Doctoral Degrees (African Languages)
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Browsing Doctoral Degrees (African Languages) by browse.metadata.advisor "Visser, Marianna Wilhelmina"
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- ItemArgumentation involving account-giving and self-presentation in tanzanian parliamentary debates: a praga-dialectical perspective(Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2020-12) Msagalla, Brighton Phares; Visser, Marianna Wilhelmina; Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. Dept. of African Languages.ENGLISH ABSTRACT: This study investigatesthe actual argumentative reality in the resolution ofdifferences of opinion involving account-giving and self-presentation in Tanzanian parliamentary debatesin Kiswahili. The research data that are analysed in this study come fromthe Hansard transcripts of the official proceedingsof the annual ministerial budget debates which were collected in their original form from the website ofthe Tanzania’s Bunge(www.parliament.go.tz/hansards-list).The study concentrateson three annual parliamentary debates from the last three years of President Kikwete’s second term of presidency. Following a systematic reconstruction of the selected data, the analysis focuseson thedebateson the constitutional review processin Tanzania, the ‘controversial issues’of the Union of Tanganyika and Zanzibar, and the annual budget speech in the Ministry of Community Development, Gender and Children. In the analysis ofthe selected debates, the study employsthepragma-dialectical theory of argumentation as the main theory and anaccount-giving model as a complementarytheory. The findings of the study indicatethatthe first three stages of the (critical)discussions in all the three debatesexemplify, to a greater or lesser degree,the proposedpragma-dialecticalstages of a critical discussion. However, the concluding stage in all the three debates isnot materialised in the manner proposed by the theory. As regards the code of conduct, while there arecases where the rules are observedin all the three debates (e.g. the freedom rule), instances of ruleviolation (e.g. the relevance rule) arealso found. The findings further suggest that MPs employ various modes of strategic manoeuvring from all the three aspectsof topical potential, audience demand, and presentational devices. For instance, MPs’ presentational devices includethestrategic use of accusation of inconsistency, evasion, metaphors (and other figurative expressions), narratives, personal attacks, quotations, and rhetorical questions. Concerningthe prototypical argumentative patterns,theministers’ prescriptive standpoints are,atthe first level of defence,justifiedby either pragmatic argumentationin coordinative argumentationor pragmatic argumentation andsymptomatic argumentationin coordinative or multiple argumentation. In the next levels of defence, pragmatic and symptomatic argumentation arejustifiedby various (sub)types of argumentation, including authorityargumentationfrom statistics(or statistical argumentation), argumentation from example, and causal argumentation. In regard tothe argumentative style, the ministers’ argumentative style seems to exemplify a strategic combination ofdetached and engaged stylesand the argumentative style by the opposition’sspokespersons and other MPsexemplifies an engaged style. Moreover, all the four account-giving strategies (plus silence) are manifested in the ministers’ accounts offailure events as theministersaccept, deny, or evaderesponsibility.
- ItemA complex system of complex predicates: tense, taxis, aspect and mood in Basse Mandinka from a grammaticalisation and cognitive perspective(Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2016-03) Andrason, Alexander; Visser, Marianna Wilhelmina; Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. Dept. of African Languages.ENGLISH ABSTRACT: The present work analyses the Basse Mandinka tense-taxis-aspect-mood verbal system within the framework of cognitive and grammaticalisation linguistics and from the perspective of complexity theory. The author builds his study by pursuing the following more specific – gradually more macroscopic and systematic – objectives: (a) a description of the entire semantic potential of all the Basse Mandinka verbal grams; (b) a representation of the synchronic inventories of senses of each Basse Mandinka verbal construction as a coherent phenomenon, i.e. as a kinetic qualitative map ordered by means of grammaticalisation templates or paths; (c) an introduction of the information concerning the prototypicality of the map and the development of a bi-dimensional representation of the meaning as a wave; (d) a construction of streams that contain gram-waves organised along similar evolutionary templates; and (e) a modelling of the entire Basse Mandinka verbal organisation into a system of currents. This system – visualised as an ocean – is demonstrated to have characteristics typical to complex bodies: it is open, situated, fuzzy, full of unstable individuals, highly cardinal, uncontrollable, dynamic, metastable, past dependant, nonlinear, sensitive to initial conditions, deterministically chaotic in some regions, non-additive, non-resultant, but containing emergent properties, structurally intricate, self-organising and characterised by top-down causation and bottom-up causation. Additionally, as far as its methodological properties are concerned, the representation is incomplete, provisional and pluralistic in agreement with models of real-world complexity.