SANDTON: a Linguistic Ethnography of Small Stories in a Site of Luxury
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Department of Linguistics School of Literature, Language and Media University of the Witwatersrand SANDTON: A linguistic ethnography of small stories in a site of luxury […] Linda [we were like (…) in (…) we were partying in Taboo right (1.0) and the::n (0.7) the person who was supposed to fetch didn’t come (…)•hhh (1.0) he wasn’t answering his phone (.)•hh (1.0) and it’s like wha::::t (0.6) three a.m. in the morning (1.9) [coughs] and the:n he wasn’t answering his pho:::ne (2.0) [clears throat] my friend wanted to pee::: oh my gosh it was a disa(hh)ster […] By William Kelleher Student number 566746 Professor Tommaso Milani, Supervisor Thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy January 2018 ABSTRACT This is a linguistic ethnography that focuses on small stories (Bamberg and Georgakopoulou 2008, De Fina 2009, De Fina and Georgakopoulou 2015, Georgakopoulou 2006a and 2006b, 2008, 2014) within Bucholtz and Hall’s (2005) approach to identity and interaction. These two intersecting theoretical scaffoldings are completed by a geosemiotic approach (Scollon and Scollon 2003) to the discursive environment. The research therefore studies narrative interactions within communities of practice (Eckert and McConnell-Ginet 1992, 2007) across the spaces and fields of the research site of Sandton, Johannesburg; investigating both participant behaviour and discursive environment, in particular with respect to the semiotic landscape. It is a ‘new’ ethnography in that its aim is to better understand the new spaces of South Africa’s cities (Duff 2014). Methodologically the narrative interactions of participants are plotted onto the space of Sandton using GIS technology. This allows attention to be brought to the trajectories of participants and thus to change in interactive style, role and behaviour as participants enter, remain within and leave the site. Three principles of identity and interaction are explored and unpacked in depth for this linguistic ethnography: emergence, positionality and relationality. In addition to a focus on the site itself and its socio-historic processes, this thesis examines the trajectories across the space of the site, institutional discourse and practice through four emblematic companies and, finally, the ‘Born Free’ or ‘millenial’ participants. Through the different participants the research seeks to give an account of the subjectivities and understandings that will be relevant to the present, and future, of the site, and of the country. Axes of investigation are emergence of identity work, masculinity, religion, modernity, codeswitching, positionality with respect to macro, meso and micro discourses and interaction, and tactics of intersubjectivity (Bucholtz and Hall 2004b). KEYWORDS small stories; narrative; interaction; identity; field; semiotic landscape; geosemiotics; ethnography; Sandton; emergence; masculinity; religion; modernity; codeswitching; translanguaging; positioning; discourse; intersubjectivity; relationality; Born Frees DEDICATION To Lucie, Ida, Lena and Dudu. To my family. To Tommaso. In warm recognition of the financing received from: NRF INNOVATION GRANT OPPENHEIMER MEMORIAL TRUST Acknowledgements: This thesis would have been impossible without the kind support from - Ayanda Masuku of the City of Johannesburg - Elaine Jack from Sandton Central management district - Megan Meas from JHI at Sandton City Mall - The teams at the Sandton City Convention Centre - The management at the Johannesburg Stock Exchange - Audacity and QGIS software, operationalised with the aid of Dr Alistair McInnes from Nelson Mandela University and the team at MandalaGIS - All of the participants to this study who gave their time and their patience and of which full details are provided in Appendix 2-2 William Kelleher - 566746 Page 1 DECLARATION I declare that this thesis is my own work. All citations, references and existing research have been duly acknowledged. I confirm that I did not use an external editor. I further confirm that none of the present work has been submitted previously for any degree or examination in any other university. ______________________________________ Student name ______________________________________ Date William Kelleher - 566746 Page 2 Table of Contents SANDTON: A linguistic ethnography of small stories in a site of luxury ..........................................................................0 ABSTRACT ........................................................................................................................................................................0 KEYWORDS ......................................................................................................................................................................0 DEDICATION ....................................................................................................................................................................1 Acknowledgements: ............................................................................................................................................................1 DECLARATION.................................................................................................................................................................2 Table of Contents ................................................................................................................................................................3 List of tables ........................................................................................................................................................................6 List of figures ......................................................................................................................................................................6 List of transcript excerpts .................................................................................................................................................. 10 Introduction ....................................................................................................................................................................... 12 Where does this research fit in? .............................................................................................................................. 14 Aims ........................................................................................................................................................................ 15 Chapter overview and thesis presentation ............................................................................................................... 16 Chapter 1....................................................................................................................................................... 16 Chapter 2....................................................................................................................................................... 16 Chapter 3....................................................................................................................................................... 17 Chapter 4....................................................................................................................................................... 17 Chapter 5....................................................................................................................................................... 17 Chapter 6....................................................................................................................................................... 17 Chapter 7....................................................................................................................................................... 17 Appendices ................................................................................................................................................... 17 Chapter 1 – Sandton .......................................................................................................................................................... 18 Introduction ............................................................................................................................................................. 18 The place ................................................................................................................................................................. 24 Access and the broader spatiality ............................................................................................................................ 34 Artifacts of the semiotic landscape ......................................................................................................................... 46 Conclusions for chapter 1 ....................................................................................................................................... 56 Chapter 2 – Theorising the work of this thesis (literature review) .................................................................................... 57 Introduction ............................................................................................................................................................. 57 Narrative research and small stories........................................................................................................................ 58 Big stories and small stories ...................................................................................................................................