This paper considers a number of pertinent sociolinguistic aspects of a distinct process of language shift recently noted in some historically Afrikaans first language (L1) communities established in the Cape Metropolitan area. Particularly, it considers qualitatively how a number of families made deliberate choices to change the family language from Afrikaans L1 to English L1. It elaborates on an exploratory study undertaken in 2003, adding data collected in 2008 and 2009, investigating linguistic repertoire and language choice in a number of families where there has been contact between English and Afrikaans over a number of generations. The aim, eventually, is to characterise the nature of the perceived process of language shift. The paper considers how widespread use of both English and Afrikaans in communities that until recently were predominantly Afrikaans, impacts on linguistic identities. It reports on structured interviews with members of three generations of families who currently exhibit English-Afrikaans bilingualism where members of the younger generation are more fluent in English. It finds that there is evidence of language shift, it reports on the circumstances that motivate such shift, and concludes that the third generation presents either a monolingual English identity where Afrikaans has a decidedly second language status, or a strong English-dominant bilingual identity.

This article is based on a study of a community of multilingual adolescents in Johannesburg which examines participants' linguistic repertoires and how they use their linguistic resources as a basis for identity construction, integration and performance. This kind of linguistic multiplicity lends itself to subtle and occasionally subversive positioning, as well as the creation of complex identities. Multilingual speakers call into play different aspects of their linguistic identity according to what particular circumstances dictate. For the most part, learners use their repertoires, which in some cases include non-standardised, mixed forms such as Tsotsitaal, to integrate and negotiate; and they are open to learning and accommodating other languages, with perhaps (in this data-set) one exception, namely Xitsonga. The implications of these findings are discussed with regard to language use in educational settings.

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This article gives an appraisal of bilingualism in Afrikaans and English among the Cape ‘Coloured’ community and of shifting patterns within it. It has become customary to use quotation marks around the term Coloured and lower case to signal that this and other race-based terms are contested ones in South Africa (see Erasmus, 2001; Ruiters, 2009). On the advice of the ET editor for this issue, however, I will use the term with the capital and without quotation marks, since he argues – conversely – that the use of lower case and scare quotes in print can also be misconstrued as disrespect for a community. In this community it appears that a shift is underway from Afrikaans as first and as home language to English as the dominant family language. However, this shift does not follow a straightforward linear trajectory, and while some speakers appear to have abandoned Afrikaans in favour of English, in many families the language has not been jettisoned. Before citing studies that explore this complexity, including current work by the author, it is necessary to give a brief overview of the background to Afrikaans and English in South Africa and their place in the country's overall multilingualism.

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This paper considers a number of salient, characterising features of the verbal mediation process that took place in the TRC hearings on gross human rights violations. This is done with reference to the methodology developed in Discourse Sociolinguistics. It considers how various participants represent a particular event, each taking the perspective from which they experienced it. It notes the differences in verbal choice, and in textual and information structure of (i.a.) a journalist who witnessed this particular instance of public police excess, of a woman involved because her home was at the scene of the confrontation between police and youngsters, of one of the commanding police officers who had been subpoenaed and thus was not a voluntary witness at the hearing, of a doctor who treated patients after the event, of a school teacher who could articulate the particular kind of protest youngsters engaged in at the time, and so on. It also highlights a particular practice of reformulating which appears to be typical of discourses that mediate past atrocities with a view to founding new and improved democratic practices.

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