Research Articles (General Linguistics)

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Afrikaans as an index of identity among Western Cape Coloured Communities
(Department of General Linguistics, Stellenbosch University, 2011) Thutloa, Alfred Mautsane; Huddlestone, Kate
In South Africa, reports on language shift have focused on instances of language shift from indigenous African languages to English. There is, however, also research that suggests that language shift is taking place from Afrikaans to English in the Western Cape. Anthonissen (2009), for example, notes in her research among Coloured communities that a shift has taken place from Afrikaans first language (L1), across three generations, to English L1. Against this backdrop, this paper investigates language shift in two semi-urban Western Cape Coloured communities; in particular, it examines what patterns of language shift/maintenance can be observed, and investigates sociolinguistic factors, such as age, language of schooling, socio-economic status and language attitudes, to which the observed patterns can be ascribed. The aim is to ascertain whether language shift, from Afrikaans to English has taken place, and which factors appear to encourage or discourage language shift in the two communities. Through the administration of a questionnaire to 50 households, 25 in each of the communities, the study this paper reports on examined language use across a number of domains: at home, in the community, in church, and in the workplace. It also explored the language attitudes of the participants (53 in total) towards Afrikaans in order to investigate the possibility that this language might be used for indexing their identity. The collected data does not provide any evidence of language shift from Afrikaans to English. However, there seems to be increased use of English in the public domains (such as the workplace and in the church), with Afrikaans being used almost exclusively in the intimate domains. It appears that Afrikaans remains a strong marker of identity in the two semi-urban Western Cape Coloured communities, despite English largely being regarded as the language of upward socio-economic mobility.
Afrikaanse taalvariasie : uitdagings vir regverdige meting van jong kinders se taal
(Department of General Linguistics, Stellenbosch University, 2020) Southwood, Frenette; Oosthuizen, Helena
Sowat 5% van alle kinders toon ʼn taalagterstand (Law, Boyle, Harris, Harkness en Nye 2000) en daar is aanduidings dat hierdie syfer hoër is in Suid-Afrika, veral onder baie jong kinders (Van der Linde, Swanepoel, Sommerville, Glascoe, Vinck en Louw 2016). Geen voldoende instrument bestaan waarmee vasgestel kan word watter jong Afrikaanssprekendes hulp sal benodig om toekomstige taalverwante akademiese probleme te oorkom nie. Hierdie artikel lewer verslag oor uitdagings wat weens Afrikaanse taalvariasie ervaar word tydens die ontwikkeling van ʼn ouervraelys waarmee jong kinders se taal gemeet kan word. Hierdie vraelys beslaan vrae oor vroeg-ontwikkelende kommunikatiewe gebare, eerste woorde en vroeë sinskonstruksies, en ouers word versoek om op die lys aan te dui watter gebare, woorde en konstruksies hul kind verstaan en/of voortbring. Die vraelys kan nie onbeperk verleng word nie, want die voltooiing daarvan moet ʼn realistiese taak bly, ook vir ouers met lae geletterdheidsvlakke (vgl. Alcock, Rimba, Holding, Kitsao-Wekulo, Abubakar en Newton 2015). Besluite oor die insluiting of uitsluiting op die vraelys van woorde uit spesifieke Afrikaanse variëteite is egter gereeld nie voor die hand liggend nie.Bestaande taalmetingsinstrumente diskrimineer wêreldwyd tipies teen kinders wat nie deel van die dominante kultuur en taalgemeenskap vorm nie. Gegee Suid-Afrika se bevlekte geskiedenis wat die erkenning van sprekers van niegestandaardiseerde taalvariëteite betref (vgl. bv. Hendricks 2012; Williams 2016), is die opstel van ʼn geldige ouervraelys ononderhandelbaar. Daar moet dus noukeurig oorweeg word watter woorde op die lys verskyn, want ʼn goeie ouervraelys sal bydra tot kultureel- en talig-regverdige taaltoetsing van jong Afrikaanssprekende kinders. Dit sal help om kinders te identifiseer wat sukkel om hul taal te verwerf en wat ekstra hulp benodig sodat hul taal genoegsaam kan verbeter vóór hul formele skoolloopbaan begin. Sodoende sal hulle ʼn groter kans hê om die kurrikulum te verstaan, skoolsukses te ervaar en’n lang genoeg skoolloopbaan te hê om hul potensiaal te verwesenlik.
An alternative to the Lewisian view of conventions
(University of Stellenbosch, Department of General Linguistics, 2016) Smit, J. P.
Lewis (1969) characterises conventions as regularities that arise from recurrent coordination games. I argue, contra Lewis, that conventions are rules that promote a relevant goal in virtue of coordinating our behaviour. I demonstrate the virtues of this view by showing that it provides an elegant way of dealing with four basic objections to Lewis’s view, namely that Lewis requires agents to understand their own situation too well, that his view robs conventions of explanatory force, that it mischaracterises cases where someone has non-prudential reasons to follow a convention, and that it mischaracterises situations where the relevant behaviour is non-uniform.
Analysing Afrikaans-English bilingual children's conversational code switching
(Deptartment of General Linguistics, Stellenbosch University, 2012) Nel, Joanine; Huddlestone, Kate
It has been observed that children mix languages more often if they have been exposed to mixed speech, especially if they are in bilingual company. Very little research, however, exists on the code switching (CS) of children brought up in multilingual contexts. The study discussed in this paper investigates the grammatical and socio-pragmatic characteristics of the conversational CS of three Afrikaans-English bilingual children and aims to contribute towards a better understanding of child CS. The study was conducted through the analysis of spontaneous conversational CS elicited during multiple play sessions. Data were analysed within the frameworks of the Matrix Language Frame (MLF) model and Conversation Analysis (CA). The study accounts for the different types of CS that occur, and examines which grammatical and/or socio-pragmatic difficulties may drive children to use specific types of CS, while also considering whether the context of an utterance has an influence on how and why CS takes place.
Assessing spoken-language educational interpreting : measuring up and measuring right
(University of Stellenbosch, Department of General Linguistics, 2017) Foster, Lenelle; Cupido, Adriaan
This article, primarily, presents a critical evaluation of the development and refinement of the assessment instrument used to assess formally the spoken-language educational interpreters at Stellenbosch University (SU). Research on interpreting quality has tended to produce varying perspectives on what quality might entail (cf. Pöchhacker 1994, 2001; Kurz 2001; Kalina 2002; Pradas Marcías 2006; Grbić 2008; Moser-Mercer 2008; Alonso Bacigalupe 2013). Consequently, there is no ready-made, universally accepted or applicable mechanism for assessing quality. The need for both an effective assessment instrument and regular assessments at SU is driven by two factors: Firstly, a link exists between the quality of the service provided and the extent to which that service remains sustainable. Plainly put, if the educational interpreting service wishes to remain viable, the quality of the interpreting product needs to be more than merely acceptable. Secondly, and more important, educational interpreters play an integral role in students’ learning experience at SU by relaying the content of lectures. Interpreting quality could potentially have serious ramifications for students, and therefore quality assessment is imperative. Two assessment formats are used within the interpreting service, each with a different focus. The development and refinement of the assessment instrument for formal assessments discussed in this article have been ongoing since 2011. The main aim has been to devise an instrument that could be used to assess spoken-language interpreting in the university classroom. Complicating factors have included the various ways in which communication occurs in the classroom and the different sociocultural backgrounds and levels of linguistic proficiency of users. The secondary focus is on the nascent system of peer assessment. This system and the various incarnations of the peer assessment instrument are discussed. Linkages (and the lack thereof) between the two systems are briefly described.
Aviation English in South African airspace
(Stellenbosch University, Department of General Linguistics, 2013) Coertze, Salome; Conradie, Simone; Burger, Chris R.; Huddlestone, Kate
A lack of English proficiency and failure to use standard phraseology played a role in the world’s largest aviation disaster which occurred in Tenerife in 1977 (Tenerife Information Center 2009). As a result, the crucial role of effective communication between pilots and air-traffic controllers (ATCs) came under scrutiny (Cushing 1997), with the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) implementing English language proficiency standards and compulsory language testing of pilots and ATCs (Tiewtrakul and Fletcher 2010). Consequently, the use of so-called “Aviation English” (AE) was enforced which consists of a range of operationally-relevant language functions and dialogue management as well as formulaic standard phraseology (Shawcross 2008). The study reported on in this paper has two aims: (i) to investigate pilots’ and ATCs’ perceptions of the role of language in air-traffic communication, and (ii) to investigate the use of AE in authentic pilot-ATC communication in South African airspace. In order to address the first aim, an online questionnaire was designed to investigate issues surrounding the role of language in air-traffic communication. A total of 197 pilots and 66 ATCs completed the questionnaire. To address the second aim, approximately 10 hours’ worth of recordings were obtained of on-site air-traffic communication at two airport towers in Gauteng. These were then transcribed and carefully analysed within the framework of Van Es’s (2004) SHELL model and with the aid of a taxonomy compiled on the basis of two previous studies by Cardosi, Brett and Han (1997) and Van Es (2004). The results of the questionnaire indicated that the majority of the respondents support ICAO’s English language proficiency standards and testing. Although the respondents believe that language-related communication problems can cause serious and sometimes fatal incidents, they are confident that the problems are resolved quickly and successfully, thereby avoiding potentially hazardous situations. The results of the analysis of the voice recordings correlated with the results of the questionnaire. Only a small number of transmissions were identified with read-back errors as well as a small number of transmissions containing deviations from AE and standard phraseology. When miscommunications did occur, pilots and ATCs resolved these problems quickly and effectively using AE as well as plain English to successfully negotiate understanding. After discussing in more detail the results of the analyses of the two data sets, a conclusion is provided with some suggestions for further, specifically linguistic, investigations into AE and pilot-ATC communication in South Africa. A brief illustration is also given of the potential value of research, such as that reported here, for benchmarking speech systems for unmanned aircraft (cf. Burger, Barnard and Jones 2011).
A bidirectional optimality theoretic analysis of multiple negative indefinites in Afrikaans
(Stellenbosch University, Department of Linguistics, 2014) Huddlestone, Kate; De Swart, Henriette
In the literature on negation, Afrikaans is generally categorised as a negative concord language. Unlike most other negative concord languages though, utterances containing multiple indefinites in the scope of negation are typically produced with a combination of one negative indefinite and one (or more) non-negative indefinite, or negative polarity item, as in (i). (i) Ons het niemand ooit daar gesien nie. we have nobody ever there pst-see sn ‘We never saw anybody there.’ However, although prohibited in formal, standard Afrikaans, where such utterances are prescriptively assigned a double negation meaning (Ø$x1Ø$x2) and produced with a specific prosodic contour, in colloquial Afrikaans it is also possible to produce multiple negative indefinites with a single, or negative concord, meaning, as in (ii). (ii) Ons het niemand nooit daar gesien nie. we have nobody ever there pst-see sn ‘We never saw anybody there.’ (¬$x1$x2) Standard analyses of negative concord as presented in the literature do not account for the alternation of indefinites and negative indefinites in (i) vs. (ii), or the potential availability of both negative concord and double negation readings for the utterance in (ii). Perception experiments show that grammaticality judgements, by native speakers of Afrikaans, of multiple negative indefinites presented as auditory stimuli exhibit gradient acceptability in relation to combinations of negative indefinites and non-negative indefinites. Furthermore, this experimental data indicates that listeners use sentence prosody to assist in the interpretation of potentially ambiguous sentences containing multiple negative indefinites. The gradience of acceptability of multiple negative indefinite combinations is mirrored in turn by the frequency of such constructions in a written corpus of Afrikaans. In this paper, we account for this variation in the expression and interpretation of multiple indefinites in the scope of negation within the framework of stratified bidirectional Optimality Theory (OT). Such an analysis fills a gap in the typology of negation in accounting for alternation between negative and non-negative indefinites in the production of standard and colloquial Afrikaans, as observed through corpus and experimental data, and allows for a prosodically constrained ambiguity between single and double negation readings.
Bilingualism and language shift in Western Cape communities
(Stellenbosch University, Department of General Linguistics, 2009) Anthonissen, Christine
This paper considers a number of pertinent sociolinguistic aspects of a distinct process of language shift recently noted in some historically Afrikaans first language (L1) communities established in the Cape Metropolitan area. Particularly, it considers qualitatively how a number of families made deliberate choices to change the family language from Afrikaans L1 to English L1. It elaborates on an exploratory study undertaken in 2003, adding data collected in 2008 and 2009, investigating linguistic repertoire and language choice in a number of families where there has been contact between English and Afrikaans over a number of generations. The aim, eventually, is to characterise the nature of the perceived process of language shift. The paper considers how widespread use of both English and Afrikaans in communities that until recently were predominantly Afrikaans, impacts on linguistic identities. It reports on structured interviews with members of three generations of families who currently exhibit English-Afrikaans bilingualism where members of the younger generation are more fluent in English. It finds that there is evidence of language shift, it reports on the circumstances that motivate such shift, and concludes that the third generation presents either a monolingual English identity where Afrikaans has a decidedly second language status, or a strong English-dominant bilingual identity.
The challenge of linguistic and cultural diversity : does length of experience affect South African speech-language therapists’ management of children with language impairment
(AOSIS Publishing, 2015-02) Southwood, Frenette; Van Dulm, Ondene
Background: South African speech-language therapists (SLTs) currently do not reflect the country’s linguistic and cultural diversity. The question arises as to who might be better equipped currently to provide services to multilingual populations: SLTs with more clinical experience in such contexts, or recently trained SLTs who are themselves linguistically and culturally diverse and whose training programmes deliberately focused on multilingualism and multiculturalism? Aims: To investigate whether length of clinical experience influenced: number of bilingual children treated, languages spoken by these children, languages in which assessment and remediation can be offered, assessment instrument(s) favoured, and languages in which therapy material is required. Method: From questionnaires completed by 243 Health Professions Council of South Africa (HPCSA)-registered SLTs who treat children with language problems, two groups were drawn:71 more experienced (ME) respondents (20+ years of experience) and 79 less experienced (LE) respondents (maximum 5 years of experience). Results: The groups did not differ significantly with regard to (1) number of children(monolingual or bilingual) with language difficulties seen, (2) number of respondents seeing child clients who have Afrikaans or an African language as home language, (3) number of respondents who can offer intervention in Afrikaans or English and (4) number of respondents who reported needing therapy material in Afrikaans or English. However, significantly more ME than LE respondents reported seeing first language child speakers of English, whereas significantly more LE than ME respondents could provide services, and required therapymaterial, in African languages. Conclusion: More LE than ME SLTs could offer remediation in an African language, but there were few other significant differences between the two groups. There is still an absence of appropriate assessment and remediation material for Afrikaans and African languages, but the increased number of African language speakers entering the profession may contribute to better service delivery to the diverse South African population.
Collapse of genitive and benefactive case in Ecuadorian Quechua?
(Stellenbosch University, Department of Linguistics, 2017) Muysken, Pieter
In Ecuadorian Quechua the markers for genitive and benefactive case have become indistinguishable in form: both are basically -pak. This squib discusses the issue whether there has also been a merger in the underlying representation, or whether they should be kept apart at the level of the grammatical system.
Combining forces : the South African Sign Language Bible Translation project
(Department of General Linguistics, Stellenbosch University, 2021) Van der Walt, Ananda; Van der Walt, Banie; Vermeerbergen, Myriam
This paper reports on the South African Sign Language Bible Translation Project, an ongoing project aiming to translate 110 Bible stories into South African Sign Language (SASL). The project started in 2014 and, at the time of writing, 32 stories have been finalised. A team of three Deaf[1] signers are translating the stories from written English to SASL. As signed languages have no written form, the signed translations are video-recorded. The Deaf translators are working with exegetical assistants, a Bible translation consultant with expertise in signed language (Bible) translations, a signed language interpreter who facilitates the communication between the Deaf translators and hearing collaborators, and an editor. Back translations are done by both Deaf and hearing collaborators who are proficient in SASL and English. The Deaf community of South Africa assists the Deaf translators with signs for Biblical names and terms when required. This paper documents the modus operandi of the team as a sequence of different steps. We focus on the many challenges involved in this process, specifically those related to working between the written form of a spoken language (English) and a visual-gestural language with no written form (SASL) and only a short history of institutionalisation.
A comparison of the responses to three comprehension and three production tasks assessing the morpho-syntactic abilities of Afrikaans-speaking preschoolers
(Stellenbosch University, 2005) Southwood, Frenette
The lack of standardised assessment instruments for assessing the morpho-syntactic abilities of Afrikaans-speaking children often leads to the use of informal assessment tools and/or spontaneous language samples. The question that this paper addresses is how best to assess these morpho-syntactic abilities when using nonstandardised assessment instruments of this kind. The general aim of the present study was to answer this question. Eight typically developing, monolingual children (one boy and one girl of 3, 4, 5, and 6 years) from monolingual Afrikaans-speaking homes participated. Tasks were administered to assess comprehension and production of grammatical features related to number, person, case, and tense, as well as questions forms, binding relations and passive constructions. The comprehension tasks entailed picture selection, judging the (in)correctness of utterances produced by the researcher, and question answering, whereas the production tasks consisted of sentence completion, question asking and a language sample. A specific aim of the study was to determine which method(s) rendered the highest number of (i) correct responses and (ii) usable responses (i.e., responses strictly related to the aspect under assessment) by these typically developing participants. The results indicate that picture selection elicited the highest number of both correct and usable responses in the comprehension tasks. The production task that provided the highest number of both correct and usable responses was language sample elicitation. This suggests that these tasks should receive precedence when assessing the morpho-syntactic abilities of Afrikaans-speaking preschool children.
The comprehension and production of plural forms of nouns by 6-year-old Afrikaans-speaking children with and without specific language impairment
(Stellenbosch University, 2006) Southwood, Frenette
In Afrikaans, plurality is indicated phonetically in several ways. The large number of pluralisation rules and the many exceptions to these rules cause acquirers of Afrikaans to make some use of rote learning. The question arises as to how, if at all, the knowledge of pluralisation of Afrikaans-speaking children with specific language impairment (SLI) differs from that of typically developing children: if even typically developing Afrikaans-speaking children have to learn the correct phonetic realisation of the plural forms of nouns (to a certain extent) and if this learning is not yet completed by 6 years of age (Southwood, 2006), can knowledge of pluralisation then be used to differentiate between Afrikaans-speaking children with and without SLI (seeing that SLI is characterised by a deficit in grammatical morphology)? This paper attempts to answer this question by examining the comprehension and production of plural forms by 10 6-year-olds with SLI and 10 without. It was found that some selected measures of comprehension and production of pluralisation are sufficiently sensitive to differentiate between the two groups. It was also found that neither of two prominent accounts of SLI, namely the Feature Deficit Hypothesis (Gopnik, 1994a) and the Surface Hypothesis (Leonard, 1989 and others), offers an adequate explanation for the problems with pluralisation experienced by Afrikaans-speaking children.
The comprehension and production of quantifiers in isiXhosa-speaking Grade 1 learners
(AOSIS Publishing, 2016) Nel, Joanine; Southwood, Frenette
Background: Quantifiers form part of the discourse-internal linguistic devices that children need to access and produce narratives and other classroom discourse. Little is known about the development - especially the prodiction - of quantifiers in child language, specifically in speakers of an African language. Objectives: The study aimed to ascertain how well Grade 1 isiXhosa first language (L1) learners perform at the beginning and at the end of Grade 1 on quantifier comprehension and production tasks. Method: Two low socioeconomic groups of L1 isiXhosa learners with either isiXhosa or English as language of learning and teaching (LOLT) were tested in February and November of their Grade 1 year with tasks targeting several quantifiers. Results: The isiXhosa LOLT group comprehended no/none, any and all fully either in February or then in November of Grade 1, and they produced all assessed quantifiers in February of Grade 1. For the English LOLT group, neither the comprehension nor the production of quantifiers was mastered by the end of Grade 1, although there was a significant increase in both their comprehension and production scores. Conclusion: The English LOLT group made significant progress in comprehension and production of quantifiers, but still performed worse than peers who had their L1 as LOLT. Generally, children with no or very little prior knowledge of the LOLT need either, (1) more deliberate exposure to quantifier-rich language or, (2) longer exposure to general classroom language before quantifiers can be expected to be mastered sufficiently to allow access to quantifier-related curriculum content.
Constraints on South African English-Afrikaans intrasentential code switching : a Minimalist approach
(Stellenbosch University, Department of General Linguistics, 2002) Van Dulm, Ondene
Since the 1970s, the phenomenon of code switching has been studied from a variety of theoretical perspectives. From a structuralist perspective, the most important question arising from this extensive study of code switching concerns the nature of the grammatical constraints on code switching. Many such constraints have been proposed, some of the more prominent of which will be discussed below. The main aim of this paper, however, is to provide the reader with an exposition of the Minimalist approach to code switching. Following the exposition of the Minimalist approach to code switching, a study in which the Minimalist assumption concerning the constraints on code switching is empirically evaluated with the aid of South African English-Afrikaans code switching data will be described. Finally, conclusions will be drawn regarding the theoretical and empirical validity of the Minimalist account of the constraints on code switching. As a starting point, however, it is essential to provide both a definition of the term "code switching" as it will be used in this paper, as well as a brief exposition of the differences between code switching and related phenomena such as borrowing, code mixing and interference.
Critical discourse analysis as queer linguistics : religious pro- and anti-LGBT equality framing and counterframing in two letters to the editor in the City Press
(Stellenbosch University, Department of General Linguistics, 2016) Mongie, Lauren D.
This article is situated at the intersection of the applied linguistic fields of Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA), Collective Action Framing (CAF) and a sociolinguistic field recently referred to as “queer linguistics” (QL). Drawing on a qualitative method of analysis, the article investigates the discursive (re)production of religiously-motivated arguments in favour of and against LGBT equality in two letters to the editor in the City Press newspaper. The paper aims to illustrate the ways in which religiously-framed pro- and anti-LGBT-equality arguments are discursively constructed in public discourses, and to demonstrate the methodological overlap between CDA and QL, and between CDA and CAF. The article’s findings reveal that both the pro- and anti-LGBT-equality letters frame their religious arguments in ways that echo that which is predicted in the literature by making strategic use of lexical items, modifiers, implicature, presupposition, rhetorical devices, and attributive strategies; and that these discursive devices enable the realisation of the core framing tasks that are necessary for social mobilisation to varying extents. Further, the findings indicate that the anti-LGBT-equality letter is more explicit in its ideological positioning and framing tasks, and that it draws significantly more on disclaimers than the pro-LGBT-equality letter. Lastly, the discourse that is present in the diagnostic, prognostic and motivational framing tasks of the pro-LGBT-equality letter attempts to reframe and counterframe anti-LGBT-equality arguments by providing an alternative perspective of same-sex attraction within the religion frame.
The damaging effects of romantic mythopoeia on Khoesan linguistics
(Taylor & Francis, 2014-06) Du Plessis, Menan
The article outlines some basic guidelines that should inform studies in comparative linguistics, and notes a tendency in contemporary Khoesan linguistics for these to be neglected, while pre-theoretical assumptions of ‘ancientness’ and ‘otherness’ take their place. The article demonstrates the damaging effects of this romanticism through two brief case studies – one concerning the supposedly primordial stratum made up of the JU and !UI-TAA languages, and the other concerning a conjectured intermediate stratum made up of the KHOE (or ‘Khoe- Kwadi’) languages. It is concluded that the construction of these linguistic layers, so neatly in agreement with the layers proposed in certain models of southern African population history, has been enabled by a willingness to believe that perceptions of otherness have some absolute and meaningful value, and that they take precedence over fundamental principles.
The discourse of liberation : frames used in characterising the gay liberation movement in two South African newspapers
(Stellenbosch University, Department of Linguistics, 2015) Mongie, Lauren Danger
This article reports on the quantitative findings of a study that straddles the applied linguistic field of critical discourse analysis and a sociolinguistic field recently referred to as “queer linguistics”. Drawing on a quantitative method of analysis, the study investigates the linguistic framing of LGBT mobilisation in two South African newspapers, City Press and the Mail & Guardian, across a period of almost 30 years. It aims to identify the characteristics of the discourses that topicalise the gay[1] liberation movement in order to investigate the ways in which linguistic means have been used in articulating the need and the right to liberation and how arguments against the gay liberation movement have been framed, reframed and counterframed in South African media. The study’s findings revealed that a number of frames, including ‘liberation’, ‘rights’ and ‘victimisation’, reoccurred in the framing of arguments for the gay liberation movement throughout the data collection period in both corpora, and while City Press primarily used these frames to express anti-gay sentiments, the Mail & Guardian primarily used these frames to express pro-gay sentiments. The findings also revealed that a number of frames, including ‘religion’, ‘morality’ and ‘nature’, reoccurred in the framing of arguments against the gay liberation movement, and again while City Press primarily used these frames to express anti-gay sentiments, the Mail & Guardian primarily used these frames to express pro-gay sentiments. Finally, the findings revealed that a single frame such as “religion” was typically used to express both pro- and anti-gay sentiments, bringing to light the important role that counterframing plays in bringing about social transformation.
The discursive construction of foundation programmes in South African media texts
(UNISA Press, 2015) Bernard, Taryn
This article reports on research that investigated public perceptions of transformation within South African universities, with a particular focus on the incorporation of foundation programmes into university curricula. Foundation programmes are an initiative on behalf of both governmental and higher education institutions (HEIs) to grant wider and equal access to higher education (HE). However, it is evident that public views regarding university plans and admission policies are varied and the actions on behalf of both governmental bodies and universities are interpreted in diverse ways. These interpretations are problematic if they are misinformed, yet are able to influence or limit participation in HE. The study utilised methods developed within critical discourse analysis (CDA) to closely analyse three media texts that articulate various perceptions regarding the changing HE system. In line with Gee’s (1996) model of CDA, these three texts are viewed as individual instances of societal discourses about HE, but also provide insight to ideologies relating to education and access.
Does language make us walking angels, talking apes or what?
(Stellenbosch University, Department of General Linguistics, 1996) Botha, Rudolf P.
No abstract available.

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