Browsing by Subject "translanguaging"

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    A case study of multimodal and authoritative meaning making in grade 5 isiZulu, English, and Natural Sciences lessons in a quintile 1 primary school
    (2022) Msimango, Mfundo Jabulani; Mckinney, Carolyn
    This is a case study of multimodal and authoritative meaning making in grade 5 isiZulu, English, and Natural Sciences lessons in a quintile 1 primary school in KwaZulu-Natal, uMzinyathi Municipality in Nqutu. This study investigated the nature of classroom discourse in each of the subject areas and the opportunities learners have for participation in multimodal classroom discourse. This study is grounded in the socio-cultural approach, language and literacy as a social practice, and multimodality. Furthermore, this study adopted case study, and linguistic ethnography as a methodology. There are three major findings. First multimodality is not inherently pedagogically transformative, its success is determined by how multimodality is used, and integrated with the educator's pedagogy. Second, the presence and the use of multimodality and translanguaging does not compensate for monolingual assessments. That is, even though the isiZulu, English, and natural sciences educators were translanguaging and employing multiple modes of communication in the classroom, the written discourse was strictly monolingual in isiZulu/English. For example, learners were expected to write isiZulu class activities in monolingual isiZulu, and to write English and natural class activities in monolingual English, following bilingual oral classroom talk. Last, there is a similar communicative pattern across isiZulu, English, and natural sciences lessons. That is, the educators' pedagogical discourse was authoritative and interactional to a limited extent even in the isiZulu lessons where most learners are believed to be speaking isiZulu as their home language. In connection to this, knowledge and multimodal artefacts are presented as fixed, and learners are not given an opportunity to engage them fully nor to question, even in the isiZulu lessons where the language of instruction correlates with most learner's home language.
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    A decolonial approach to a socially just curriculum? a case study of a first-year common course in an emerging post-apartheid University eMzansi Afrika
    (2025) Mona, Msakha; Morreira, Shannon; Luckett, Kathy
    This qualitative case study sought to explore whether and how the University of Mpumalanga (UMP) imagined social justice in its first-year common course, MIC100 (Mpumalanga in Context). The UMP is one of the only two universities established after apartheid in South Africa, and it does not have a colonial and apartheid history. However, its newness does not absolve the UMP from coloniality, thus the study found that the institution is implicated in coloniality due to its existence within a higher education environment that is pervasively Eurocentric. Thus, the study explored how the UMP worked with this complication through its curriculum in MIC100. Theories of social justice and decoloniality framed the study. While pointing out some of UMP's complicities in coloniality, the study found MIC100 to have made significant moves towards social justice and decolonization. The main data for this research was the students' reviews of MIC100, student interviews, and the UMP's documentary data which were analyzed on NVivo. Among the implications of the study, is the need and call for universities to be more intentional in responding to the decolonial question in ways that achieve social justice. Therefore, the findings reveal some of the strategies that were employed in MIC100 that can be adapted by educational institutions, lecturers, and curriculum designers. The strategies include efforts to recognize black students and their cultural products such as African languages; and creating teaching and learning environments where students can feel ayoba.
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    The semantics of emojis and memes: understanding meaning- making among social media users
    (2025) Francis, Tasneem; Mpendukana, Sibonile
    There is no doubt that the use of emojis and memes within computer-mediated communication (CMC) on social media platforms like Facebook has become an essential part of how people communicate online (see Thurlow 2018; Thurlow and Jaroski 2020; Barbieri et al 2016; Bai et al 2019 and Thurlow and Dü rscheid 2020). A lot of work has been done to study meaning related to emojis and memes and how they function within communication (see Deumert 2014; Zhu and Ren 2022; Lynch 2022 and Ljubešić and Fišer 2016). This current study advocates for a user-centric approach to understanding meaning- making. The strength of what I am proposing in my research is how to draw an analysis of meaning-making practices linked to the use of emojis and memes within CMC while allowing users to advocate for themselves from their perspectives. This current research unpacked how the average person on Facebook attached meaning to emojis and memes when they are selected and used to communicate online. The goal was to understand whether the meaning attached is shared and universal or if there was room for different modes of expression and meaning-making. The data collected for this research included quantitative survey data and qualitative interview data. Surveys were used as a starting point for conducting one-on-one interviews with a selected number of people who were open to being interviewed after completing the survey. The study concluded that different emojis and memes are used by different people, in different ways, however, the meaning attached to different emojis, and memes become universal over time when it is shared by people. The data provided evidence that universal and shared meaning occurs. However, within the same data, there was evidence to support that even though shared and universal meaning is happening, there is still room for different modes of expression online.