Examining instances of colonials learning the language of colonized people, rather than the inverse situation, this volume analyzes the strategies and identities of four white South Africans who learned isiXhosa during the apartheid years, to understand the relationship between power, identity, and language acquisition. It follows the life histories of four men born and raised on farms in the Eastern Cape Province of South Africa, who are fluent in isiXhosa as well as English and Afrikaans, detailing how they acquired isiXhosa and the relationships between language, power, race, identity, and change in their lives and broader society. It discusses the socio-historical background of the men's lives; the theories of language acquisition and identity and research methodologies involved in the analysis; men's accounts of language in their childhood years and rites of passage; how language, race, and power interact in their working lives; and how they construct their identities in different spaces. Annotation ©2015 Ringgold, Inc., Portland, OR (protoview.com)