Unlike previous
studies which maintained that this variety consisted of a mere conglomeration of “errors”
that needed remedial attention (e.g. Lanham 1984), the last 17 years were, conversely,
characterized by a plethora of studies drawing attention to the sociolinguistic reality that
local innovations in this variety have taken root (e.g. De Klerk 2003; Kasanga 2003;
Makalela 2004b; Mesthrie 2004) and that these innovations are reproduced through what
Blommaert, Muyllaert, Huysmans and Dyers (2005: 379) consider a “reappropriation of
the unattainable English.”