At the University of Michigan, Andries Coetzee is a Professor of Linguistics, Senior Advisor (African Engagement), and Director of International Partnerships for the College of Literature, Sciences, and the Arts. Dr. Coetzee had perviously served as Director of the African Studies Center (2018-2022) at Michigan, as well as editor of Language, flagship journal of the Linguistic Society of America (2017-2022). He is also an honorary professor at the North-West University, his South African alma mater.

This event is HYBRID on Zoom and in East Hall 4448.
Zoom: https://umich.zoom.us/j/98160522966

TITLE:
Language, Place and Identity in Post-Colonial Societies: Three Case Studies from Afrikaans

ABSTRACT:
Language happens in time and place. This historical and geographical situatedness of language impacts in substantive ways the grammatical features that a language has, and also how users of the language define their identities relative to their language (or languages). Although this is true in all contexts where language is used, post-colonial societies provide particularly rich and complex case studies of how language, history, place and identity are intricately related. In this presentation, I will give an overview of colonial context in which Afrikaans originated, and then investigate how Afrikaans grammar and the Afrikaans speech community continue to be shaped by the complexities of modern, post-colonial South African society. I will investigate three case studies, each demonstrating a different aspect of the complex linguistic landscape in which Afrikaans and its speakers exist: (i) Nasal coarticulation in different socio-ethnic varieties of Afrikaans; (ii) the phonetic properties of filled pauses in Patagonian Afrikaans; and (iii) regional and socio-ethnic variation in the front vowel space of Afrikaans.