Electronic Theses and Dissertations (Masters)
Permanent URI for this collectionhttps://hdl.handle.net/10539/37994
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Item Challenges faced by court interpreters while interpreting for children in South African courts(University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2024) Chikele, Heather Mikateko; Maliko, Natasha Parkins; Dladla, Celimpilo P.The study investigated the challenges faced by court interpreters in South Africa when working with child witnesses within the legal system. The objectives of the study included investigating interpreter challenges, identifying their role in safeguarding children’s well-being and rights, and evaluating the effectiveness of interpreter training. The country’s linguistic diversity, characterized by 12 official languages and distinct cultural distinctions, adds layers of complexity for interpreters (Powell, et al., 2017). The problems encountered during the process includes linguistic barriers, encompassing the clear conveyance of child testimonies, interpretation of child-friendly legal terminology, and ensuring the child’s understanding of legal proceedings. The study recognized the involved interplay of language, culture and age, which highlights the need for interpreters to address the emotional state, comprehension level, and communication capacities of child witnesses. To tackle these challenges, the study highlighted the crucial requirement for specialized training and support for court interpreters handling cases involving children in South African courts (Moeketsi & Wallmach, 2005). This involved cultivating a sophisticated understanding of child psychology, cultural sensitivity, and legal terminology to effectively bridge communication gaps (Jianqing, 2008). By doing so, the study contended that South Africa could strengthen its commitment to safeguarding children’s rights and welfare within the legal system, ultimately ensuring equitable access to justice for all residents. The study utilized a quantitative research methodology, utilising a structured questionnaire distributed through Google Forms. The questionnaire was designed to gather insights from court interpreters about their experiences and challenges. The questions were crafted to elicit detailed responses on topics such as the impact of the child’s age on interpretation, linguistic and cultural challenges, and training and qualifications of court interpreters. The research focused on obtaining valuable information directly from court interpreters through the survey instrument, so as to understand their perspectives in a more streamlined manner (Cheung, 2014).Item An investigation into paywalls in the south african online news space(University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2024) Crossley, Gaye Tracey; Daniels, GlendaJournalism should aspire to be a public good, meaning people should ideally have un-excluded and un-rivalrous access to the news. For news to be a public good, it must serve to educate and inform readers and be free from economic and political interference. However, journalism cannot be a public good if it is not financially viable. One way South African news organisations have sought to create financial viability and sustainability is through the implementation of paywalls. However, subscription services like paywalls pose a risk to journalism being a public good. South Africa’s unequal society, along with the digital divide, are major inhibitors to people being able to access news online. Paywalls further exacerbate this issue of access. This research aims to investigate paywalls in the South African online news space, within the context of journalism serving as a public good. In doing so, the research considered the digital divide, digital disruption of the newsroom, sustainability of the newsroom, and the positive and negative contributions of paywalls to South African online news. This qualitative research was conducted through a series of structured interviews with two of South Africa’s media houses, Media24 and Arena Holdings, which had both implemented paywalls for their online news sites. These case studies were then juxtaposed against Daily Maverick, which has kept its news free for all readers, but relies on a number of alternative funding models, including a membership model.Item (Re)composing: A study of the musical documentary in reimagining the historical archive through song(University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2023) Roberts, Daniel Ronald Newland; Kaplan, KennethThis thesis investigates conventional documentary reenactments and proposes a different approach by examining the role of purpose-composed songs as a medium for historical reenactment in the music documentary. It scrutinizes this approach as an alternative to traditional notions of reenactment often associated with Hollywood-style documentaries where the convention is to restage historical events. Instead, the argument made is for the transformative and imaginative of poetic verse and musical expression to embody historical texts. The research explores the profound connection between the performer and the historical subjects through ancestral bonds, examining how this relationship enhances the performance's potency. In addition, it delves into the collaborative process between musicians and documentarians in creating purpose-composed songs, especially when performances are situated within locations deeply connected to the historical context, assessing how this impacts audience engagement. Reflecting on the evolution of the music documentary genre since the 1960s, the thesis critically examines Bill Nichols’s enduring analysis of documentary modes. It investigates the continued reliance on the vérité style in music documentaries while using selected case studies to map more diverse documentary forms extending beyond Nichols's purely observational mode. The artistic component of this research is an essay film, which offers a contemplative view of the symbiotic relationship between cinematographer and musician. It probes into the nuances of creating poignant artistic expressions that address historical traumas while simultaneously managing the complex interplay of the subjectivities inherent in filmmaker and musician. This dual-focused inquiry seeks to illuminate the capacity of music documentaries to convey historical narratives in a manner that resonates with contemporary audiences, marrying historical accuracy with emotional depth.Item Social media as a sphere of violent discourse in times of civil unrest: A case study of the 2021 looting in South Africa(University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2024-03-15) Malaka, Chaboke Prince; Govenden, PrinolaSocial media has been used by activists in contemporary civil upheavals.The content created by these activists is believed to predict offline protest behaviour. There was previously no corelation drawn between social media usage and real-world behaviour, however, recently protesters’worldwide use of social media platforms provide an unparalleled opportunity to witness how social media usage can have real-world behavioural ties (Mina, 2019). This study's main objective was to investigate the extent to which social media, specifically X (formerly Twitter), was used as a forum for violent discourse during times of civil unrest. In particular, it examines the looting that occurred in South Africa in 2021 July under the hashtags,#LootingSA and #FreeZuma, that started in KwaZulu-Natal province on 8 July 2021 and spread to the Gauteng province. It is well recognised that social media sites enable users to communicate, share knowledge, and produce digital content. Social media has also served as an activist platorm during times of civil disturbance (Lim, 2012). This study adds to the current literature by elucidating howpeople’s engagement in X (formerly Twitter) as a social media platform was used to createa discourses of violence during the 2021 looting. Protest Participation Theory (PPT) and Galtung’s Theory of Violence (GTV) media theories have been used to drive this study and has further supported the findings from a theorectical standpoint. . The study used a qualitative approach and employed a thematic analysis technique to analyse data. The units of analysis, violent tweets, revealed a substantial presence of aggressive language, calls for violence, threats, and incitements to harm during the civil unrest period. Interestingly, a significant portion of these tweets did not explicitly endorse violence but circulated content related to violent acts e.g Tweets containing voilent content. In contrast, non-violent tweets predominantly centered around the arrest of former President Jacob Zuma with sentiments expressing disapproval, critique, or support for the arrest of the former president. The study acknowledged instances where X (formerly Twitter) was used for personal agendas and entertainment indicating a diverse range of discussions on social media related to violence. The non-violent tweets highlighted both opposition and support for Jacob Zuma's arrest with a smaller percentage categorised as "not related" and not taking a clear stance on the overarching topic. The research primarily focused on measuring the prevalence of looting activities rather than delving into the detailed aspects of the "how" question.Item Adoption and use of internet of things and the implications for adaptive regulation(University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2024-03) Jarvis, Boipelo; Ntlatlapa, NtsibaneInternet of Things (IoT) is evolving, developing and finding use in many industries where it is mainly used for automating, controlling, tracking and monitoring of different assets and processes, and also to digitalise and optimise business processes. One of IoT’s main characteristics is the interconnection of physical and virtual objects, the involvement of various stakeholders and the vast amount of data that is collected, communicated, stored and analysed in its ecosystem. IoT is projected to continue on its tremendous growth path for years to come, and to also permeate many more industries. However, IoT has inherent challenges of security and privacy due to its characteristics and therefore requires relevant regulation so as to address the challenges related to it and enable its continued growth, adoption and use. The study explored the adoption and use of IoT in South Africa, looked into security and privacy challenges for IoT and ways to address them, ways in which current regulatory approaches are affecting IoT and how regulation that is relevant to IoT can be developed. The researcher followed a qualitative research approach, collected data from participants through in-depth interviews and employed thematic analysis to discover themes from data that was collected. The study’s findings are categorised according to three themes that emerged from the literature review namely: adoption and use of IoT, security and privacy challenges for IoT and ways to develop adaptive regulation for IoT. The Socio Technical Systems (STS) framework was a theoretical lens that was used to analyse data by mapping the study’s findings against STS components to explore the social and technical aspects of IoT. To define and understand the relationship between the social and technical subsystems of STS, an interaction between the elements of these two subsystems namely technology, tasks, structure and people was done. Under the technical subsystem, the findings brought to light the challenge that interoperability, security and privacy has on the adoption and use of IoT and the activities that enable the adoption and use of IoT. The findings under the social subsystem highlighted regulatory measures that are required to enable the adoption and use of IoT, regulatory ways to address the challenges of security and privacy as well as the need for IoT stakeholders to work collaboratively to encourage the growth, adoption and use of IoT and to address challenges related to it. The interaction of the STS elements identified collaborations and collaborative mechanisms as ways to address the challenges of IoT and develop regulation that is adaptive to its development. Based on the researcher’s analysis IoT requires a collaborative approach to address the challenges that its development, adoption and use are confronted with and to also develop regulation that is relevant and encouraging of its adoption and use.Item Analysing misinformation coverage by three newspapers during the 2nd phase of covid-19 vaccination in south africa: the daily sun, the daily maverick, and the sowetan from 7 may to 7 july 2021(University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2024) SEMENYA, ANNA MOSHALA; FRANZ KRUGERAs South Africa geared up for a mass vaccination programme to inoculate its citizens, with the public eager to return to normalcy after enduring varying degrees of lockdowns for over a year, the enigma surrounding the virus provided fertile ground for anti-vaccine groups to propagate misinformation consisting of misconceptions, myths, fake news and rumours. The mainstream media, wielding significant power and influence, played a pivotal role in disseminating information to enhance public health awareness during the pandemic before and after vaccines became available. This paper endeavours to assess how three national newspapers addressed the prevalent misinformation at the time. It does so by reviewing articles published 10 days before the phase two vaccination campaign commenced up to two months after the aforementioned commencement. The results indicate that one newspaper attempted to address the misinformation explicitly, another did so through subtle discourse whilst the last one remained resolute in its pro-vaccine stance and did not entertain the misinformation.Item Just Me and You, Ms W(University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2023-03) Hoffman, Alexandra Laurel; Law-Viljoen, BronwynItem Audio-visual speech perception amongst bilingual speakers(University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2024-03) Seedat, Ammaara; Ramona, Kunene NicolasWhy does a face articulating the syllable [ga] presented alongside an auditory /ba/ syllable result in a perceived /da/ syllable/? Language is more than words, and the human face has shown enormous communicatory significance as a mode of nonverbal communication. Multisensory integration is used in audio-visual speech perception when auditory and visual information are integrated at the same time. This integration, however, can be viewed as an involuntary process that occurs automatically. The audio-visual benefit effect occurs when auditory and visual information is synchronized, this is when the visual cue is congruent with its auditory counterpart. Literature on audio-visual speech perception, states that the magnitude of visual influences on audio-visual speech perception varies not only across languages but also across developmental stages. The reasons underlying cross-linguistic and developmental differences in audio-visual speech perception however remain unclear. With bilingualism becoming the norm rather than the exception around the world (Grosjean & Byers-Heinlein, 2018), strong research foundations for spoken-word comprehension in bilinguals have been carried out. These foundations have been grounded in classical frameworks from monolinguals and formalised in models such as the Bilingual Model of Lexical Access (BIMOLA) (Léwy, 2008) and the Bilingual Language Interaction Network for Comprehension of Speech (BLINCS) (Shook & Marian, 2013). Bilinguals may experience increased audio-visual integration when using their less dominant language because less familiarity with a language creates a greater reliance on the visual channel to make sense of auditory input. This study will therefore examine the extent to which young adult bilinguals benefit from audio-visual speech. We examine how different listening conditions affect how L2 bilinguals perceive audio-visual speech. Participants in this study were L1 English speakers learning L2 isiZulu between 17-29 years of age. Each participant was introduced to four different conditions. Namely, an audio only condition, a visual-only condition an and audio-visual condition and an incongruent condition. In the audio-only condition, the stimuli were only auditory, in the visual-only condition the stimuli were perceived without an auditory stimulus. The audio-visual stimulus was made up of both an auditory and visual stimulus whilst the incongruent stimulus was created through dubbing the audio of one word over the visual of another word. The results of the study highlighted the importance of audio-visual speech in late L2 bilingual acquisition. The differences in the phonetics and phonology of language systems might play an important role in how late L2 bilinguals perceive language in different conditions.Item A comparative study of how four selected newspapers framed the coverage of the death of mthokozisi ntumba(University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2023) MAGOMANI, AMUKELANI; Balliah, DineshFor years, traditional media such as newspapers have played a pivotal role in circulating news and information for public consumption. South Africa has recently experienced an increase in news on police brutality cases against protesters on various platforms covered by the newspapers. This study analyses the framing of media coverage by Daily Maverick, Daily Sun, Mail & Guardian, and Sowetan newspapers of the pre-and post-trial of the law enforcement officers charged with the killing of Mthokozisi Ntumba. This case was centred on forceful actions by police officials to disperse a crowd during a student protest. Although Ntumba was not amongst the protesting crowds, he was shot and killed by police officers. The study aims to discover the ways in which Ntumba’s case was reported by the four selected newspapers. The nature, aim, objectives and contextual significance of this study dictates that a qualitative research approach be used. The study was underpinned by the framing theory. Qualitative data was collected using the content analysis method, with purposive sampling used to select all textual units that contributed towards answering the study’s research questions. A sample of 83 articles was selected on the basis that the articles reported the news of the killing of Ntumba and the follow up court trial of the police officers. Qualitative framing analysis was used to study the media coverage of the killing of a bystander and police brutality in South Africa. From the study’s findings, it was revealed that different frames were used by the four selected newspapers in the coverage of Ntumba’s case. The frames used by the selected newspapers highlighted the extent to which the issue of police brutalityin the country has led to the death of people and other underlying issues that exist due to police brutality during protests.Item Phonological memory and sentence processing in South African L2 English-speaking children(University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2023-08-25) MADZIWO, ALEXIA RUVARASHE; Kunene, Ramona NicolasOut of the many factors that have impacted the state of education in South Africa (resulting in low literacy rates and high rates of academic failure), it is critical to investigate the linguistic implications on education. Comprehension has been pinpointed as a site of further research and intervention; therefore, this current study aimed to investigate the possible contributions that phonological short-term memory (pSTM) has on spoken sentence comprehension of South African second language (L2) English-speaking children from southern African Bantu language backgrounds. Discourse has claimed pSTM – a temporary auditory information memory store – to be an independent language process system from that of comprehension. However, it presents an interesting focal point for a few reasons including the following: i) L2 English-speaking children from southern African Bantu languages are confronted with the phonologically distinct English language in educational spaces; ii) children need to store sentences to process and respond to them; and iii) children’s complex linguistic skills have not yet been developed – thus, there is dependence on lower-level linguistic skills. In this study, 25 children from Polokwane, Capricorn District, participated in tasks to identify the effects of pSTM in relation to sentence processing. The researcher then analysed the developmental aspects of these processes. The corpus fell into two separate groups: i) the Grade 1, 6–7-year olds and ii) the Grade 4, 9–10-year-olds. Three tasks were presented to the participants: i) the nonword repetition task to assess their pSTM capacity, ii) a sentence-repetition task, and iii) a sentence-picture naming task. The results indicated that pSTM capacity was present from age 6 and improved with age. However, there was no clear contribution to sentence processing; despite high pSTM capacity results, sentence comprehension and repetition results remained low. In this study, we also found the following: i) syntax was a marker for comprehension issues; ii) sentence repetition showed better results than comprehension, indicating a possibly stronger link between pSTM and sentence repetition; iii) possible language interactions during pSTM disyllabic recall were noted.