Lexical evidence for ancestral communication in Black South
African English
The present chapter derives from a comprehensive
project on culture-specific conceptualizations in Black South
African English. It carries out a lexico-semantic analysis of
conceptualizations of ancestral communication in Black South African
English and is based on a 66,634-word corpus of 424 unedited
classifieds published in 48 consecutive editions of the South
African Daily Sun newspaper as well as on a
54,000-word corpus of ethnographic interviews with meso-/acrolectal
Pedi, Sotho, Swati, Tswana, Xhosa and Zulu L1-speakers of English.
The chapter addresses the central role of the ancestors in
traditional and retraditionalized Black South African communities
and the importance of intact communicative bonds between the
physical and the spiritual parts of the community. In addition, the
analysis produces lexico-semantic evidence for the processes of
nativization and contextualizations in Black South African English
by examining the ritualized communicative act of throwing
bones as conducted by diviner-diagnosticians in mediated
ancestral communication. Finally, the chapter proposes a model
representation of the vertical organization of ancestral
communication schemas in Black South African English. The present
chapter communicates with Peters (2021), which
provides a more detailed account of the cultural-conceptual
background of witchcraft and traditional healing
as represented in Black South African English herbalist
classifieds.
Article outline
- 1.Introduction
- 2.Data and method
- 3.Herbalist advertisements and representations of ancestors
- 4.Ancestors in sub-Saharan and South Africa
- 5.The communicative dimension: Traditional healers as mediators
- 6.‘Throwing bones’ as a ritualized communicative act
- 7.Conceptualizations of ancestral communication
- 8.Conclusion
-
Notes
-
References
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