Complexity in word-formation processes in New Varieties of South African English

Abstract

The research question posed in the article is whether South African English (SAE) has reached Phase four of Schneider's (2007) Dynamic Model of Postcolonial Englishes. This phase is characterised by early indications of linguistic convergence between the Indigenous and Settler strands. In the article, the focus is on lexical innovation and morphologically complex forms in a corpus of approximately 703 300 words from the Vaal Weekly community newspaper. The data are analysed according to semantic domains and morphological structure. To determine if SAE has gone beyond Phase three of Schneider's (2007) model, three criteria are proposed: generality, acceptability and codification in dictionaries. The results show that lexical innovations in the semantic domains are often loanwords originating from the culture of the indigenous strand. There is considerable evidence supporting Phase four among lexical innovations: widespread semantic diffusion, a considerable degree of acceptability, as indicated by use in other newspapers, and codification in the South African Concise Oxford Dictionary. The results for the morphology of complex words show that most of these forms are unique to the Vaal Weekly. The generality and more than negligible degree of acceptability of compounding also indicate that SAE has reached Phase four, but derivational processes, while revealing some generality for negation, otherwise fail to meet the criteria of acceptability and codification. The majority of the analyses support a conclusion that SAE has entered Phase four, but morphologically complex forms are not yet conclusive in this respect.

Notes

1. After the completion of the research project, but before going to print, the second edition of the Oxford South African Concise Dictionary, appeared in August 2010. We decided against revising the entire analysis in this paper, partly because at the time of data collection (January 2008–August 2009), this new edition was not yet available to the newspaper sub-editors.

2. The innovation/conventionalisation distinction also relates very directly with Mufwene's (2001) distinction between the processes of replication and selection, within his genetic model of creole language formation.

3. Whenever an example is taken from a letter to the editor, this is indicated in the reference, as these represent the general public, and not specifically the newspaper and their house-style.

4. The terms gangsta, gansterism and thuggery are probably not of South African origin, but have become very frequent lexical elements, as shown by among other things their very high proportional frequency on the Internet.

5. One can speculate about the word tenderpreneur, which did not even occur in our corpus, because its use really only picked up in December 2009, after it became an expression of censure used by supporters of the SACP against ANC youth league leader, Julius Malema. Wikipedia also shows newspaper references only from this date onwards, but a larger internet search revealed some instances dating back to 2001, although it has only became a frequent term since December 2009.

6. ‘The student community of the Vaal Triangle Campus of the North-West University (NWU Vaal) has recently shown that the true spirit of ‘ubuntu’ is dear to them.’ However, note that the Afrikaans text still uses inverted commas, whereas these are not used in the English text anymore.

7. ‘Freestyling’ is probably not a South Africa-specific innovation, and occurs in other varieties too. Southern African Linguistics and Applied Language Studies 2010, 28(4): 357–374 371 However, the word is not yet codified. Its presence in the data shows that innovation in South African English cannot be divorced from innovation that occurs across the globe in naming and talking about new things and practices.

8. In the SACOD (2002: 1077), the term shebeener is given as derivation of the entry shebeen, but the compound shebeen queen is not yet included.

9. The pseudo-exception is that the plural form zozos is not used, but the singular zozo is used five times.

10. Jill Wolvaardt, current Editor-in-chief of the Dictionary Unit for South African English confirmed that vuvuzela has already been included in the next edition of the dictionary (personal communication during the LSSA/SAALA conference, September 2009).

11. Blaps also has a relatively low frequency of seven in the Independent Newspapers, with three of them occurring in headlines – suggesting some additional connotations and exceptionality, but at the same time also the assumption that the word will be understood widely.

12. The term loadshedding was not distributed evenly in the period, but used with very high frequencies in the first three months of 2008, when electricity supply was a national problem in South Africa.

13. The term savings club occurred 26 times in the Independent Newspapers.

14. The older English spelling muti occurred 198 times in the Independent Newspapers, but never in Vaal Weekly.

15. Singular ‘spitbraai’ occurred 5 times in the Independent Newspapers.

16. Singular ‘zozo’ occurred 20 times in the Independent Newspapers.