Changing the Message from „Don‟t‟ to „Do‟: Awareness-raising Strategies for Responsible Alcohol Use at a South African University

This paper provides an overview of research on drinking behavior at a South African University. It describes new interventions, aimed to focus more positively on norms and the environment, and using Systemic Functional Grammar as a tool, provides a comparative linguistic analysis of the language used in ‘public’, alcohol-related texts before and after these interventions, in order to highlight the powerful effect of language in influencing attitudes to alcohol usage. After a brief discussion of these findings, some implications for practitioners are suggeste