Abstract

Speakers in multilingual societies have access at any given time to a wide range of different languages and language varieties to meet their communicative needs. This access presents them with at least three dilemmas each time they open their mouths: (a) Who am I? (b) How do others perceive me? (c) How would I actually want to be perceived (Kamwangamalu 1992: 33)? A related dilemma, one might add, is (d) what linguistic means one should use to express one's desired identity or identities? This paper looks at how the members of the “Colored” community of Wentworth use language to respond to these challenges in post-apartheid South Africa. More specifically, the paper examines the linguistic mechanisms that the members of this community employ to construct, maintain, manage, negotiate, or renegotiate their social identities. For instance, to what extent do the social meanings and social histories with which languages such as English, Afrikaans, and African languages have become associated determine the members' linguistic choices in a given interaction? And what is the members' attitude toward the various identity-carrying linguistic mechanisms available in their linguistic repertoire?