Cover not available

Article published In: Language & Citizenship
Edited by Tommaso M. Milani
[Journal of Language and Politics 14:3] 2015
► pp. 406–430

Get fulltext from our e-platform
JBE logo with link
PDF logo with download linkDownload PDF
authorization required

Linguistic citizenship

Language and politics in postnational modernities

 | University of the Western Cape |
 | University of Oslo | Stockholm University |
Published online: 21 August 2015
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/jlp.14.3.05wil
A major challenge facing South Africa is that of reconstructing a meaningful and inclusive notion of citizenship in the aftermath of its apartheid past and in the face of narratives of divisiveness that reach back from this past and continue to reverberate in the present. Many of the problems confronting South African social transformation are similar to the rest of the postcolonial world that continues to wrestle with the inherited colonial divide between citizen and subject. In this article, we explore how engagement with diversity and marginalization is taking place across a range of non-institutional and informal political arenas. Here, we elaborate on an approach towards the linguistic practices of the political everyday in terms of a notion of linguistic citizenship and by way of conclusion argue that the contradictions and turmoils of contemporary South Africa require further serious deliberation around alternative notions of citizenship and their semiotics.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Performing Acts Of Citizenship
  • 3.The Skit
  • 4.Discussion
  • 5.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
References (46)
References
Adhikari, Mohamed. 2009. Burdened by Race: Coloured Identities in Southern Africa. Cape Town: UCT Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Agha, Asif. 2007. “Recombinant Selves in Mass Mediated Spacetime.” Language and Communication 27 (3): 320–335. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bakhtin, Mikhail Mikhailovich. 1981. The Dialogic Imagination, trans. C. Emerson and M. Holquist. Austin: University of Texas Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
1984. Rabelais and His World, trans. H. Iswolsky. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bauman, Richard. 2011. “Commentary: Foundation in Performance.” Journal of Sociolinguistics 15 (5): 707–720. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Besnier, Niko. 2009. Gossip and the Everyday Production of Politics. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Blommaert, Jan. to appear. “Sociolinguistics and English Language Studies.” In Handbook of English Language Studies, ed. by Brian Street, and Constant Leung. London: Routledge.
Blommaert, Jan, and Ben Rampton. 2011. “Language and Superdiversity.” Diversities 13 (2): 1–38.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Blommaert, Jan. 2012. “Complexity, Accent and Conviviality: Concluding Comments.” Tilburg Papers in Culture Studies 261: 1–14.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bourdieu, Pierre. 1998. On Television. New York: New Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Chouliaraki, Lilie, and Norman Fairclough. 1999. Discourses in Late-Modernity: Rethinking Critical Discourse Analysis. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cole, Debbie. 2010. “Enregistering Diversity: Adequation in Indonesian Poetry Performance.” Journal of Linguistic Anthropology 20 (1): 1–21. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Comaroff, Jean, and John L. Comaroff. 2012. Theory from the South: Or, How Euro-America is Evolving toward Africa. USA: Paradigm Publishers.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Coupland, Nikolas. 2011a. “The Sociolinguistics of Style.” In The Cambridge Handbook of Sociolinguistics, ed. by Rajend Mesthrie, 138–156. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Coupland, Nikolas. 2011b. “Voice, Place and Genre in Popular Song Performance.” Journal of Sociolinguistics 15 (5): 573–602. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Dolby, Nadine. 2006. “Popular Culture and Public Space: the Possibilities of Cultural Citizenship.” African Studies Review 49 (3): 31–47. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Goldstein, Donna M. 2003. Laughter out of Place: Race, Class, Violence, and Sexuality in a Rio Shantytown. Berkeley: University of California Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Gibson, Andy, and Allan Bell. 2011. “Staging Language: An Introduction to the Sociolinguistics of Performance.” Journal of Sociolinguistics 15 (5): 555–572. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Giddens, Anthony. 1984. The Constitution of the Society. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Heller, Monica. 2011. Paths to Post-Nationalism: A Critical Ethnography of Language and Identity. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Holquist, Michael. 2010. “The Fugue of Chronotope.” In Bakhtin’s Theory of the Literary Chronotope: Reflections, Applications, Perspectives, ed. by Nele Bemong, Peter Borghart, Michel De Dobbeleer, Kristoffel Demoen, Koen De Temmerman, and Bart Keunen, 19–34. Belgium: J. Story-Scientia nv Wetenschappelijke Boekhandel.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
2009. “The Role of Chronotope in Dialog.” In Proceedings from the Second International Interdisciplinary Conference on Perspectives and Limits of Dialogism in Mikhail Bakhtin, ed. by Karen Junefeld, and Pia Nordin, 9–17. Stockholm: Stockholm University.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Isin, Engin F. 2009. “Citizenship in Flux: the Figure of the Activist Citizen.” Subjectivity 291: 367–388. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Isin, Engin. F., and Greg M. Nielsen (eds). 2008. Acts of Citizenship. London, UK: Palgrave MacMillan.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Jensen, Steffen. 2008. Gangs, Politics and Dignity in Cape Town. Oxford: James Curry. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Jørgensen, Jens Normann, Martha Sif Karrebæk, Lian Malai Madsen, and Janus Spinder Møller. 2011. “Polylanguaging and Superdiversity.” Diversities 13(2): 23–38.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Lofland, Lyn H. 1998. The Public Realm: Exploring the City’s Quintessential Social Territory. Hawthorne, NY: Aldine de Gruyter. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Mamdani, Mahmood. 1996. Citizenship and Subject: Contemporary African and the Legacy of Late-Colonialism. Cape Town: David Philip.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Marais, Hein. 2011. South Africa pushed to the Limit: The Political Economy of Change. London: Zed. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Mbembe, Achille. 2001. On the Postcolony. Berkeley: University of California Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
McKaiser, Eusebius. 2012. A Bantu in My Bathroom! Debating Race, Sexuality and other Uncomfortable South African Topics. Johannesburg: Bookstorm. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Mertz, Elizabeth, and Jonathan Yovel. 2003. “Metalinguistic Awareness.” In Handbook of Pragmatics, ed. by Jan-Ola Östman, Jef Verschueren, Jan, and Chris Bulcaen. Retrieved from SSRN: [URL]
Neocosmos, Michael. 2006. From “Foreign Natives” to “Native Foreigners”, Explaining Xenophobia in Post-apartheid South Africa: Citizenship and Nationalism, Identity and Politics. Dakar: CODESRIA.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Pietikäinen, Sari, and Hannele Dufva. 2006. “Voices in Discourses: Dialogism, Critical Discourse Analysis and Ethnic Identity.” Journal of Sociolinguistics 10 (2): 205–224. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Roth-Gordon, Jennifer. 2009. “The Language that Came Down the Hill: Slang, Crime, and Citizenship in Rio de Janeiro.” American Anthropologist 111 (1): 57–68. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Salo, Elaine. 2004. Respectable Mothers, Tough Men and Good Daughters producing Persons in Manenberg Township South Africa. Unpublished Ph.D. thesis. US: Emory University.
Silverstein, Michael. 1993. “Metapragmatic Discourse and Metapragmatic Function.” In Reflexive Language: Reported Speech and Metapragmatics, ed. by John A. Lucy, 33–58. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
1998. “Contemporary Transformations of Local Linguistic Communities.” Annual Review of Anthropology 271: 401–426. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Stroud, Christopher. 2001. “African Mother Tongue Programs and the Politics of Language: Linguistic Citizenship versus Linguistic Human Rights.” Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development 22 (4): 339–355. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
2004. “The Performativity of Code-switching.” International Journal of Bilingualism 8 (2): 145–166. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
2009. “A Postliberal Critique of Language Rights: Toward a Politics of Language for a Linguistics of Contact.” In International Perspectives on Bilingual Education: Policy, Practice and Controversy, ed. by John E. Petrovic, 191–218. Charlotte: Information Age Publishing.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Stroud, Christopher, and Kathleen Heugh. 2004. “Linguistic Human Rights and Linguistic Citizenship.” In Language Rights and Language Survival: A Sociolinguistic Exploration, ed. by Donna Patrick, and Jane Freeland, 191–218. Manchester: St. Jerome.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Terreblanche, Sampie. 2012. Lost in Transformation: South Africa’s search for a New Future since 1986. Johannesburg: KMM Review Publication Company.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Wood, Phil, and Charles Landry. 2007. The Intercultural City: Planning for Diversity Advantage. London: Sterling: Earthscan.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Wee, Lionel. forthcoming. “Essentializing Discourses and Linguistic Citizenship.” In The Multilingual Citizen: towards a Politics of Language for Agency and Change, ed. by Lisa Lim, Christopher Stroud, and Lionel Wee. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.
Wessendorf, Susan. 2010. “Commonplace Diversity: Social Interactions in a Super-diverse Context.” MMG working paper, 10–11.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cited by (28)

Cited by 28 other publications

Bonnin, Juan Eduardo & Virginia Unamuno
2025. Deconstructing the Ideology of Access. Multilingualism and Health Care in Argentina. In The Palgrave Handbook of Decolonising the Educational and Language Sciences, ► pp. 325 ff. DOI logo
Delmas, Mélina, Jess Kruk, Louisa Willoughby & Jo Angouri
2025. Doing multilingualism through transnational linguistic landscaping: The MultiDiv experience. Linguistics and Education 86 ► pp. 101384 ff. DOI logo
Léglise, Isabelle & Suat Istanbullu
2025. Finding a Voice in Academia When One’s Experience Is Contrary to What One has Learned. Intertwined Personal Narratives About Social Justice and Meritocracy Ideologies in a Color-Blind Context. In The Palgrave Handbook of Decolonising the Educational and Language Sciences, ► pp. 613 ff. DOI logo
Skidmore, Matthew
2025. The skin of belonging. Linguistic Landscape. An international journal DOI logo
Sánchez Moreano, Santiago
2025. Integrating Plurilingual Repertoires in a Multi-Ethnic School—Addressing Sustainability Issues in Amazonia. In Transformative Language Teaching for Sustainability, ► pp. 251 ff. DOI logo
Tufi, Stefania & Amiena Peck
2025. Decolonising Linguistic Landscapes: Paths to Autoethnography as Learning and Teaching Tools in the Landscape. In The Palgrave Handbook of Decolonising the Educational and Language Sciences, ► pp. 499 ff. DOI logo
Windle, Joel
2025. Struggles for justice in education through the lens of educational citizenship. The Australian Educational Researcher 52:4 ► pp. 2941 ff. DOI logo
Albury-Garcés, Nathan John
2024. Choosing between Cyrillic and Latin for linguistic citizenship in contemporary Serbia. International Journal of the Sociology of Language 2024:286 ► pp. 161 ff. DOI logo
Dickie, June F.
2024. Liberation Through Language: Kaaps-Speakers, Bible Translation, and Identity Creation. In Contemporary African Perspectives on the Bible, ► pp. 123 ff. DOI logo
Hooft, Hannelore & Karel Arnaut
2024. Revisiting ‘ethnographic monitoring’ as a force for democratisation and social impact in adult literacy and language learning. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development ► pp. 1 ff. DOI logo
Kerfoot, Caroline & Christopher Stroud
2024. Towards a sociolinguistics of potentiality: Linguistic citizenship, quasi-events, and contingent becomings in spaces of otherwise. International Journal of the Sociology of Language 2024:287 ► pp. 1 ff. DOI logo
Liu, Zhixin
2024. “Zhuge Kongming becomes reborn as a clownish partygoer!”: Linguistic carnivalization, critical metapragmatics of danmu, and mediatized neoliberal (inter)subjectivity. Discourse, Context & Media 61 ► pp. 100815 ff. DOI logo
Mashazi, Simangele & Marcelyn Oostendorp
2024. Queering the norm, norming the queer: remaking Man through linguistic citizenship. International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism 27:5 ► pp. 689 ff. DOI logo
Johansen, Åse Mette & Elin Furu Markusson
2022. ‘I know the world in two languages’: Sámi multilingual citizenship in textbooks for the school subject Norwegian between 1997 and 2020. In Indigenising Education and Citizenship, ► pp. 173 ff. DOI logo
Albury, Nathan John
2021. Forging and negating diasporic linguistic citizenship in ethnocratic Malaysia. Lingua 263 ► pp. 102629 ff. DOI logo
Albury, Nathan John & Anne Ambler Schluter
2021. Introduction: Reimagining language and belonging in the diaspora. Lingua 263 ► pp. 103157 ff. DOI logo
Assan, Thomas E.B., Washington T. Dudu, Nothile T. Kunene, Muchativugwa L. Hove, Martha Matashu, Shepherd Mlambo, Andrew Mutsvangwa, Kgomotsego B. Samuel, Mirna Nel, Lilian I. Nwosu, Viné Petzer, Patient Rambe & Hercules D. Nieuwoudt
2021. Quality education: The nexus of human capital development, economic growth and social justice in a South African context, DOI logo
Malinowski, David, Hiram H. Maxim & Sébastien Dubreil
2020. Introduction. In Language Teaching in the Linguistic Landscape [Educational Linguistics, 49], ► pp. 1 ff. DOI logo
Vuorsola, Lasse
2020. Minority positioning in physical and online spaces. Linguistic Landscape. An international journal 6:3 ► pp. 297 ff. DOI logo
Paz, Alejandro I.
2019. Communicating Citizenship. Annual Review of Anthropology 48:1 ► pp. 77 ff. DOI logo
Rampton, Ben
2019. Epilogue: crossing, interactional sociolinguistics and North/South research relations. Journal of Multicultural Discourses 14:4 ► pp. 390 ff. DOI logo
Staphorst, Luan
2019. Owning the Body, Embodying the Owner: Complexity and Discourses of Rights, Citizenship and Heritage of Southern African Bushmen. Critical Arts 33:4-5 ► pp. 104 ff. DOI logo
Staphorst, Luan
2023. “fokkol graad vi jou nie” [Fuck All Degree for You]: Black Afrikaans Poets, Critical University Studies, and Transcripting the Afrikaans University. Journal of African Cultural Studies 35:1 ► pp. 22 ff. DOI logo
Staphorst, Luan
2024.  ‘Innie Malmesbuġy waa ôs bly’: Taalburgerskap, Arabies-Afrikaans, en die bry-r in Ashwin Arendse se Swatland . Southern African Linguistics and Applied Language Studies 42:sup1 DOI logo
Eisenstein Ebsworth, Miriam, Timothy John Ebsworth & Chencen Cai
2018. English acquisition in Puerto Rico: Teachers’ insights. Bilingual Research Journal 41:1 ► pp. 69 ff. DOI logo
Kitis, E. Dimitris & Dmitri Jegels
2018. Genres of protest in post-apartheid South Africa: Revisiting audience contributions to political speeches. African Studies 77:4 ► pp. 549 ff. DOI logo
Barros, Sandro R.
2017. Rejecting Babel: examining multilingualism without citizenship in the U.S. postnational scenario. Current Issues in Language Planning 18:2 ► pp. 117 ff. DOI logo
Stroud, Christopher & Manuel Guissemo
2017. Linguistic Messianism: Multilingualism in Mozambique. In Sociolinguistics in African Contexts [Multilingual Education, 20], ► pp. 35 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 13 november 2025. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.

Mobile Menu Logo with link to supplementary files background Layer 1 prag Twitter_Logo_Blue