Programme: accepted abstracts

Abstract ID: 386

Part of Session 104: Microlinguistics and language planning (Other abstracts in this session)

KLK CC – Conformity and Subversion on a South African On-line Educational Site

Authors: Deumert, Ana
Submitted by: Deumert, Ana (UCT, South Africa)

This paper focuses on the speaking – or in this case writing – subject, which Kristeva (1980: 24) described as ‘the place, not only of structure and its regulated transformation, but especially of its loss, its outlay’ (p. 24). In other words, the individual is the ‘place’ (biologically, psychologically and materially) where linguistic norms are enacted and transformed, as well as transgressed and even lost. In sociolinguistics, this perspective was articulated early by Edward Sapir, and has more recently been a central aspect of, e.g., Barbara Johnstone’s work (see Johnstone, 2000, for an overview).

The data comes from a South African educational research project called m4lit (‘mobiles for literacy’, 2009; project team: Steve Vosloo, Ana Deumert, Marion Walton; funder: Shuttleworth Foundation) as well as the follow-up project yoza.mobi. The project was inspired by Japanese m-novels (keitai shousetsu), and central to M4Lit was a literacy intervention: the publication of a digital novel, titled Kontax, in English and isiXhosa, South Africa’s second largest language. Every day teenagers (the intended audience) could download a new chapter of the novel onto their mobile phones. In addition, there was a semi-formal on-line learning environment where readers could leave comments, discuss the story, win prizes and create personal profiles (similar to Facebook).

M4lit aimed to accommodate isiXhosa-English bilingualism. It did so in traditional language-policy fashion, that is, by creating separate spaces for each language: upon entering the site, one had to decide whether to proceed in English or isiXhosa. The site as such can thus be read as a macro-level sign; its very structure legitimates certain linguistic practices, and disallows others. In other words, the interface allows users to write/read English OR isiXhosa, but not both. Hybrid language uses were ‘out of place’, or rather didn’t have a place.

And most users adhered to this format. thus reproducing the separation of languages in their own linguistic practices. Hybrid, bilingual language use – which is pervasive in spoken language, in text messages and on-line chats – was largely absent from the site. Boundaries, however, invite transgression, and I will look at two individual stories of transgression in this paper: the micro-level linguistic and narrative choices of Sugar and Cumaza, two female, bilingual teenage readers of Kontax. Both young women challenged the separatist bilingual architecture of the site (macro-level policy) as well as its identity as an overtly (and policed) educational site. Both engaged in practices which were covertly and overtly subversive. Their engagement with the site raises important question for the design of (on-line) educational materials and reminds us that the macro-level can be a ‘site of struggle’ as well as a site of acceptance and conformity.

[Note re. the title: klk cc, digital isiXhosa abbreviation for kaloku sisi ‘now my sister’.]

References

Johnstone, B. 2000. Individual Voice in Language. Annual Review of Anthropology 29, 405-424.

Kristeva, J. 1980. Desire in Language. A Semiotic Approach to Literature and Art. New York: Columbia University Press.

Sociolinguistics Symposium 19

Programme: accepted abstracts

KLK CC – Conformity and Subversion on a South African On-line Educational Site