whether children in White City use the local tsotsitaal, known as Iscamtho; and what particular kind of mixed variety supports their use of Iscamtho. Particularly, I focus on the prediction of the Matrix Language Frame model (Myers-Scotton 2002) regarding universal constraints on the output of language contact. This model was used previously to analyse Iscamtho use in Soweto. Using methodologies from three different disciplinary fields (anthropology, sociolinguistics, and linguistics) as well as four different analytic perspectives (participatory, statistical, conversational, and structural), I offer a thorough sociolinguistic and linguistic description of the children's language. I demonstrate that the universal constraints previously identified do not apply to a significant part of the children's speech, due to stylistic and multilingual practices in the local linguistic community. I further demonstrate that style, slang, and deliberate variations in language, can produce some unpredictable and yet stable structural output of language contact, which contradicts the main hypotheses of universal natural constraints over this output formulated by the Matrix Language Frame model. DA - 2014 DB - OpenUCT DP - University of Cape Town LK - https://open.uct.ac.za PB - University of Cape Town PY - 2014 T1 - The use of Iscamtho by children in white city-Jabavu, Soweto: slang and language contact in an African urban context TI - The use of Iscamtho by children in white city-Jabavu, Soweto: slang and language contact in an African urban context UR - http://hdl.handle.net/11427/12813 ER - en_ZA
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/11427/12813
dc.identifier.vancouvercitationAycard PBJ. The use of Iscamtho by children in white city-Jabavu, Soweto: slang and language contact in an African urban context. [Thesis]. University of Cape Town ,Faculty of Humanities ,Linguistics, 2014 [cited yyyy month dd]. Available from: http://hdl.handle.net/11427/12813en_ZA
dc.language.isoengen_ZA
dc.publisher.departmentLinguisticsen_ZA
dc.publisher.facultyFaculty of Humanitiesen_ZA
dc.publisher.institutionUniversity of Cape Town
dc.subject.otherLinguisticsen_ZA
dc.titleThe use of Iscamtho by children in white city-Jabavu, Soweto: slang and language contact in an African urban contexten_ZA
dc.typeDoctoral Thesis
dc.type.qualificationlevelDoctoral
dc.type.qualificationnamePhDen_ZA
uct.type.filetypeText
uct.type.filetypeImage
uct.type.publicationResearchen_ZA
uct.type.resourceThesisen_ZA
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