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Article published In:
Language & Citizenship
Edited by Tommaso M. Milani
[Journal of Language and Politics 14:3] 2015
► pp. 406–430

Linguistic citizenship

Language and politics in postnational modernities

| University of the Western Cape |
| University of Oslo | Stockholm University |

A major challenge facing South Africa is that of reconstructing a meaningful and inclusive notion of citizenship in the aftermath of its apartheid past and in the face of narratives of divisiveness that reach back from this past and continue to reverberate in the present. Many of the problems confronting South African social transformation are similar to the rest of the postcolonial world that continues to wrestle with the inherited colonial divide between citizen and subject. In this article, we explore how engagement with diversity and marginalization is taking place across a range of non-institutional and informal political arenas. Here, we elaborate on an approach towards the linguistic practices of the political everyday in terms of a notion of linguistic citizenship and by way of conclusion argue that the contradictions and turmoils of contemporary South Africa require further serious deliberation around alternative notions of citizenship and their semiotics.

Keywords: linguistic citizenship, language politics, performance, stand-up comedy, indexicality, chronotope
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Performing Acts Of Citizenship
  • 3.The Skit
  • 4.Discussion
  • 5.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 21 August 2015
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/jlp.14.3.05wil
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