"Ons skryf soos ons praat" : informalisering van geskrewe Afrikaans onder Afrikaanse tieners

Taal is voortdurend aan die verander, en een van die kragte wat op taalverandering inwerk, is informalisering, dit is die integrasie van spreektaalvorme in die skryftaal. Daar is, sover vasgestel kon word, nog geen studies onderneem na die potensiële informalisering van geskrewe Afrikaans onder Afrikaanse tieners nie. Die begrip sociolinguistic change ("sosiolinguistiese verandering"), soos voorgestel en omskryf deur Coupland (2009, aangehaal in Coupland 2014b:282), word hier ingespan om aan te dui dat taalverandering in die konteks van sosiale verandering plaasvind. Die spesifieke rol wat die media speel in die demokratisering van die openbare diskoers, word pertinent belig. Die media het die potensiaal om linguistiese variante oor geografiese grense en tyd heen te versprei, wat tot groter ooreenkomste onder dialeksprekers kan lei. In hierdie ondersoek word daar gepoog om aan die hand van korpuslinguistiese metodes te bepaal tot watter mate informalisering in die skryfwerk van Noord- en Wes-Kaapse tieners voorkom, en watter ooreenkomste daar tussen die twee tienergroepe te bespeur is. Vir hierdie doel is 65 formeel geskrewe Afrikaanse opstelle van Afrikaanse graad 10-leerders in twee verskillende provinsies (die Noord-Kaap en die Wes-Kaap) versamel. Hierdie twee stelle data is met mekaar vergelyk in terme van hul spreektaalkenmerke, asook die frekwensies van die kenmerke. Die bevindinge van die ondersoek dui daarop dat beide Wes- en Noord-Kaapse tieners gebruik maak van algemeen gebruiklike omgangsvorme en dialektiese merkers in hulle skryftaal. Van die frekwentste spreektaal- grammatiese vorme wat in die skryftaal van tieners voorkom, is die eiesoortige voorsetselgebruik, agteropplasing van uitdrukkings, die ongewone werkwoordpatroon, die regularisering van werkwoordvorme en die weglating van lidwoorde, werkwoorde, onderwerpe en voegwoorde. Die belangrikste verskille tussen die twee tienergroepe is op dialektiese gebied. Noord-Kaapse tieners is, vergeleke met hul Wes-Kaapse eweknieë, meer geneig om streeksmerkers in hul formele skryfwerk in te span. Die bevindinge dui op ’n stilistiese skuif in die rigting van informaliteit in die geskrewe Afrikaans van tieners. “We write the way we speak”: Informalisation of the written Afrikaans among Afrikaans teenagers This article examines the informalisation (also known as colloquialisation) of the written registers of two groups of Afrikaans teenagers – one from the Northern Cape, the other from the Western Cape – comparatively by way of corpus-linguistic methods. Impressionistic observations in Afrikaans newspapers about Afrikaans teenagers’ poor spelling abilities and their inability to write a single sentence without switching to English, point to a potential stylistic shift in the direction of the spoken language. No (recent) studies have been conducted on the informalisation of the written Afrikaans among Afrikaans teenagers. This purpose of this article is firstly to identify and describe the colloquial features in the written registers, and secondly to determine how frequent these colloquial forms occur. In the literature on language change, the stylistic process of informalisation is regarded as one of the forces of language change. Informalisation is generally described as "writing becoming more like speech", i.e. the increasing integration of spoken features in the written language (Leech, Hundt, Mair and Smith 2016:239). Informalisation does not happen in isolation but within the context of social change. Coupland (2009, quoted in Coupland 2014b:282) suggests that the concept of sociolinguisticchange be used for this integrated approach to language change whereby the theoretical dualism between language change and social change is challenged and brought together. The new wave of socio-political changes in South Africa since the nineties had a direct bearing on the increasing democratisation tendencies that could be observed in Afrikaans literature, the print and broadcast media, as well as the music and theatre industry. From a sociolinguistic change perspective, the specific role that media plays in "democratising the public discourse" (cf. Fairclough 1992, quoted in Mair 2015:7) is of particular relevance for this study. The media has the potential to spread linguistic variants across geographical areas, which could lead to greater similarities among dialect speakers. Such rapid linguistic changes are referred to as "off the shelf" changes (cf. Eckert 2003, quoted in Stuart-Smith, Pryce, Timmins and Gunter 2013:505). The media is viewed as a "shelf" where speakers can appropriate, recontextualise and resemiotise material from the media shelf for their own local discourse context (Buchstaller 2014). Media contextualisations of dialectal variation could legitimise such variation in those institutional spaces that were previously the preserve of the standard variety. The expectation of this study was that the adoption of spoken features in the formal written register of Afrikaans teenagers would show some degree of similarity due to the influence of mediated language. In this study, formal written Afrikaans essays were sampled from (coloured) grade 10 Afrikaans learners in two different provinces, namely the Western Cape (Piketberg) and the Northern Cape (Upington). Learners were asked to write a formal essay about predetermined topics. The Northern Cape corpus consisted of 8 297 words and the Western Cape corpus consisted of 8 120 words. These two sets of data were compared with in respect of their colloquial features, as well as the frequency of these features.The colloquial features identified could be divided into two main groups: (i) commonly used colloquial forms (colloquialisms) and (ii) dialectal forms. Dialectal forms could be further subdivided into typical regional markers and supraregional forms.