TPCS 20: The Enregisterment of English in Rap Braggadocio: a study from English-Afrikaans bilingualism in Cape Town

By Quentin E. Williams

Introduction

For the last three decades, globalization has been a major theme of sociolinguistics and studies of multilingualism, in keeping with large scale changes evident in late-modern societies (Blommaert, 2010). One of several stances within this research is the importance accorded to English in processes of linguistic globalization (see Leung et al, 2009). Three theoretical stances in particular have dealt with English globalization: World Englishes (e.g. Kachru, 1986), Linguistic Imperialism (e.g. Phillipson, 1992) and more recently Global Englishes within a context of modern day rapid transport, electronic media, cultural hybridities and economic migration (Pennycook, 2007). All three approaches emphasise different aspects of the nature of English insertion in multilingual contexts.

The paradigm of World Englishes, captured in a concentric model, has represented a body of research that seeks to understand the spread of varieties of English used in multilingual contexts. For more than three decades it has deployed a particular theoretical perspective and methodological repertoire that underpins the many pedagogical, ideological, and powerrelated issues central to the debates addressed in its journal (Jenkins, 2003: 15-8). A number of problems inherent in the concentric model remain (cf. Jenkins, 2003: 17-8), some of which are addressed by scholars like Tripathi (1998) and Yano (2001). As Pennycook (2007: 112) stresses “it is impossible to understand the global spread and use of English without considering the local contexts of its use”. Pennycook’s (2003:515) earlier observation that “global language use, and in particular the global spread of English, remains largely tied to an earlier era of sociolinguistics, in which identities are pre-given and tied to nationalities” is no longer true, thanks to the growing volume of work by authors like Pennycook himself, Blommaert, and Canagarajah (2000).

English forms an important part of multilingual speakers’ repertoires in present-day Cape Town. In the practice of hip-hop, the language is used alongside marginalized varieties such as Kaapse Afrikaans, isiXhosa and “antilinguistic” registers such as Sabela and Tsotsitaal (Mesthrie, 2008). According to Agha (1999: 216), a register ‘is a linguistic repertoire that is associated, culture internally, with particular social practices and with persons who engage in such practices’. It is often used in particular spaces and places that define a cultural group, individuals, and community practices (Goebel, 2010). The use of a register relevant to a social or cultural occasion reveals that interlocutors accept and agree to the terms of a speech event, and that that register will ‘itself reconfigure the sense of occasion’ (Agha, 1999). Multilingual speakers perform registers by drawing on large stores of repertoires that index social practices and social categories. According to Agha (2007: 18) repertoires can become enregistered, via “processes and practices whereby performable signs become recognized (and regrouped) as belonging to distinct, differentially valorized semiotic registers by a population”). In this paper, I want to propose the notion of ‘deregisterment’ to argue at the same time practices of English partake of conditions of enregisterment process deregisterment are at play in the use of other languages.

This paper aims to add to the growing body of research on how a global language is practised and performed in local contexts by focusing on the notion of “enregisterment”. In particular I will use examples from the local hip-hop community in Cape Town to show the creative use of English in the performance of a rap genre, braggadocio (bragging). I will also discuss how the use of English opens up the conditions for its ‘deregisterment’ against the salience of multilingual repertoires of present-day Cape Town.

This study is based on a multi-sited ethnography documenting a local hip-hop show, entitled, “Stepping Stones to Hip-Hop”, staged in a popular night club in the Northern Suburbs of Cape Town. Performances were documented using audio and video recordings. Furthermore, interviews were conducted with patrons, rappers, break dancers, Disc Jockeys (DJs), graffiti artists, hip-hop fans, entertainment journalists and curious onlookers who came to the club for the first time. Fieldwork also included gathering promotional posters, rap music compact diskettes, and photographs of the hip-hop show.

How to quote: Williams, Q. E. (2012). The Enregisterment of English in Rap Braggadocio: A study from English-Afrikaans bilingualism in Cape Town. (Tilburg Papers in Culture Studies; No. 20).

Read the full working paper here: The Enregisterment of English in Rap Braggadocio:  a study from English-Afrikaans bilingualism in Cape Town.