Omgangsvariëteite van Afrikaans in die digkuns sedert Sestig

Abstract

Employing dialectic or colloquial varieties of Afrikaans for poetic purposes has been a trend of growing importance in the history of Afrikaans literature, especially since the advent of the Movement of the (Nineteen) Sixties. The relevant Afrikaans varieties include regional idioms like Karoo and Bushmanland Afrikaans, but also sociolects like "Loslitafrikaans" ('informal' Afrikaans, in which a significant amount of English vocabulary is introduced), forms of Cape Afrikaans, and Griqua Afrikaans. As a stylistic device, the use of dialectic Afrikaans has served - sometimes simultaneously - both literary strategic purposes (striving for poetic and/or poetry system renewal) and socio-political aims (as actuality poetry or socio-politically engaged literature). Seen in total, it transpires that the pressing socio-political and broader cultural conditions that have dictated past or are powering present developments in South Africa, loom large behind the relative importance of this trend in Afrikaans poetry.