Language use in postcolonial Zimbabwean alternative theatre performance

Abstract

This paper deploys the sociolinguistic concepts of indexicality and language ideologies to examine Amakhosi Theatre Productions and Rooftop Promotions’ use of language and linguistic frames as a performance resistive strategy in the postcolonial Zimbabwean landscape. These concepts offer a framework to critically appraise the political, social, ideological and cultural meanings latent in language/s used in alternative theatre performances, which have the ability to influence and define identities and ideological structures. From this lens, colonial residual hegemony, dominance and cultural subjugation expressed through English and/or Shona are challenged and re-framed through code- switching, translanguaging and language mixing. From an interpretive approach, this paper shows that the creative linguistic methods employed by Amakhosi Theatre Productions and Rooftop Promotions to reject normative and metropolitan power enforced by English purists (Ndebele and Shona in the context of Zimbabwe) over means of communication. In essence, this paper provides deeper insights into syncretic linguistic forms, and culture vis-à-vis colonial residual domination, hegemony and cultural subjugation in postcolonial Zimbabwean alternative theatre.