Discourses of language activism: the Green Movement and Afrikaans

Abstract

This article argues that the language activism witnessed over the past decade in the white Afrikaans-speaking community constitutes, in essence, a nationalist movement. Here an attempt is made to illustrate that the South African constitution as well as certain trends in sociolinguistic literature has opened the door to nationalist opportunism. Preliminary comments are made about the nature of this movement, its underlying rationale and its principal agents.