OpenUCT :: Browsing by Subject "Languages and Literatures"

Browsing by Subject "Languages and Literatures"

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Open Access
A commentary on book 6 of Achilles Tatius Leucippe and Clitophon
(2022) Bentel, Berenice; Chandler, Clive
Achilles Tatius' novel, Leucippe and Clitophon (2nd c. CE), is a product of the literary experimentation in prose fiction during the Greek intellectual renaissance under the Roman Empire known as the Second Sophistic. For all appearances, the story follows the usual narrative course of the ancient Greek erotic adventure novels: boy meets girl, love occurs at first sight, and Fate attempts to keep them apart, triggering an odyssey of bizarre escapades and daring exploits that reaches its inevitable happy conclusion with their reunion and marriage. Achilles Tatius, however, takes each of these tropes far beyond their usual scope, displaying a ludic (and at times ludicrous) panache for defying the genre. This thesis provides the first extensive literary and philological commentary devoted exclusively to the Sixth Book of the novel. I examine both Achilles' unconventional approach to genre and storytelling, and his play on prevailing theories of psychology, physiology, and philosophy to enrich and enliven his narrative.
Open Access
And ever shall be? A model for teaching French as a foreign language in South African tertiary institutions
(2008) Everson, Vanessa Marguerite; Wardle, David
The assumption underpinning the thesis is that the current teaching of French at South African universities caters imperfectly for learner needs and fails to reflect pedagogical practice and learning theories appropriate to the twenty-first century. Firstly, so as to contextualise that teaching, the Western European legacy of secondand foreign-language teaching is examined briefly from earliest times to the latter part of the twentieth century. Particular attention is given to changes in practice and learning theories over time with the aim of understanding the roots of the teaching of French while detecting possible lasting influences on that teaching. Secondly, current practice (curriculum, pedagogy, and assessment) at fourteen South African universities offering undergraduate courses in French is analysed critically against the backdrop of more recent learning theories; these are found to have little resonance in current practice. The analysis informs the model which is then proposed for the teaching of tertiary-level French at South African institutions. The starting point for the model is the acknowledgement that in South Africa French is a foreign language and must be taught as such. Consideration is given to the learning environment, as well as to ideology and constraints which exert influence on the teaching of French. With the proposed model a certain concept of language, society and learning/teaching strategies is advocated, while the roles of the learner, teacher, didactic material, and the mother tongue are clearly positioned within that concept. The model proposes a pedagogy and curriculum, which are learner-centred, taskarticulated and outcomes-based and which are anchored in constructivism and democratising ideology. Finally, reasons are given as to why the adoption of such a model would add value to the teaching of French at South African universities.
Open Access
“Collecting spring water reminds us how to be human”: in search of an ethic of care for the springs of southern Cape Town
(2021) Tyrrell, Jessica; Green, Lesley
Between 2015 and 2018 Cape Town was affected by a drought more severe than any on record. When it became clear that Cape Town might actually run out of water, thousands of its citizens flocked to the historical springs that flow from Table Mountain's groundwater, which for many of whom it was their first time collecting spring water. However, at the height of the water crisis, the municipality cemented over one of these vital springs after numerous complaints of disturbance by residents. Piped to a newly constructed water collection site enclosed by fences a kilometer away, the water was made accessible to the public through 16 industrial taps. While this action from the municipality may have been the only viable solution, it was experienced as a huge loss to the people of Cape Town. This study investigates why the design of the current spring water collection point became the source of such criticism. It compares the re-designed site with two of Cape Town's southern springs that still flow freely, investigating the meaning and influence of unrestricted flowing spring water through public engagement on site, asking what draws people to collect spring water. Key themes that emerged include health and wellbeing; and connection with other humans, with history, with nature and with a greater spirit. Springs are powerful agents for an ethic of care, the study finds, and water a powerful medium of connection. Yet, the city's water policies are shaped by the kind of thinking that sees water only as a commodity, reflected in an urban design that further alienates people from water and nature. In this era of the Anthropocene, itself a condition of this alienation of people from the earth, the paper concludes and proposes biophilic design principles that foster the sensibilities of connection and interdependence as a vital part of urban design for a shared future where people come to know what it means to be human as participants within a living world.
Open Access
Development and empowerment of previously-marginalised languages: a case of African languages in South Africa
(2021) Saliwa-Mogale, Ncebakazi Faith; Motinyane, Mantoa Rose
South Africa is a multilingual country with 11 official languages and 9 of these languages are Indigenous African languages. The South African government has developed policies and created an environment for these languages to be developed. National and provincial language policies have been adopted and the country has even passed a language Act called the Use of Official Languages Act, 2012. The national Department of Education has also passed policies and Acts that enable indigenous languages to be made compulsory to all learners in all public schools in the foundation phase. Despite all these efforts, very little has been done to implement these policies. The aim of this study is to interrogate the role played by these language bodies in the implementation of the National Language Policies, particularly the development and empowerment of these previously marginalized languages. Using textual analysis, questionnaires and interviews, the study identified the bottlenecks in the system that hinder the development of these languages. Amongst the many obstructions that were uncovered, is the increased economic benefit associated with English and how this continues to undermine efforts to elevate the status of African languages. Further, this linguistic hegemony has created a situation where speakers of the nine indigenous African languages are denied access to social, economic and political developments of the country, a clear violation of language rights enshrined in the Constitution of South Africa. The study concludes by making recommendations on steps that can be taken to develop African languages in South Africa.
Open Access
Lyrik im dialog : die gedichte Jose F. A. Olivers
(2006) Van Ryneveld, Hannelore; Pakendorf, Gunther
The literary origins of the poet Jose F.A. Oliver lie in the field of guest-worker or migrant literature, which is located on the periphery of German mainstream literature. It remains a contested and to date not fully explored territory with the differing terminologies used to define this literature ranging from guest-worker literature or literature of foreigners to the more recent intercultural literature, the term used in this thesis.
Open Access
Online language teaching during the Covid-19 pandemic: French teachers' experiences and perspectives
(2022) Fazluddin, Raeesa; Schmid, Karin
This research dissertation examines the online teaching experience of university French teachers in South Africa and Eswatini during the Covid-19 crisis. It aims to understand the emerging technological teaching practices to contribute to the body of knowledge in the field of foreign language teaching and learning in the technological era. A questionnaire was developed to interrogate the teachers' practices, objectives, and approaches regarding the use of technology for pedagogical purposes as well as the advantages and challenges they faced while teaching French online. From the analysis of the responses received to the questionnaire, this dissertation highlights the different technological tools and learning formats that are emerging in online learning. It also brings to the fore the pedagogical challenges of these emerging practices while considering the future of foreign language pedagogy in the technological era.
Open Access
Relanguaging language in English(ing) classrooms in Khayelitsha South Africa
(2019) Krause, Lara-Stephanie; Dowling, Tessa; Beck, Rose Marie
Institutional language teaching is built on the assumption that languages exist as homogeneous entities and is aimed at the mastery of standardised codes. In this view, English teaching in South African township schools is failing. Learners (and teachers) underperform in standardised English tests and are repeatedly described – by stakeholders in schooling and by scholars of language in education – as ‘ cut off’ from standard linguistic norms needed for success beyond the township. But is linguistic deficit all we can find in township English classrooms, given that the day-to-day language practices in these settings are known to be heterogeneous, flexible and creative? I begin here by taking this local linguistic heterogeneity seriously, asking: What does language education in Khayelitsha look like through a lens that is not a priori structured by separate, homogenised languages? In the first part of this thesis I develop such an analytical lens. I begin by committing not to use some key linguistic terms that imply a view of languages as discrete, homogeneous entities. I then engage with (trans)languaging literature and the inchoative sociolinguistic notion of ‘spatial repertoires’, conceptualising ‘languaging’ for my purposes as a spatial practice, with which speakers draw on and transform elements of spatial repertoires. This spatial perspective doesn’t allow for surface-level categorisation of linguistic phenomena. It demands instead fine-grained, situated analyses that I conduct with tools from Bantu linguistics, conversation analysis and ethnography, on data from participant observation, recorded classroom talk, a learners’ writing task and teacher interviews. Rather than training the spotlight on the alleged lack of Standard English, I show the Khayelitshan English classroom to be a space of specific linguistic possibilities, ordered by teachers through a linguistic sorting practice I call relanguaging. This practice instantiates teachers’ negotiations of Khayelitshan heterogeneous linguistic realities, and the demands of a centralised curriculum and testing system, in the classroom. Learners are also shown to be ‘relanguagers’, who display complex linguistic sorting processes in their writing, juggling what I find to be an oversupply rather than an undersupply of standard linguistic norms. My empirical findings and my conceptualisation of relanguaging, which develops and complexifies throughout this thesis, allow me to systematically unsettle a construction of linguistic hetero- and homogeneity as mutually exclusive. This comes with a theoretical critique of ‘translanguaging’ as a linguistic descriptor that, in my view, reifies a dichotomy between fluid languaging and fixed standard languages. As a result, it makes us overlook the relationality in practice regarding these two dimensions of language and the complexities that result therefrom. With the dichotomy between languaging and languages dissolved, I end by proposing ways of testing for Standard English beyond its own confines, i.e. to test for increasingly sophisticated linguistic sorting skills instantiated in emergent englishing.
Open Access
Socio-political challenges of marginal religious groups: the Sabbatean movement as a case study
(2018) Gencoglu, Halim; Reisenberger, Azila
Minority religious communities, like the Sabbateans, have often been labelled and marginalised by mainstream religions. At times, their leaders have been labelled as ‘false messiahs’ by society or the state. To what extent do states play a role in facilitating the integration of diverse groupings? This question is particularly topical in the 21st century context of cross-border migrations, but also a perennial question facing society, as minority religious movements developed throughout history. The study focuses on one of the minority movements in Abrahamic religions, Sabbateanism. It analyses the development of the Sabbateanism by controversial Jewish Rabbi, Shabbetai Tzvi in the Ottoman Empire. Tvzi attracted many followers, but also received criticism from orthodox Jews and others, especially when he converted to Islam. The thesis analyses how the movement evolved during Tzvi’s life, and after his death, and what may have urged his followers to hide their religious identities. It then compares this movement with other controversial minority movements, such as Crypto-Christianity and the Ahmadiyya movement in Islam. This comparison offers insight into the minority groups’ challenges, and into the reasons that they have been labelled as ‘heretical’ in Islamic, Christian and Jewish societies. In terms of methodology, the study draws on unique archival materials from Turkey and Israel, dating back to the 17th century. The thesis traces Turkish-Jewish relations prevailing in Asia from the 7th century onwards, to contextualise the Ottoman state’s approach towards Tzvi and his religious movement. It then analyses the State policies towards Sabbateanism and other minority groups. The study critically examines these instances in world history when minorities have been labelled as heratical and some are still labeled as such, even though “tolerance” and “respect” are considered the hallmark of modernization. The study shows that Ottoman rulers developed an elaborate system to accommodate non-Muslim (Dhimmi) societies within the Islamic state. This is perhaps what inspired Toynbee, who was otherwise critical of the Ottoman Empire, to describe it as close to ‘Plato’s ideal state’. This said, the research findings prompt critical reflections on the role of state policies in Ottoman times and beyond, and the effects of religious and national identities on the assertion and flourishing of minority groups.
Open Access
The emergence of a rural/urban contrast in the vocabulary of Xhosa-speakers: a study in semantic shift in 15 Xhosa words and its relation to age, geographical area and language attitudes
(2022) Gcingca, Luvo; Dowling, Teresa
In this study I explored the possible emergence of a rural/urban contrast in the vocabulary of Xhosa. In order to focus the study I used 15 Xhosa words that appeared to be undergoing semantic shift and researched the meanings ascribed to these words with Xhosa-speakers in both rural and urban areas. Using a sociolinguistic theoretical framework I investigated the connection between socio-demographic data (as well as language attitudes held by speakers) and the influence of these factors on semantic choice. I used a qualitative methodological design, with purposeful sampling in these areas. The reason for selecting these areas was in order to incorporate both urban and rural styles of speech. Data was collected by means of open ended questionnaires and structured interview questions with participants across a wide age-range. This data was carefully analyzed according to how speakers use these terms during their conversations and in writing, and was then recorded, summarized and interpreted by means of descriptive statistics. The results of this study suggest that a possible urban/rural contrast is emerging in the lexicon of Xhosa speakers, with young, urban speakers being responsible for more innovative semantics than their counterparts in rural areas. The study also examined motivations for the semantic shift in the selected terms – sociocultural and emotionally marked motivations would appear to dominate with speakers choosing new meanings to suit their altered cultural environments and a new openness to talking about casual sex. The dominant semantic processes involved metaphorization, metonomy, amelioration, pejoration and bleaching, with most of the selected words becoming more polysemous. From these results recommendations are made for terminology development, dictionary revision, mother-tongue education and the creation of literature in Xhosa using the vocabulary of the youth. I conclude that further research on semantic shift in Xhosa is necessary in order to provide these sectors with reliable and useful data.
Open Access
We Belong to the Trees, A Collection of Short Stories
(2024) Mopai, Keletso; Coovadia, Imraan
Set in the mid 90s on the backdrop of South Africa's new found democracy, the ten stories explore the murder of a security guard at a farm in the Afrikaner town of Tzaneen, Limpopo. The aftermath exposes power dynamics between white bosses and Black workers in the area. Told from different perspectives and voices – young, adult, Black and white characters – each story provides accounts surrounding the murder. They reflect conflicts that arise, and as such relationships are tested; some break, others repair, while some are lost forever. In the past years since 1994, there have been several deaths of farm workers in Tzaneen. The stories are also an attempt to discuss the implications of the violence against the working class in the farming industry. At its core, We Belong to the Trees highlights the tropical regions of Limpopo as the ordinary navigate Post-Apartheid South Africa. It implores one to think about issues such as land-restitution, violence, racism, poverty, crime, and greed. The main concern as a writer is to reflect my surroundings, discuss and dissect through storytelling. The work encompasses my fears and concerns as a South African.

Browsing by Subject "Languages and Literatures"

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