ABSTRACT

This paper engages the weaponisation of democratic multilingualism in South African parliamentary debate on the part of opposition political party, the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF). It focuses on the mobilisation of English language performatives like “calling points of order” during televised parliamentary debates. Such moments, I demonstrate, engender multilingual interactions that can become heated, even leading to physical confrontation. As a result, the EFF’s parliamentary presence has been described by many political analysts and casual observers alike, as deliberately “disruptive” or “chaotic” degenerations of public order. For many, including the ruling African National Congress (ANC) and Democratic Alliance (DA), as well as many liberal analysts, the EFF’s political ascent via the media, has been dismissed as purely the result of populist or even “fascist” appeal, lacking any political motivation beyond the explicit sabotage of public order and reckless perpetuation of the EFF brand. In engaging some of the pragmatist concerns of Austinian language performativity (1975), this paper presents an alternative to the dominant narrative of dysfunction through which the EFF’s relationship to South African mass-mediated political discourse has been described.

摘要

本文涉及反对派政党“经济自由战士”（EFF）在南非议会辩论中对民主多语制的武器化。它着重于在电视辩论中动员英语表演者，如“命令的要点”。我证明了这样的时刻，会引起多语种的互动，这种互动会变得激烈，甚至导致身体上的对抗。结果，许多政治分析家和临时观察员都将联邦军在议会中的存在描述为故意破坏公共秩序的“破坏性”或“混乱”状态。对于许多人来说，包括执政的非洲人国民大会（ANC）和民主联盟（DA）以及许多自由派分析师，EFF通过媒体在政治上的崛起，被视为纯粹是民粹主义甚至是“法西斯主义”呼吁的结果而被驳回，除了明显破坏公共秩序和鲁per地延续EFF品牌之外，没有任何政治动机。为了解决奥斯汀语言表现力的一些实用主义问题（1975年），本文提出了对功能障碍的主要叙述的另一种选择，通过该叙述描述了联邦紧急基金与南非大众媒介式政治话语的关系。