Department of General Linguistics

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Browsing Department of General Linguistics by browse.metadata.advisor "Costandius, Elmarie"

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    The discursive construction of identity in young offenders' narratives in Swaziland
    (Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2019-12) Dlamini-Akintola, Virginia Thontea; Oostendorp, Marcelyn; Costandius, Elmarie; Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. Dept. of General Linguistics.
    ENGLISH ABSTRACT: The study of ‘identity’ straddles different fields such as psychology, sociology and linguistics. The particular approach taken to the study of identity is contingent upon the field, with some fields viewing identity as an essential, fixed phenomenon while others view identity as a discursive construction that occurs in discourse (Benwell and Stokoe 2006; Bamberg, De Fina and Schiffrin 2011). This study set out to investigate the discursive construction of young offenders’ identity in a youth correctional facility in Swaziland. This facility introduced formal schooling in 2008. This study thus investigated how the young offenders who are attending the school located at the correctional facility discursively construct their own identities. The study also investigated how the semiotic landscape (Jaworksi & Thurlow 2010) that is all meaning-making resources within the public landscape of the correctional facility and the school, contributes to constructing the young offenders’ identity. The study made use of arts-based methodological approaches. This included encouraging the participants to visually depict the course of their lives, their futures and the semiotic landscape which surrounds them. Since the study was situated in a ‘total institution’ (Goffman 1961), the nature of the place contributed to shaping the identities of the young offenders. This occurred through ‘mortification processes’ which enable the inmates to adapt to the life of ‘regimentation’ in the institution (Goffman 1961). This study shows that since identity is discursively constructed in discourse, the use of multimodal personal narratives combined with arts-based approaches to research are extremely useful methods with which to investigate identity construction from participants in a context that is traumatic. In addition, long-term-ethnographic studies provides rich insight into changes into a semiotic landscape and the reasons for such changes. Another major contribution of the study is the questions it raises about ethical engagement with vulnerable participants. It presents the challenges this study encountered. Ultimately, I argue that the key to moving towards an ethical engagement is to do research with, rather than on vulnerable participants.