This thesis examines the practice of an Argentine Tango dance community in the East Midlands, England. It is an ethnographic study whose objectives are to investigate this instance of a local transcultural dance practice in order to learn about participants’ motivations; their experience of and identification with Argentine Tango; and the meanings produced in the process of their participation. As a social dancer, teacher and insider researcher, I employ embodiment as a key methodological strategy in order to engage with and share the experience of dancing with participants; to gain sensory understanding and bodily knowledge of the practice; and in the process to gain access to further avenues of meaning-making amongst participants. The study considers questions arising directly from my teaching role to do with the transmission and reproduction of the dance, authenticity, the production of meaning, the construction and performance of identity and the imaginative construction of post-modern cultural practices. The nature of space and place is considered, as is Turner’s distinction between liminoid and liminal activity with regard to ritual and communitas in relation to Argentine Tango. Alongside participant discussions, I explore various perspectives on the cosmopolitan appropriation and exoticisation of Argentine Tango; the diffusion, re-territorialisation and globalisation of Argentine Tango since the late 1980s. Data was produced using ethnographic tools, including video recording, shared reviewing and feedback from participants. The thesis analyses findings to show how participants project narratives of the imagination into their dancing, thereby providing frameworks of meaning which crucially underpin and sustain this practice. These imagined narratives are compared to journeys, both literal and of the imagination, enabling the creative construction of new identities, the exploration of self in relation to others and an escape from everyday life in postmodernity.

Masters of Art / There has been a great deal of research exploring Halliday’s (1978, 1994, 2004)Systemic Functional Linguistic (SFL) approach. However, there has been little work that specifically targets SFL to explore African discourse. Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) views language as “social semiotic”, that is, language is functional in terms of what it can do or what can be done with it; and semantic in that it is used to make meanings (Halliday’s, 1978). This study explores SFL to analyse narratives of identity as told by Yoruba students at three Western Cape Universities: University of the Western Cape (UWC), University of Cape Town (UCT) and University of Stellenbosch (SUN). This research is both quantitative and qualitative in outlook and results of the study are presented. I used the qualitative method to collect and analyse the data; but a certain amount of quantitative analysis was presented as well in order to determine the predominant identity options favoured by the students. A total of 14 Yoruba students were interviewed for data collection which was analysed with SFL interpersonal metafunction theoretical approach. Specifically, the study examines linguistic choices that the students utilize to maintain and reconstruct their identities in Cape Town. This concentrates on the aspects of Mood component combining Subject and Finite element, Residual component comprising Predicator, Complement and Adjunct as well as Modality in participants’ narratives. Besides, an important aspect of the study was the consideration given to ethical issues. Analyses are presented on tables showing the frequencies of the interpersonal elements as configuration for preference use of different Subjects, Finites, Predicators, Complement and Adjuncts to either strengthen or weaken positions. Equally, the metaphorically expressions of objectivity to highlight the continuities and contradictions in the students’ narratives of identity in the diaspora was considered. These serve as interpersonal elements used by participants for stylizing and personalizing different identities options. Also, the study presents how the students organize their message for cohesion/coherence in their narratives. Thus, SFL establishes how the linguistic choices of the students reflect identity options in their new environment. The study shows the strengths of systemic-functional approach in its integration of what the students said, with what they might mean within the situation in which they said them. Finally, I conclude that these elements of interpersonal metafunction framework make participants’ narratives coherent while revealing the different identities they appropriated in the diaspora.