Analysing social identity in casual Zambian/English conversation: a systemic functional linguistic approach

Abstract

The study uses systemic functional linguistics' conversational analysis (cf Eggins & Slade, 1997) to investigate role structure as well as to analyse encoded statuses and dimensions of social identity in Zambian/English casual conversation. The focus is on how multilingual Zambians use the repertoire of languages at their disposal to reflect and construct dimensions of social identity, interpersonal relationships and culture. Through an analysis of sentence-level grammatical patterns, and of speakers' mood choices in particular, the study shows how interactants construct identities (‘self' and ‘other') and social roles, as well as role relationships. The study also shows how the social roles male-female appear to require distinctive grammatical behaviours, with implications for power relationships between interactants. Ultimately, the study tries to show how interactants' code choices, that is, strategic switching between English and the various Zambian languages, and between Zambian languages themselves, signal specific roles, statuses and relationships.

Southern African Linguistics and Applied Language Studies 2005, 23(3): 217–231