South African English Impact on Cultural Identity Formation and Intercultural Communication

Abstract

The study deals with the issues of intercultural communication and is targeted to demonstrate the specificity of multicultural and multilingual environment in the Republic of South Africa. The findings prove that intercultural communication processes are very dynamic as they are encouraged by the polycomponent society embracing numerous official and non-official languages with a high degree of internal variation. The role of English is constantly rising due to the socio-political context and the scope of communicative functions the language performs. Although the English language in South Africa is a heterogeneous system of subvarieties each of which is exercised by a particular cultural group, its role is significant in the formation of a hybrid cultural identity. The evidence is found in cultural contacts and interplay of language codes involved into interactions, particularly in foreign element dominance in the etymological composition of the English vocabulary, hybrid structure of words and phrases, formation of common speech behaviour patterns, etiquette clichés, and productivity of code-switching.