Browsing by Author "Mtonjeni, Thembinkosi"

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    An investigation of discriminatory language used in communicating with South Africans born in Tanzania and Zambia
    (Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2013-03) Mtonjeni, Thembinkosi; Anthonissen, Christine; Deumert, A.; Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. Dept. of General Linguistics.
    ENGLISH ABSTRACT: The aim of this paper was to investigate the language used in communicating with South Africans born in Zambia and Tanzania during the years of "the struggle" and now repatriated – the returnees. From 1991 the children of the freedom fighters that migrated into exile in the 1960s to avoid the apartheid rule, returned. Some settled with their children in Khayelitsha near Cape Town, but they have found it difficult to fit in. The surge of foreign nationals from Africa who subsequently encountered xenophobic attitudes and allegations of corruption, drug smuggling, contributing to unemployment of South African born citizens and being carriers of HIV/AIDS has contributed to the returnees "new struggle" for integration and adaption as they often share common ancestry, linguistic and physical attributes with foreign nationals. They are denigrated as "amakwerekwere", "my friendoh" or "amagweja". This has happened despite them learning the local indigenous language, isiXhosa. Since the study is phenomenological, a qualitative research was appropriate. In data-collection, interviews were arranged with the returnees in their homes. Critical Discourse Analysis, sociological and historical accounts and sociolinguistic research revealed complex socio-cultural issues of the Xhosa world, which may have complicated the returnees‘ integration experience. The returnees seem to be leading a secluded solitary life as if exiled at home. The study found that in exile the returnees were at times tagged as outsiders, as "wakimbizi", "the Mandelas", "amagorila". On arriving home in the country of their exiled parents, they were again, painfully and unjustifiably, subjected to discrimination and marginalisation. The Xhosa speakers who form the majority of those formerly disenfranchised and marginalised in the Western Cape, and who were expected to be the hosts if not guardians of the returnees, seem not to understand and appreciate the role of the newcomers. That they were instrumental in the mobilisation of objections worldwide against apartheid, racism and human injustice seems to be forgotten. Rather than using their power and heritage to end xenophobia and ensure returnees are part of the future South African social fabric, they are found to be hostile and discriminatory.