The linguistic practices and transnational identities of Shona-English speakers in Johannesburg

Abstract

Large populations of migrants flee from poverty in the African continent, and flock to South Africa. One of the socio-economic migrant groups that travel in numbers to settle in Johannesburg, South Africa for economic reasons is from Zimbabwe. Migration has given rise to sociolinguistic research on transnationalism and globalisation. The language use of migrants has attracted a lot of research, especially because language is one of the main resources of survival in the diaspora and sustaining links with their native countries. My research is a qualitative study that investigated the linguistic practices of Shona–English speakers in South Africa. It further investigated the relationship between language use and transnational identities. The data collection methods used consisted of narrative interviews and questionnaires that had both closed ended and open-ended questions. The methods were relevant as they would enable collection of rich data to provide a plausible and satisfactory analysis of how the participants used language in their social relations, living and working spaces. The main findings of the research are that Shona–English migrants face xenophobic language discrimination. For instance, a migrant’s accent might be used to either grant or deny access to services and can cause one to either integrate into a group or become a misfit. Second, the migrants’ multilingual competency influences the type of repertoire they use in various contexts. Furthermore, migrants constantly adapt their identities depending on contexts, and they do so by continually switching linguistic repertoires in order to belong.