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Academic Paper |
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| Title: | Assessing representations of South African Indian English in print |
| Author: | Rajend Mesthrie |
| Institution: | University of Cape Town |
| Linguistic Field: | Sociolinguistics |
| Abstract: |
This article examines three representations of South African Indian English in print: The Adventures of Applesammy and Naidoo (1946) by Ray Rich; The Lahnee's Pleasure (c. 1972) by Ronnie Govender; and The Wedding (2001) by Imraan Coovadia. The use of dialect is a defining feature of all three texts. I show that the tools provided by variation theory are particularly useful in the analysis of literature that uses direct speech to portray characters and types. In particular, the principles of variation theory can be used to: (a) reveal the nature of stereotyping in the first text (a parody), which relies on the suppression of variation, and the generalization of linguistic and social characteristics; (b) evaluate the fidelity of a "realist" dialect representation of the community in the second text (a play); and (c) help characterize the nonrealist, nonstereotyping, imaginative use of language in the third text (a post-modern novel). |
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This article appears IN Language Variation and Change Vol. 17, Issue 3. |
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