'There are no Whites in Africa': Territoriality, language, and identity among Francophone Africans in Cape Town [An article from: Language and Communication]

This digital document is a journal article from Language and Communication, published by Elsevier in 2005. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Media Library immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Description:
In this paper, I discuss identity display among Francophone Black Africans in Cape Town. I focus on language practice and attitudes, both approached in relation to space, which is conceived of multidimensionally. I argue that the physical environment, symbolic meaning, and social practice are interrelated in shaping, together and separately, language practice and attitudes. I propose an interactional and dynamic model of analysis based on territoriality which helps us understand the relationship between space and language, and the way speakers give meaning to and appropriate their multilayered space.