Translanguaging as a strategy for essential communication during the Covid-19 pandemic: A discourse analysis of a government official’s YouTube posts and the comments they prompted

Abstract

During the pandemic, governments around the world had to implement innovative measures to ensure that lives were safe. Studies show that social media engagements between the South African government and the public soared during the Covid-19 pandemic. Unfortunately, open-access social media platforms were rife with misinformation that infiltrated people’s lives and spread rapidly throughout the nation. It is for that reason that the Minister of Higher Education, Science and Innovation, Blade Nzimande, had to implement translanguaging as a multilingual strategy to combat the infodemic. This study examines the Minister's translingual segments and the responses made by students on YouTube after the Minister used African languages to clarify controversial topics. The researcher used the chat box on YouTube to observe and select translanguaging responses from the audience. This research argues that Minister Nzimande utilized a translingual strategy at various points in his briefings to prevent misinformation from spreading. In addition, the findings indicate that positive audience responses increased during the moments when the Minister translanguaged in an Indigenous language.