Black South African English: phonology

doi:10.1515/9783110208429.1.177

Book Chapter•DOI•

Black South African English: phonology

Rajend Mesthrie, Bernd Kortmann, Edgar W. Schneider

18 Jan 2008-

About: The article was published on 2008-01-18. It has received 39 citations till now. The article focuses on the topics: South African English & Modern English.

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Journal Article•DOI•

Intonational differences between L1 and L2 english in South Africa.

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Marc Swerts¹, Sabine Zerbian•Institutions (1)

Tilburg University¹

30 Sep 2010-Phonetica

TL;DR: An explorative study into the way focus and boundaries are marked prosodically in Zulu is presented, and it is found that speakers of South African English (as L1) mark focused words and position within a list by intonational means, just as in other L1 varieties of English, whereas Zulu only uses intonation for marking continuity or finality.

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Abstract: Previous studies have shown that characteristics of a person’s first language (L1) may transfer to a second language (L2). The current study looks at the extent to which this holds for aspects of into

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36 citations

Cites background or methods from "Black South African English: phonol..."

...Rycroft, D.K.: Concise SiSwati dictionary (Van Schaik, Pretoria 1981)....
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...…performance test and concerning the general problems relating to questions of a South African English standard [Titlestad, 1996; Van der Walt and Van Rooy, 2002; Webb, 1996], we administered the test to get a broad indication of the English proficiency levels of the participating students....
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...Van der Walt, J.L.; Van Rooy, B.: Towards a norm in South African Englishes....
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...Van Rooy, B.: Black South African English – phonology; in Schneider, Burridge, Kortmann, Mesthrie, Upton, Handbook of varieties of English, vol. 1: Phonology, pp. 943–952 (Mouton de Gruyter, Berlin 2004)....
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...Van Rooy, B.: Stress placement of Tswana English: the makings of a coherent system....
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Journal Article•DOI•

Ethnicity, substrate and place: The dynamics of Coloured and Indian English in five South African cities in relation to the variable (t)

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Rajend Mesthrie¹•Institutions (1)

University of Cape Town¹

01 Oct 2012-Language Variation and Change

TL;DR: The authors presented information on the regional characteristics of two of South Africa's five major varieties of English: viz. those of its Coloured and Indian communities in five cities: Johannesburg, Cape Town, Durban, Port Elizabeth, and Kimberley.

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Abstract: This paper presents information on the regional characteristics of two of South Africa's five major varieties of English: viz. those of its Coloured and Indian communities in five cities: Johannesburg, Cape Town, Durban, Port Elizabeth, and Kimberley. It proposes that as far as the variable (t) is concerned, and by extension (d), these two “interior” social groupings show regional variation of a more robust kind than that of the Black majority and formerly politically dominant White group (the “exterior” groups). The paper describes the relationship between the two interior groups, showing considerable similarities between them for the variable (t), which has two main stop variants, an alveolar and a more fronted (or dental) one. Parallel developments are outlined for (th) (or /θ/ in IPA terms) by a study of word list style, showing similarities between the two groups in four of the cities. These linguistic features are assessed against outsiders' and local speakers' attitudes to and beliefs about their varieties. Finally, the paper considers the origins of the fronted variant, assessing whether it is a spontaneous development or a contact feature associated with Afrikaans-English bilinguals of varied backgrounds. It concludes that while multiple substrate influences are at work, the most likely source is from 17th- and 18th-century Malay and related languages, showing a double substratum, first into Afrikaans, then into English, without a significant period of Malay-English bilingualism.

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26 citations

Journal Article•DOI•

Apparent-time evolution of /l/ in one African American community

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Janneke Van Hofwegen¹•Institutions (1)

North Carolina State University¹

01 Oct 2010-Language Variation and Change

TL;DR: This article examined the phonetic production of a consonant, the word-initial lateral /l/ across several generations of speakers from a long-standing African American community in central North Carolina.

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Abstract: In the wake of numerous analyses of vowels in African American English (AAE), this study examines acoustically the phonetic production of a consonant—the word-initial lateral /l/—across several generations of speakers from a long-standing African American community in central North Carolina. The results of the study show that /l/ is darker in younger AAE speakers than in older ones, independent of phonetic context. Comparisons with ex-slave recordings suggest that a light variant of /l/ may be a substrate feature of AAE that has changed in recent decades. Additional comparisons with regional European Americans suggest that the darkening may be due to convergence with majority American English dialects.

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24 citations

Cites background from "Black South African English: phonol..."

...Another example comes from transitional Middle/Early Modern English (van Gelderen, 2006) in which /l/s in coda position became so dark after mid and low back vowels that they eventually disappeared before velars and labial consonants in cases such as “folk,” “walk,” “half.”...
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Dissertation•

An acoustic investigation of English vowels as produced by English L1 and Setswana L1 foundation phase learners

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Maria Le Roux

01 Jan 2017

18 citations

Journal Article•DOI•

Rhoticity in Black South African English – a sociolinguistic study

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Dieter Hartmann¹, Sabine Zerbian¹•Institutions (1)

University of the Witwatersrand¹

12 Apr 2009-Southern African Linguistics and Applied Language Studies

TL;DR: This article investigated the phenomenon of rhoticity in the speech of black speakers of South African English and found that women tend to be more rhotic than men in their speech, while male speakers are non-rhotic.

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Abstract: This article investigates the phenomenon of rhoticity in the speech of black speakers of South African English. Historically, South African English is non-rhotic. Thus, any shift towards a rhotic variant is a significant language change. Thirty-nine interviews were conducted with both males and female participants. The two groups were evenly split into more and less affluent groups. It was found that rhoticity in Black South African English is preferentially a female phenomenon, found most frequently in affluent female speakers. Male speakers also exhibit this feature but less frequently so. Of the affluent females 90% displayed some degree of rhoticity. None of the less affluent males displayed any rhoticity. The data gathered seem to suggest that a covert prestige exists amongst men to use their African languages. This is in contrast to the overt prestige amongst women to use English. The research thus isolates an important socio-economic stratification, providing evidence that both gender and ...

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18 citations

Cites background from "Black South African English: phonol..."

...In accordance with common practice in variationists’ studies, participants were not informed about the exact purpose of the research (see Milroy & Gordon, 2003: 80; Van Rooy, 2007: 28)....
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...Furthermore, Van Rooy (2007: 30) reports /r/ being under pressure to delete in syllable-onset clusters in the mesolect as well as in complex codas due to a general tendency towards cluster simplifications in this variety....
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...The differentiation into mesolect and acrolect speakers was done on the basis of educational background and contact with English L1 speakers (see Van Rooy, 2007: 28)....
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...In the case of the superlative, Van Rooy’s (2007) work on cluster simplification would actually predict the opposite....
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...Van Rooy (2004) reports on the quality of the /r/ in Black South African English, namely generally a trilled [r] in the mesolect and the approximant [] for half the /r/-occurrences in the acrolect....
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Black South African English: phonology

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Cites background or methods from "Black South African English: phonol..."

Cites background from "Black South African English: phonol..."

Cites background from "Black South African English: phonol..."

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