grammatical constraints and motivations for - University of the ...

mobility and the elite. The caller refers to his company car, conveying the
impression that he is well-off and has a good job. Thus, using English amplifies
the identity he wishes to portray. By using English fluently, he is able to convey
the impression that he is educated, holds a good position within the company in
which he is employed and should therefore be regarded as above average.
The host responds to the caller in English, as is expected, showing consistency
with the trend of responding in the language in which one is addressed. There are,
however, a few switches to Afrikaans which can be accounted for in terms of
social motivations.
In turn 667, the host switches to Afrikaans, saying: “laat ek nou mooi verstaan.”
Here he attempts to clarify some confusion and also to draw attention or shift the
focus back to the topic at hand. Prior to this switch, the conversation had become
a mixture of random Xhosa utterances. Thus, by switching to Afrikaans, the host
is able to convey a serious tone, while also shifting the focus of the conversation
back to the original topic.
The next switch to Afrikaans, which occurs in the same turn, serves a phatic
function as well (Appel & Muysken, 1987), as it allows the host to convey a
humorous, but also sarcastic, tone. Ironically, the host uses the Afrikaans
pronoun, ‘jy’, as opposed to the English, ‘you’. This implies that even though the
caller speaks English only in an effort to distance himself from the average
Kaapse Afrikaans speaker, the host still regards him as a member of the Cape
Flats speech community (probably due to the accent with which he speaks
English) and thus switches as a means of indexing the identity that he associates
with the caller.
In turn 669 the host switches to Afrikaans in order to change the tone yet again.
By saying, “sê net jy ry in ‘n kar”, he is able to convey the humor that would not
have been achieved with the English equivalent – “just say you drive a car.” The
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