Volume: 1  Number: 1  Page: 39–59

The Language of Multiculturalism in South African Soaps and Sitcoms

Ian Barnard California State University, Northridge, USA

This paper examines selected episodes from recent South African television sitcoms and soap operas in order to show how current popular culture in South Africa is working alongside political and social institutions to both chronicle the transformation of the country into a multicultural democracy and imaginatively/materially create a New South Africa. Using cultural studies methodology and rhetorical analysis, I first explore the political meanings of popular local soap operas and sitcoms on South African television. Then I demonstrate the development of these programmes' political agendas in the deployment of multilingualism as a rhetorical device. My ultimate goal is not only to argue for the political role of these television shows in South Africa, but also to draw out the implications of particular discourses in these programmes for culture and policy beyond the South African scene. These shows' representations of linguistic fragmentation, cultural hybridity and multiple sites of struggle are enabled through a variety of discursive techniques such as metaphor and language medium as well as historical contextualisation. They suggest models of postcolonial multicultural democracy that counter patriarchal ethnic nationalisms and essentialist demands for linguistic purity.

Keywords: soap operas, South Africa, metaphor, multilingualism, democracy

© 2006 I. Barnard

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