3. Electronic Theses and Dissertations (ETDs) - All submissions

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Subject: search.filters.subject.Zulu language--Grammar

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    African progress and colonial modernity as seen through the Zulu pages of the Bantu world, 1932-1952
    (2018) Sifelani, Portia
    This study explores the Zulu pages of the Bantu World from 1932 to 1952. It focuses on how the Zulu-language contributors, in their letters and articles, engaged with the idea of the role that people of European descent had to play in the achievement of progress by Africans. This was mainly inspired by the fact that many Zulu articles that commented on the need for Africans to progress from a state of poverty and oppression, made constant comparisons between Africans and Europeans. There was a tendency to refer to the qualities of white people which had ensured that they achieved economic and political dominance, a feat which black people were yet to realise. An analysis of the discussions around this question reveals that the Zulu pages were a platform used by the Zulu-language writers to express ideas which were otherwise not expressed fully in English due to censorship and their preference of the Zulu language. I begin in chapter one by providing a historical background to the Bantu World by showing how the African languages press emerged from the late nineteenth to the twentieth centuries. This chapter also discusses the origins of the Bantu World and its intended purpose. Chapter two focuses on the ideological context which influenced the editors and the contributors of the Bantu World. I argue that it was the influence of Booker. T Washington on Selope Thema which predominantly became manifest in the paper and determined the themes that were discussed. In chapters three and four I then analyse some of the issues that were discussed in the Zulu pages of the Bantu World and these included the problem of disunity, perceptions about white people in relation to progress, self-help and entrepreneurship as well as the brief removal and return of the Zulu pages. The debates regarding these issues were to a large extent rooted in efforts to map a way forward as far as achieving progress was concerned. They also reflect a constant ambivalence with regards to the perceptions of the Zulu-language writers on the role that white people had to play in the achievement of this progress.
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    IsiZulu adoptives from english and afrikaans: an optimality theory analysis
    (2016-07-28) Khan, Tasmia
    The study examines some phonological characteristics of isiZulu adoptives, derived from English and Afrikaans. IsiZulu is a member of the Nguni group of languages, whereas English and Afrikaans are linguistically related, belonging to the Indo-European language group. These languages have different phonological structures and borrow words from each other. This research focuses on the repair strategies employed in isiZulu to adapt and rephonologise English and Afrikaans loanwords. Rephonologisation is a process that alters the structure of a word to conform to the phonological structure of a recipient language. This investigation focuses on the segmental and syllable structure modifications that loanwords undergo in order to make them fit into the preferred phonological structure of isiZulu. Particular repair strategies described and accounted for in this study include, inter alia, segment substitution, vowel epenthesis, glide epenthesis, and segment deletion. Certain isiZulu adoptives are completely rephonologised while others only undergo partial adjustment. This indicates the retention, in certain instances, of English and Afrikaans segmental features and syllable structures within isiZulu loanword phonology. This study examines both variants, the fully and the partially rephonologised adoptives. Additionally, with the objective of contributing to phonological typology, the research evaluates and compares its findings to observations made by prior, similar investigations for chiShona (Kadenge, 2012; Kadenge & Mudzingwa 2012) and isiNdebele (Mahlangu, 2007; Skhosana, 2009). The broader objective of this study is to explore the synchronic phonology of isiZulu, exposing the phonological changes that are taking place in this language due to contact with English and Afrikaans. In addition, a vast corpus of isiZulu loanwords (data) from English and Afrikaans is presented; contributing a foundation for utilisation in future studies. The overall analysis of the data is couched within Optimality Theory (OT: Prince & Smolensky 2004), which emphasises that surface forms of language reflect the resolution of conflicts between constraints (Kager, 1999). The intra-linguistic variations of loanwords are explained in terms of constraint re-ranking, which is responsible for the phonological shape of loanwords in isiZulu and is addressed herein.
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