This book offers insights into the changing political landscape of the New South Africa, and how these changes manifested in various linguistic texts. Spanning twenty years of data collection, Hibbert covers themes of African language and identity and trends in government rhetoric. Her critical discourse analyses highlight rising tension within the African National Congress (ANC), arguing that government amendments to the democratic constitution are designed to suit the ANC's agenda of continued centralised power, and that they weaken newer forms of citizen participation.
Consisting of fourteen chapters, the book is largely chronologically ordered. The movement from around 1994 to 2014 is analysed using a range of texts, including newspaper articles, edits of Hansard reports of parliamentary debates, and political oratory and speeches. These are used as embedded studies representing the sociopolitical macro and micro contexts they appear within.
Chapter 1 begins with Nelson Mandela's release from prison and the legalisation of the ANC, coupled with newspaper articles couching the message of the ruling party's demise with a celebratory, uncritical take on Mandela's release. Chapters 2 and 3 focus on the early years of democratic rule and the use of Black South African English (BSAfE) in parliament by many politicians as a lingua franca, despite the low status accorded to the language variety. Chapters 4 and 5 show how political oratory initially drew on African oral traditions, where the role of the orator was to represent the ‘voice’ of the people, and speeches reproduced the previous era's dystopian view. In chapter 6, the description of the historical lack of literacy and access to publishing amongst Black South Africans during apartheid demonstrated the association of British English with linguistic competence. Chapter 7 compares BSAfE with other African languages. Chapter 8 discusses the era of President Mbeki, where his 1996 ‘I am an African’ speech espoused an inclusive African identity beyond race and pan-African rhetoric. In contrast, President Zuma's speeches in chapter 11 show the South African government operating in isolation from outside economies. Consequently, by 2014, African-based discourses were no longer visible in political oratory. The critical analysis of chapter 11 compares journalism of the Mbeki era with the self-censored satire of the 1950s and 60s. It shows how by 2011, journalists were reacting to government intimidation by using similar stylistic features. Chapters 12 and 13 highlight more positive changes. The author describes local initiatives for respecting and maintaining community languages. She also argues that the earlier stigma of BSAfE has been replaced with positive attitudes and increased linguistic capital, with BSAfe now found in many complex configurations and contexts. Chapter 14 concludes with a present and future focus. Hibbert argues that the use of social media results in American influences on BSAfE, and attitudes towards the variety and outside influences of ‘competence’ have come full circle.
This book is aimed at an interdisciplinary audience, including scholars of rhetoric, pragmatics, sociolinguistics, anthropology, sociology, history, politics, and economics or those interested in cross-cultural contexts where English is the primary lingua franca.
