Style, structure and function in Cape Town Tsotsitaal

Abstract

The thesis applies a social constructionist framework and Foucauldian Discourse Analysis to demonstrate that while Tsotsitaal was perceived by many respondents as a language of gangsters and criminals, evidence suggests that it is actually part of an ongoing identity construction for young, black, primarily male urban township residents in South Africa, which is performed through a subcultural style. By applying Myers-Scotton's Matrix Language Frame model to questionnaire and interview data collected in two Cape Town townships, Gugulethu and Khayelitsha, the thesis identifies the syntactic framework of Cape Town Tsotsitaal as Xhosa.

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