"Coconut" notes: Discursive constructions of race identity in South Africa

Title:

"Coconut" notes: Discursive constructions of race identity in South Africa

Creator:

Rudwick, Stephanie

Identifier:

https://cdk.lib.cas.cz/client/handle/uuid:95afe714-d571-4561-9043-c4c2f5621d28
uuid:95afe714-d571-4561-9043-c4c2f5621d28

Subject:

South Africa, race identities, language, culture, and discourse

Type:

model:article and TEXT

Format:

bez média and svazek

Description:

This study examines how South Africans construct and negotiate racial identities in written commentaries via a forum of the Mail@Guardian website Thought Leader in response to a blog by Ndumiso Ngcobo entitled “I’m a coconut and I am proud of it – say it with me.” Ngcobo’s ironic opinion piece, written in 2008, which plays with the label “coconut” (frequently employed in South Africa among “black” people in reference to another “black” person who seemingly behaves “white”), triggered 163 responses from individual readers. An essential point made by Ngcobo is that perceptions and attitudes around “whiteness” and “blackness,” or what can be considered “white” or “black” in racial terms, vary greatly, depending on circumstances and perspective. However, the author’s irreverent and ironic style is misunderstood and misinterpreted by many of the comment writers. Relying partially on the methodological framework of Critical Discourse Analysis, I analyze the commentary texts and interpret the categories people use in their discursive constructions of race and identity by examining their stylistic choices and content markers and focusing on sociolinguistic and cultural issues. It is argued that the analyzed comments are representative not only of the pervasiveness of “rigid” race thinking but also of how intra-racial boundaries are constructed in the post-apartheid state.

Language:

English

Rights:

http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/
policy:public

Source:

Archiv orientální | 2010 Volume:78 | Number:1

Harvested from:

CDK

Metadata only:

false