Social stratification of some Zulu phonemes—a fieldwork report

Abstract

The purpose of this article is, firstly, to demonstrate the application of some methodological fieldwork principles to a restricted sociolinguistic survey undertaken in a semi-urban speech community in KwaZulu-Natal. Secondly, it will be indicated that the structured nature of language variation is revealed by such an investigation even at a low level of methodological sophistication. An interesting conclusion to be drawn from the survey is that the direction of language change can be shown at this level, something which is normally only possible when employing the parameter of style variation.