“They talk to us like children”: language and intergenerational discourse in first-time encounters in an African township
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.21504/sajg.v5i1.68Abstract
This paper analyses language discourse in first-time encounters between young and old women in an African township. Forms of address, stories and complaints are analysed in terms of generational differences and similarities in identity ascription. Young women identify themselves on the basis of their ethnic membership and class, while old women do so on the basis of family relations and implied ethnic membership, which can be gleaned from their name and place of birth or origin. The discourse is marked by frequent complaints by old women to young women about the youth. Some complaints may be interpreted as masked forms of bragging. Old women complain that “they [the youth] talk to us like children,” but their words were initially used by the youth to describe old people. Within their use of language old women try to reinforce traditional power to withstand youth power and to retain some influence, even within non-familial intergenerational encounters.References
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Cattell, M. 1996. Old people and the language of complaint: examples from Kenya and Philadelphia. In: Hamilton. H. (Ed.) Old age and language: multidisciplinary perspectives. Philadelphia, PA: Garland Press. (Forthcoming)
Coplan, D. 1994. In the time of the cannibals: the word music of South Africa's Basotho migrants. Johannesburg: University of the Witwatersrand Press.
Coupland, N., Coupland, J. & Giles. H, 1992. Language, society and the elderly: discourse, identity and ageing. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.
Coupland, N., Coupland, L., Giles. H. & Wiemann, J. 1988. My life in your hands: processes of self-disclosure in intergenerational talk, In: Coupland, N. (Ed.) Styles of discourse. London: Croom Helm, pp. 210-254.
De Kadt, E. 1994. Towards a model for the study of politeness in Zulu. South African Journal of African Languages. 14(3): 103-112.
Erickson, F. & Schultz, J. 1982. The counselor as gatekeeper: social interaction in interviews. New York: Academic Press.
Giddens, A. 1991. Modernity and self-identity: self and society in the late modern age. Cambridge: Polity Press. In conjunction with Basil Blackwell.
Hsu, F. 1985. The self in cross-cultural perspective. In: Marsetla, A.J., DeVos, G. & Francis, L.K. (Eds) Culture and self: Asian and western perspectives. New York: Tavistock, pp. 201-230.
Makoni, S.B, 1995. Language and identities in Southern Africa. Paper Tead at a conference on “Ethnicity, Meaning and Implications.” Edinburgh, May.
Milroy, L. & Milroy, J. 1980. Language and social networks. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.
Rampton, B. 1995a. Language crossing. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Rampton, B. 1995b. Personal communication. London, October.
Raum, O.F. 1973. The social factors of avoidance and taboos among the Zulus. Berlin: De Gruyter.
Scollon, R. & Scollon S.W. 1992. Individualism and binarism, A critique of American intercultural communication analysis. Working Paper. Research Report 22. Hong Kong: City Polytechnic of Hong Kong, Department of English.
Smitherman,G.1995. The chain remains the same. Communicative practices in the hip-hop nation. Paper read at a conference on “English in Africa.” Grahamstown, June.
Taylor, B. 1992. Elderly identity in conversation. Communication Research, 19(4): 493-510.
Tracy, K. 1990, The many faces of facework. In: Giles, H. & Robinson, W.P. (Eds) Handbook of language and social psychology. Chichester, UK, Wiley, pp. 323-338.
Wood, L. & Kroger, R.O. 1993. Forms of address, discourse and ageing. Journal of Ageing Studies, 7(3): 262-277.
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1996-04-01
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