Intercultural Communication Study in South Africa

Abstract

This entry deals with issues related to intercultural communication in South Africa. The focus falls first on the state of the discipline and issues related to teaching and research. Attention is then given to the nature of South African society and the implications of culture and group membership in determining intergroup communication. Issues related to language and identity as well as the extent and nature of contact and interaction between groups are discussed, and attention is given to the African worldview and its emphasis on human connectedness. The entry examines various barriers to intercultural communication such as nonverbal communication and paralinguistics, ethnocentrism, and xenophobia as well as contrasting communication styles, and then concludes with a call to local and international researchers to tackle the largely unexplored terrain of communication within African contexts and to assist in solving the manifold problems associated with intercultural communication in those settings.

South African English Impact on Cultural Identity Formation and Intercultural Communication

“…The colonial era in South Africa gave rise to racial terminology when the white settlers established Western culture and developed it in two separate dimensions -the Dutch and the British. Further migrations to the area and the arrival of Indian labourers stimulated racial mixing and gave birth to linguistically and culturally distinctive groups, such as coloureds a group formed on mixing of the indigenous African population with Dutch colonizers (first European settlement) and imported from Asia slaves [5]. African languages were stigmatized as "nonwhite" and marginalized in order to deprive indigenous peoples of their own cultural legacy paving the way to the colonizer's "civilization" [12, p. 5].…”

“…Nowadays, the political processes in South Africa are targeted at curing social injustice and disagreements of the past, focusing on cultural and linguistic equality instead of difference. Cultural, ethnic consciousness is regarded as building blocks of the South African nation [5]. However, group distinctions remain important [17] and are marked by languages, or their varieties, preferred for in-group communication.…”

“…The term "super-diversity" [5] refers to black urbanites. Interactions between speakers of mutually intelligible languages led to the emergence of koine languages (Tsotsitaal, Iscamtho) as symbols of the urban identity.…”

“…From an anthropological perspective, distinctive features and traditional elements of lifestyle will be preserved due to the centrality of "belonging" concept in the worldviews of African cultures. Africans see themselves "as part of nature within the groups to which they belong" [5], which is reflected in Xhosa ubuntu concept (Umntu ngumntu ngabantu "lit. a person is a person because of persons" [38, p. 93]), in Pedi motho ke motho ka bangwe "man is a man through others", and in Zulu umuntu ngamuntu ngabanye "a person depends on others to be a person" [5].…”

“…Africans see themselves "as part of nature within the groups to which they belong" [5], which is reflected in Xhosa ubuntu concept (Umntu ngumntu ngabantu "lit. a person is a person because of persons" [38, p. 93]), in Pedi motho ke motho ka bangwe "man is a man through others", and in Zulu umuntu ngamuntu ngabanye "a person depends on others to be a person" [5]. In spite of the fact that "speakers of two languages belong to two different cultures, shaped by the cultures of their languages" [39], the rising role of English as a lingua franca and increasing "English + another language/s" bilingualism provide integrational trend toward shared linguistic and cultural elements.…”