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Periodical article | Leiden University catalogue | WorldCat |
Title: | Ghosts with ears: the WESSA in contemporary drama |
Author: | Banning, Y. |
Year: | 1989 |
Periodical: | The English Academy Review |
Volume: | 6 |
Pages: | 19-27 |
Language: | English |
Geographic term: | South Africa |
Subjects: | English-speaking South Africans literature English language drama |
External link: | https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10131758985310051 |
Abstract: | During the seventies and early eighties, the ESSAs (English-speaking South Africans), a small but articulate group in South Africa, were characterized by their native English usage, their political liberalism and their historically determined status as a privileged dominant minority. ESSA membership was racially prescriptive. The ESSA was, more properly, a white ESSA, a WESSA. In the 1980s, there has been an upsurge of indigenous theatrical performances in English by both black and white ESSAs. Oral English performance for second language ESSAs tends to be less inhibiting, and English gains by an increase in new or borrowed vocabulary. A consequence is that the WESSA playmaker's sense of himself and his relations with English and with other ESSAs has begun to realign. His identity no longer depends on a distinctive race/language configuration. This identity crisis can be resolved by seeking a new identity, determined by different defining characteristics. An analysis of two plays, 'The fantastical history of a useless man' (1976) and 'Sophiatown' (1986), shows that this process is taking place at the moment. Another play, 'Asinamali', provides evidence that English usage by second language ESSAs is assisting the WESSA in his transitional stage by providing him with a possible new set of identifying characteristics. Bibliogr. |