3. Electronic Theses and Dissertations (ETDs) - All submissions
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Item A systemic functional linguistics perspective on the translation of children`s literature: a comparative analysis of the the Setswana translation of the girl without a sound(2018) Thabong, MalebogoThis study is a comparative analysis of the children`s story by Buhle Ngaba, The Girl without a Sound, which was translated from English into the Setswana language as Mosetsanyana yo o didimetseng and published in 2016. The aim of the study is to identify shifts and variations in the Setswana translation, entitled Mosetsanyana yo o didimetseng, by Segomoco Bosh, of The Girl without a Sound. The focus of the analysis is on transitivity relations identified in the two texts within the framework of systemic functional linguistics and on any shifts or other variations between the texts. Nine specific segments of the texts were selected for detailed analysis involves the last nine segments of the texts. The study uses a Qualitative Research as a methodology and Systemic Functional Linguistics as a theoretical framework for the comparison of the two texts. SFL has not been applied previously to the comparison of English and Setswana texts; the study therefore makes an original contribution to research involving translation between these two languages. The findings show no significant variation in the reproduction of the features of the ST in the TT. In all nine segments of the source and target texts which are analysed, the material processes are dominant, highlighting the physical activities performed by the little girl and the red-winged woman – the two chief players in the narrative. This is reflected in the foregrounding pattern of an Actor + Process + Goal and Circumstance. The second most frequent type of processes are the mental processes, most often with the little girl as a senser. The study also reveals other factors involving the use of Batlharo/Batlhaping dialect in the translation; there are also instances of literal translation, inconsistency, the choice of relatively sophisticated lexicon given the target audience, omission of words and change of structure. This study focuses on the analysis of transitivity, while future research might investigate modality in the interpersonal metafunction and an analysis of the textual metafunction in relation to the thematic structure. This study finds that while translators may make various adjustments in children`s texts if and when is necessary, it is generally advisable not to take additional liberties which may interfer with the original author’s intentions.Item The development of discourse coherence devices of different language typologies: South African English and IsiZulu(2018) Coertze, NatashaThe current South African linguistic context is focusing on building formal knowledge of preciously understudied South African indigenous languages. This research adopts a multi-lingual stance by conducting a cross-linguistic study of the development of discourse coherece devices in the acquisition of isiZulu and South African English. Although successful communication is founded on pragmatic principles, such as discourse coherence, most research leans towards focusing on the early acquisition of formal linguistic structures, often at the expense of addressing pragmatic and discursive development. This research will use an oral narrative in order to observe the development of discourse coherence. This study will adopt a multi-modal stance as research has shown that language is a multi-modal system whereby gesture assists both communication and language production. Furthermore, research has also shown that typological constraints affect language processing. Thus, a typological approach will be adopted in order to observe typological constraints on the development of discourse coherence strategies. The research seeks to address three aims: what strategies are used by each language to communicate discourse coherence; how these strategies develop across age groups; and what are the typological effects on this development. The study seeks to address these aims by using archival data of previously elicited narratives. A cartoon stimulus was used to elicit narratives from the three age groups of English and isiZulu participants: 5-6 years, 9-10, and adults (control group). Discourse coherence strategies will be assessed on the following levels: narrative level, linguistic level, and gesture. The cross-linguistic comparison of these three age groups will provide insight into the relationship between structural language, pragmatics, and cognition.Item Early South African newspaper reporting of climate change(2019) McCarthy, Jarred DeanMass media is a medium used for scientific knowledge dissemination, informing society, and therefore shaping society’s perspectives. A highly popularised aspect of scientific discourse in the media is climate change, given its potential threat to livelihoods, the environment, and related political and economic agendas. For the aforementioned reasons, qualitative research was undertaken to examine the diachronic portrayal, and subsequent development, of early climate change by several English South African newspapers, including The Rand Daily Mail and The Star. The undertaking of this research is made possible given an existing newspaper clippings archive at the South African Weather Service, 1906-present. The period under examination, 1906-1956 (50 years), represents significant shifts in environmental, and political agendas. Articles that contained early climate change as their point of interest were further analysed using discourse analysis and thematic content analysis by means of a coding process as well as utilising a narrative analysis. By researching diachronically, it became possible to document and describe the development of early climate change, and the development of the South African media’s technique(s), and process(es) of how early climate change was portrayed. Findings suggest that without Professor Schwarz professing that South Africa was undergoing ‘climatic changes’, a progressive decrease in rainfall, early climate change would not have been covered as extensively as it was throughout the 1906-1955 time period analysed. This debate divided ordinary citizens and experts who agreed with Professor Schwarz and the South African scientific community, who did not agree that a progressive decrease in rainfall was occurring. Results also suggest that journalists played a central and critical role in the development of early climate change and in the development of a scientific consensus thereon. Journalists pushed for clarity on the underlying causes that resulted in ‘climatic changes’, which subsequently expanded the debate to include both anthropogenic and natural facets of early climate change such as solar variability, ENSO and land-use change among others.Item Identity juggling and judgments: ESL university students' linguistic identity experiences in their first year of study(2016) Ferraz Neves, TanyaThis research project explores the linguistic experiences and the effects of these on the identities of two first-year ESL university students. Using a sociolinguistic framework, it explores the links between language and identity. The data for this study comes from examination essays written based on a first-year Sociolinguistics module in the English I course in the Wits School of Education and interviews conducted with two students. The analysis of this data reveals how these students’ linguistic identities, structured by their different backgrounds, facilitate and constrain the ways in which they adapt to university life. Both students focused on in this research shift in their identities as they attempt to adapt to the increasing number of different fields they encounter at university. Linguistic identity shifts are also evident as they re-enter the old fields in the communities in which they grew up. The two students must work to negotiate these differing identities both within and outside of the university. Bourdieu’s concepts of habitus, capital and field, guide this discussion and help to illustrate how students struggle to negotiate their identity. This study shows that owing to a conflict of capital and the fact that habitus is deeply entrenched layers of linguistic dispositions, linguistic identity is difficult to shift. Despite the fact that the University of the Witwatersrand is a super-diverse environment, with students bringing different kinds of linguistic capital to the various fields within this environment, this research projectargues that students struggle to find a place for themselves within this variety. It shows that the participants seek out affinity groups within which they feel they have sufficient linguistic capital. However, within these groups there is jostling for a linguistic identity as, in the face of policing and linguistic prejudice, they struggle to assert their sense of self in relation to their developing linguistic identities. KEYWORDS: linguistic identity, Discourse, field, habitus, capital, policing, prejudice, investment, voice.Item Dominance and marginality in community psychology knowledge production : a critical analysis of published work.(2014-09-04) Graham, Tanya MoniqueThe current global formation, characterised by a burgeoning knowledge economy alongside widespread social discontent and economic upheaval, situates the study of knowledge production in the field of community psychology at a timely socio-historical juncture. Community psychology has a long-standing tradition of introspection about its identity, achievements and future direction, established historically through the analysis of published work. This research engages with this tradition, foregrounding the intellectual role and social position of scholars in the field, and the tensions that are collectively evident their work. The study critically appraises the characteristics of published work over a decade with a view to distilling the topics of interest, the preferred methodological choices and the predominant theoretical concerns of the sub-discipline of community psychology. The study employs a mixed methodology to highlight patterns of dominance and marginality in these elements that situates South African scholarship in the field within the global arena. The study presents a content analysis of trends in 2 229 published articles drawn from two local South African journals (South African Journal of Psychology and Psychology in Society) and four international journals (American Journal of Community Psychology, Journal of Community Psychology, Journal of Community and Applied Social Psychology and Journal of Prevention and Intervention in the Community) that were published between 1 January 2000 and 31 December 2009. Among the variables investigated in the quantitative data analysis were constitutive of the authorship characteristics, publication types, topics, theoretical choices, research methods and participant characteristics appearing in published work, including the representation of marginalised groups. The discursive analysis that follows, presents an in-depth reading of selected texts drawn from this dataset though the use of a critical discursive frame to illustrate of how power and the tensions between dominant narratives and marginal positions in community psychology manifest in published work. This serves to foreground contradictions in the identity, values and foci of the field, and some of the discourses implicated in how these disparities are perpetuated. The thesis contends that knowledge production is a contested site where attention to patterns of dominance and marginality reveal how the workings of power can be detected using both quantitative and qualitative analytic methods to investigate the state of published work. Though vastly different in the quantity of publications generated, and the field’s stage of development, the theoretical and methodological features of articles published internationally and in South Africa were remarkably alike. Across both contexts, results showed the prominent use of preventionist, traditional and ecological theories, rather than critical or social perspectives. This reveals the pervasive influence of biomedical epistemologies in the field. Authors were primarily located in academia rather than in applied community contexts. They published empirical articles most often, and showed an affinity for positivist research approaches and the survey method of data collection. The use of a critical paradigm and associated methodological choices, such as discourse analysis, was rare. Most studies did not focus specifically on marginalised groups, although the presence of forms of structural marginality by race, gender and socio-economic status were similarly proportionate across local and international research. Results suggest a persistent neglect of researching specific marginalised groups, such as those socially excluded due to age, HIV status, migration and sexual orientation. Differences across contexts were especially evident in the choice of research topics, rather than approaches used. On the whole, international research has a much greater emphasis on research topics related to child, youth and family development. Findings suggest that disciplinary forces in the field heavily influence the form of articles and their theoretical and methodological features, across local and international research. However, journal topics are more context-sensitive aspects of publications, and reflect local concerns. In addition to publication trends, the thesis identifies several discourses present in published work that show how the field is constructed and its ideological tensions. The thesis considers these findings in view of the power relations they represent and critically reflects on the intrinsic and extrinsic issues at stake in defining the field of community psychology in light of global knowledge production imperatives.Item Discourses of whiteness and masculinity in conscripts' talk about the South African 'border war'.(2014-02-25) Caforio, DaniloThe primary aim of this research was to explore the experiences of formerly white conscripted combat veterans during the ‘border war’ and furthermore, to uncover discourses of whiteness and masculinity embedded in their recounted experiences. This research made use of a qualitative research design. This study drew on the experiences of white male South Africans who were exposed to some form of active combat during the ‘border war’. The sample consisted of 8 white South Africans who were born roughly between the 1960s and 1970s. Data was collected through semi-structured interviews and analysed using discourse analysis. For the purpose of this research, a hybridised version of discourse analysis was used. This contained elements of critical as well as the discursive approaches to discourse analysis. This study concluded that both whiteness and masculinity are unstable constructs with no absolute definition. This study also found that many of the participants seemed conflicted and unsure of where to position themselves in relation to the ‘border war’, apartheid and contemporary South Africa as white men. For many it would seem it is easier to simply ignore those years of their lives. In terms of the intersectionality of whiteness and masculinity this research confirms the fact that both whiteness and masculinity, as socially and culturally constructed categories, work together and interact on multiple levels to either empower or marginalize individuals. However, in some instances it was also found that these discourses also function independently of each other. Ultimately it can be said that white masculinity exists in a space that is both troubled and unsettled. This study has illustrated that white men in South Africa have gone from a position of omnipotent power during apartheid to one of contested instability in present South African society. It is evident from this research that whiteness and masculinity are both complex and diffuse constructs that still warrant a great deal of exploration. That said, the future prospects for these individuals are both challenging and possible.Item Learning to teach statistics meaningfully.(2014-01-06) Lampen, Christine ErnaFollowing international trends, statistics is a relatively new addition to the South African mathematics curriculum at school level and its implementation was fraught with problems. Since 2001 teaching statistics in the Further Education and Training Phase (Grades 10 to 12) has been optional due to lack of professional development of teachers. From 2014 teaching statistics will be compulsory. This study is therefore timely as it provides information about different discourses in discussions of an ill-structured problem in a data-rich context, as well as in discussions of the meaning of the statistical mean. A qualitative case study of informal statistical reasoning was conducted with a group of students that attended an introductory course in descriptive statistics as part of an honours degree in mathematics education at the University of the Witwatersrand. The researcher was the course lecturer. Transcripts of the discussions in four video recorded sessions at the start of the semester long course form the bulk of the data. The discussions in the first three sessions of the course were aimed at structuring the data-context, or grasping the system dynamics of the data-context, as is required at the start of a cycle of statistical investigation. The discussion in the fourth session was about the syntactical meaning of the mean algorithm. It provides guidelines for meaningful disobjectification of the well-known mean algorithm. This study provides insight into informal statistical reasoning that is currently described as idiosyncratic or verbal according to statistical reasoning models. Discourse analysis based on Sfard’s (2008) theory of Commognition was used to investigate and describe discursive patterns that constrain shifting from colloquial to informal statistical discourse. The main finding is that colloquial discourse that is aimed at decision making in a data-context is incommensurable with statistical discourse, since comparison of data in the two discourses are drawn on incommensurable scales – a qualitative evaluation scale and a quantitative descriptive scale. The problem of comparison on a qualitative scale also emerged in the discourse on the syntactical meaning of the mean algorithm, where average as a qualitative judgement conflicted with the mean as a quantitative measurement. Implications for teaching and teacher education are that the development of statistical discourse may be dependent on alienation from data-contexts and the abstraction of measurements as abstract numerical units. Word uses that confound measurements as properties of objects and measurements as abstract units are discussed. Attention to word use is vital in order to discern evaluation narratives as deed routines from exploration narratives and routines.Item What constitutes a 'risky' identity? : the social representation of the risk of contracting HIV among South African students.(2011-04-04) Stadler, Sarah LouiseThis research aimed to explore the social representation of a ‘risky identity’ with regard to HIV. 12 students participated in the research and these participants were required to take photographs regarding their perceptions of a ‘risky identity’. Each participant also took part in a semi-structured interview that prompted discussion of the photographs and the different factors perceived to influence the risk of HIV infection. These interviews were audiorecorded and transcribed. Discourse analysis was used to analyse the data and how the participants position the ‘other’ as more at risk of HIV infection than the self. The analysis also revealed that the most common factor perceived to influence the risk of HIV infection is substance use. Other factors include: gender, race, age, and socio-economic status. Interestingly, the participants found it easier to attribute risk to behavioural and environmental factors, whereas they were more reluctant to associate risk with factors such as race and gender. In fact, when doing so, many of the participants emphasised the impact of environmental and behavioural factors as a means to justify their perceptions. The risk of justifying social representations in such a manner is that prejudiced attitudes remain, just in a seemingly more socially acceptable form. Subsequently, it is recommended that HIV prevention programs go beyond education to critical discussions about issues of identity and the social representations and risk perceptions influencing sexual behaviour.Item Young men and women's talk about the emergence of the 'metrosexual' male.(2011-03-30) Ramdeo, PrashnaGender studies in South Africa, especially the understanding of masculinity, is still in its infancy and as such paucity in literature and qualitative studies is evident. This study was aimed at exploring how male and female university students talked about the emergence of the ‘metrosexual’ male and the changes, if any, that masculinity has undergone. The rationale of this study is to therefore contribute to the growing understanding of the ‘metrosexual’ male and to try and bridge the gap between theoretical understandings of masculinity and the lived experiences of the South African population. The sample for this study consisted of eight University of Witwatersrand undergraduate students (four male and four female). . The research process involved each participant undergoing a semi structured interview, after which their talk around the ‘metrosexual’ male was analysed using discourse analysis. The researcher was interested in learning how the participants talked about current masculinity, the ‘metrosexual’ male, factors that are responsible for the emergence of the ‘metrosexual’ male and finally the suggestion that masculinity is in crisis. The data suggests that whilst the ‘metrosexual’ is understood as being another form of masculinity, the suggestion of a crisis is questionable, as perhaps the so called crisis is created through people’s discourses as a means of repositioning masculinity and maintaining its inherent dominance. The ‘metrosexual’ male was therefore seen as a positioning of masculinity that implies freedom to explore without disrupting the hegemonic qualities of masculinity.