Fluid identity construction in language contact zones: metacognitive reflections on Kasi-taal languaging practices

Abstract

This study investigated how semi-urban, multi-ethnic and multilingual students in the city of Johannesburg, South Africa, negotiate their new identities through languaging experiences. Metacognitive reflections of their recreated language spaces were collected through 20 written narratives, which were analysed using a universalist reductionist approach. The results of the study revealed highly complex identifying processes that mark fluid, multiple affiliations and mobile and creative negotiation of an identity matrix through a hybrid language form, Kasi-taal, which breaks boundaries and embeds linguistic systems that were traditionally treated as discrete units. Using a translanguaging framework, I argue that the languaging strategies articulated in the narratives can be valorised to offset the symbolic violence of monoglossic ideologies that are dominant in our classrooms. Recommendations for further studies on identity-building spaces in multilingual language contact zones as well as the logic of hybrid linguistic repertoires are highlighted at the end of the paper.

Keywords:

• identity construction
• kasi-taal
• townships
• South Africa
• Ubuntu translanguaging