‘Mina 'ngumZulu phaqa’1 Language and identity among multilingual Grade 9 learners at a private desegregated high school in South Africa

Abstract

This article presents data from a study that focuses on how multilingual Grade 9 learners at a formerly white, private school use language to position themselves and others, and thus use it as an identity-building resource. Data was collected using ethnographic and participatory research methods. The article engages with the concern that African learners attending English medium, multiracial schools are losing their proficiency in African languages. In contrast, the analysis demonstrates that some learners in fact retain African languages and use these as a primary marker of ethnic identities and ideas of ethnic purity. This purity is, in turn, not constructed in a staidly ‘traditional’ manner, but is negotiated through joking and satire. Notions of ethnic purity are also often discursively constructed through the use of English, illustrating the contradictory nature of identities.

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