How do we reconstruct our linguistic identities in the 21st century?
One of the realizations in the 21st century is that boundaries between languages can no longer be defended. As different from the Medieval period when there was a 'fear of the foreigner', the 21st century has created discursive spaces where the 'child of the soil' and the foreigner cohabit the same geographical spaces and blend their languages in very complex way that the very notion of a stable language itself is questionable. Indeed, we begin to see more practices that show overlaps between languages world wide.
In South Africa, is a typical example of integrated multilingualism (although the enlightenment ideology of one-ness governs management of the languages and school policies). Multilingualism is enshrined in the Constitution that recognizes 11 official languages to ensure parity of esteem and redress past linguistic imbalances where African languages were reduced to low level 'tongues'. With the advent of the new sociopolitical dispensation that started in 1994, however, the local communities have increasingly mixed in sharing spaces and languages.
I carried out a research which shows that university students from Black townships refer to their home language as kasi-taal- a hybrid language form that draws from all of the South African official languages. In other words, they do not have a mother tongue or mother tongues because they acquired at least 6 languages before they were 7 years old. A hybrid form that draws from languages across the board is preferred to any of the individual official languages. To make the point about 'leaking boundaries' between languages, I use translanguaging to explain that fluidity, fuzziness and versatility in language use have become naturalized. Because it is though language that one BECOMES a better entity of oneself, the speakers' identities are equally fluid. It is for this reason, I argue, that the Black township dwellers do not have a mother tongue; instead they are languaging. They have naturalized alternation of languages and use this fluid system to be who they choose to be and to make sense of the world.
TO READ MORE ON THIS SUBJECT, see the article below: "Fluid identity construction in language contact zones: metacognitive reflections on Kasi-taal languaging practices"Alert me
DOI:
10.1080/13670050.2014.953774
Leketi Makalelaa*
Abstract
This study investigated how semi-urban, multi-ethnic and multilingual students in the city of Johannesburg, South Africa, negotiate their new identities through languaging experiences. Metacognitive reflections of their recreated language spaces were collected through 20 written narratives, which were analysed using a universalist reductionist approach. The results of the study revealed highly complex identifying processes that mark fluid, multiple affiliations and mobile and creative negotiation of an identity matrix through a hybrid language form, Kasi-taal, which breaks boundaries and embeds linguistic systems that were traditionally treated as discrete units. Using a translanguaging framework, I argue that the languaging strategies articulated in the narratives can be valorised to offset the symbolic violence of monoglossic ideologies that are dominant in our classrooms. Recommendations for further studies on identity-building spaces in multilingual language contact zones as well as the logic of hybrid linguistic repertoires are highlighted at the end of the paper.
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