Research Trip to Johannesburg (South Africa) and Bulawayo (Zimbabwe)

Research Trip to Johannesburg (South Africa) and Bulawayo (Zimbabwe)

To follow-up with and finalize research on youth language practices in South Africa and Zimbabwe, I went on a research trip to Johannesburg and Bulawayo in March-April 2024. In Johannesburg, I continued my research on youth language practices which I had started the year before in Durban. It was interesting to notice differences and variation between the language practices in both cities. The local language expert and isiZulu teacher Celimpilo Ndebele contributed greatly to the project through his knowledge and assistance. Together we discussed and worked through language data and collected new linguistic material. The highlight of the research trip was a visit to Soweto and an interview with Bra Nani and his colleagues in which we gained insights into various youth language practices and their social and geographical contexts.

In Bulawayo we met up with speakers of Zimbabwean slang and continued the research started in 2022. This also included visiting events and places of youth culture in the city. The main focus of the short time spend in Bulawayo was on completing the transcriptions, translations and analysis of the youth language conversations recorded for our corpus in 2022 together with our local research assistant Keith Moyo. In particular, I learned a lot about similarities between isiNdebele and isiZulu in general and with regard to youth language practices and was able to understand and analyze examples of noun class variation.

Picture of Andrea Hollington

Andrea Hollington

Post Doc, Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz

More Activities

Fieldwork Nassenstein

Fieldwork in Kinshasa, DR Congo, March-April 2022

In March I traveled to Kinshasa, the capital of the DR Congo, to collect data on “Lingala ya BaYankee”, the Yankees’ Lingala or urban youth ...
Read More
Interview Andrea Hollington Hatua kwa Hatuna

Hatua kwa Hatua – Interview with Andrea Hollington

Andrea Hollington was interviewed about her research on lugha ya mtaani by Muslim Nassor for Hatua kwa Hatua
Read More
about the project

Workshop: What is Innovation? 1-2 October 2022

Workshop 1-2 October 2022 What is innovation? On the first weekend of October, our project team and our advisory board members met at the University ...
Read More
Maskani – a youth chill spot in Stone Town, Zanzibar

Fieldwork in Tanzania July/August 2022

Together with my research assistant Faris Ramadhani I explored Kiswahili youth language practices, often referred to as lugha ya mtaani in Stone Town, Zanzibar and ...
Read More
fieldtrip SA

Research trip to Durban, South Africa

To conduct further research on microvariation in isiZulu/isiNdebele, I spent April 2023 in Durban (South Africa) after having done fieldwork in Bulawayo (Zimbabwe) the year ...
Read More
Presentation Nancy

Research Impact workshop and online research methods seminar in Zambia – February/March

Research Impact workshop and online research methods seminar in Zambia Hannah, Nancy, and Elvis organised a workshop and seminar in Zambia. Here are some highlights ...
Read More