School of Literature, Language and Media (ETDs)

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Start date: 2010Subject: search.filters.subject.UCTD

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    Mogaga: Play, Power and Purgation
    (University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2023) Magogodi, Kgafela Golebane; Law-Viljoen, Bronwyn
    In street parlance, or iscamto, mogaga refers to the face of confrontation. In Sekgatla, a dialect of Setswana, mogaga is a name for a potent plant used in rituals of “social purgation” (De Graft, 2002: 26-27). This study focuses on the element of go gagaola or the act of triggering mogaga through a fusion of poetic incantations,1 song, dance and “spirit embodiment” (Ajumeze, 2014: 78). Go gagaola, the act of activating mogaga, hinges on agit-prop-mechanics that enable the elimination of botheration or the purging of domination. Does ritual drama have the power to alter material conditions? This and other questions about play-making as a scaffold which holds up a combination of spiritual elevation and political rebellion drive this enquiry. How do we expel botheration using the power of play? As it appears, ritual drama and guerilla theatre have the same framework as acts of “spiritual realism” (Mahone, 2002: 270). Guerilla theatre, like ritual drama, is also a system of change. Plotting the adventures of Phokobje and Phiri, I have found great resources in spiritual traditions such as malopo/malombo of Bakgatla/Bapedi and VhaVenda as well abaNgoma of Ba-Nguni. Mapping the journeys of characters in Chilahaebolae led to unexpected forays into astronomy – bolepa dinaledi in Setswana. People’s Experimental Theatre, Malombo Jazz Makers, Dashiki, Mihlothi, Malopoets and others who accentuated the connection between ritual and rebellion. Through this enquiry I make an offering to the decolonial project and the community of scholars, artists, astronomers and iZangoma who have been silenced by the settler-colonial canon through epistemic violence, massacre, and incarceration. These musings about mogaga play-making recasts theatre as the locus of confrontation and a tool for purging botheration. Going beyond “the banal search for exoticism” (Fanon, 1967: 221), I trace the bloodline of resistance theatre
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    Femicide in South Africa: Ideal Victims, Visible Bodies, and Invisible Perpetrators
    (University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2023-05) Nyathi, Tebogo; Falkof, Nicky
    South Africa’s femicide rate is five times the global average (Statistics South Africa 2018). In recent years, we have seen increased scholarly attention examining media reporting of femicide. These studies have been critical the way South African media have and continue to cover femicide. This study seeks to add to this existing knowledge by exploring the media coverage of three sexual violence murders. This study explores the online news media coverage of three case studies. These case studies are the rape and murder of University of Cape Town student Uyinene Mrwetyana, the rape and murder of Lynette Volschenk, and the rape and murder of grade 7 pupil Janika Mallo. All these murders happened in Cape Town in August 2019 and received prominent media coverage. This study utilizes thematic analytic tools to explore dominant patterns in the data through the framework of representation and intersectionality. The study aims to do a close reading and identify discourses embedded in news media texts to highlight their functions, effects, and social and ideological implications for society. The findings reveal an increased focus on the visible bodily injuries of victims and media used spectacular language to present this. The focus on the bodily injuries resulted in making perpetrators invisible. The analysis confirmed that certain victims matter to media more than others. Furthermore, media represented femicide as a current crisis and ignored the historical structures that enable the prevalence of sexual violence. Although, this study is not comparative media analysis and does not provide media to show that some murders are under reported, because it is only looking at three cases the analysis does demonstrate that other murders matter more than others. The study concludes that the way media cover femicide does not present the ‘true reality’ of sexual violence in South Africa and we are still far from finding long lasting solutions to the rampant violence.
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    Precarious spaces: intersections of gendered identity and violence in Zimbabwean literature
    (University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2022-12) Chando, Aaron; Nyanda, Josiah; Muponde, Robert
    This thesis examines ways in which selected Zimbabwean literary works expand understandings of the cultural production and deconstruction of precarity. It seeks to advance the claim that a cross-section of Zimbabwean writers espouses a ‘precarious aesthetic’ to reimagine the nation by deconstructing cultural practices that produce and sustain precarity. I postulate that precarity is ideologically produced at the intersections of gendered identities and institutionalised forms of violence, such as ethnonationalism, heteropatriarchal policing, ableism, homophobia, and misogyny, where notional understandings of masculinity and femininity become central to the politics of (un)belonging. I draw on premises from precarity, gendered identities, and intersectionality studies to make a case for a space-bound understanding of precarity that recognises Zimbabwean textual nuances and environmental specificities. By deploying Western-based theorisations of precarity to address dynamics of disempowerment in a Zimbabwean context, I seek to demonstrate that precarity discourses are in a constant process of becoming and to expand discursive space on a subject that has been predominantly approached through tropes of drought and hunger. A cross-cutting premise in precarity studies is that the experience of marginalisation promotes radical thinking, which enables victims to weaponise their condition. This underwrites my assumption that all marginalising impulses leave spaces for pushback, strategic surrender, and self-affirmation. Therefore, throughout the five core chapters of the thesis, I adopt a close reading strategy to offer context-specific evaluations of refusal politics undertaken by precarious subjects in different sites of displacement. I propose that exploring overlaps among marginalising ideologies and pushback mechanisms can unravel new insights about the political function of vulnerability and bring forth a new grammar with which to talk about precarity. Overall, I argue that the literary front constitutes a site of reinvention where precarious subjects are radically written into existence and where diversity and difference are recast as indices of social hygiene.
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    Proximalisation in the acquisition of sign language by hearing adult learners
    (University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2023-07) Chambers, Dana Jade; Kaneko, Michiko
    This research study explores whether or not proximalisation is present in the acquisition of South African Sign Language (SASL) by hearing adult learners. This research will specifically be looking at the extent of proximalisation, as well as the details of how and when proximalisation occurs. This research is motivated by the fact that while both the study and the use of sign language by hearing people is growing on a global scale there is very little research done on their production using the necessary joints. I have used a quantitative descriptive study in order to investigate the presence of proximalisation in the signs produced by hearing learners. I have used the study done by Mirus, Rathmann and Meier (2001) who looked at the proximalisation and distalisation of German Sign Language and American Sign Language as a basis for this research study. This study focused on the proximalisation in the production of signs by hearing adult first year SASL learners with no prior knowledge of sign language. I have also used a study by Napoli et al (2014) to identify additional features regarding joint usage and joint manipulation in regards to ease of articulation. Based on the findings by Mirus, Rathmann and Meier (2001) in their study the findings of this study show a significantly lower than expected presence of proximalisation. It was found that participants joint manipulation rather favoured that of distalisation, joint omission (the complete lack of the joint in the production) and joint addition. These were unexpected and all resulted in an ease of articulation and overall, less energy and effort production.
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    The ‘madness account’: An examination of madness and writing within the fictional and autobiographical works of Bessie Head and Janet Frame
    (University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2023-08) Hovelmeier, Sinéad Katherine; Van Schalkwyk, Simon
    Bessie Head and Janet Frame are two writers who have not been read comparatively. Despite this, both authors engage in writing about ‘madness’. Bessie Head presents madness in her fictional work A Question of Power (1973) as well as in her various life-writings (letters). Janet Frame presents madness in her fictional work Faces in the Water (1961) and her autobiography An Autobiography (1982). The current field labels these fictional works as ‘autobiographical’, and it pays close attention to madness as one area where the supposed commonalities between life experiences and fictional accounts justify this labelling. Current research on autobiography is divided along the individualist tradition of ‘male’ autobiography and the newer forms of autobiography, which not only employ the ‘autobiographical pact’ but stretch the conventions of autobiography into a whole host of emerging subcategories (autofiction, confessional literature, faction etc.). The current field does not consider that equating a ‘mad’ author with a ‘mad’ character in fiction is a limited approach to representations of madness. Focusing on ‘scriptotherapy’ and the ‘madness account’, my research addresses this gap in the literature. Reading the texts comparatively produced varied results for ‘madness’; Frame’s account of madness is richest in the fiction she decidedly claimed as not autobiographical, while Head’s life-writings reveal her fictional account of ‘madness’ as autobiographical but dissatisfying, it fails to express her real-life experiences accurately. Reading all four texts together and applying ‘scriptotherapy’ to each provides insights into the role of ‘madness’ within each text and its impact on each author. This research fills a gap in the current research by revealing a broader view of ‘madness’ in the works of both Frame and Head.
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    Students’ motivation on learning Portuguese as a Foreign Language Course: A case study on the University of the Witwatersrand and University of Mpumalanga
    (University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2023-02) Adão, Roberto; Campos, Marta
    Motivation is one of the most significant and determining factors in language learning, therefore it is important to study the different ways in which motivation influences students in their foreign language studies. This dissertation investigates university students’ motivation for learning Portuguese as a foreign language course at two South African universities. This study aimed to identify the principal factors which motivate students to study Portuguese as a foreign language at two universities: along with determining the possible similarities and differences between the students’ sources of motivation for learning Portuguese at each respective university as a foreign language. The study took place at two universities namely, the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg and the University of Mpumalanga. Both universities currently offer Portuguese as a language course within their respective Bachelor of Arts degrees. Through the application of a questionnaire and obtaining quantitative data from the student’s responses, in addition to the use of the Likert scale and descriptive statistics (mode, mean and standard deviation), students’ sources of motivation were possible to assess and interpret in a numerical form, as regards their learning of Portuguese with the objective of expanding their proficiency in the Portuguese language.
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    The Value of Translation Theory for Translation Practice
    (University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2023-07) Mitchell, Ruben Isaac; Leal, Alice
    Despite the fact that many translation practitioners acknowledge the importance of translation theory for shaping and delivering functional translations and helping translators reflect on their work, there is still a common perception that translation theory is of little or no value for the practice of translation. With the backing of a survey among professional translators, this study attempts to show trends in the development of translation theory. Many practitioners feel the theory is irrelevant to their work but believe it does not need to be so. Not enough is being done to show practitioners, both in the field and in the classroom, that the value of theory is, for example, in giving them conceptual tools with which to reflect on their work and solve translation problems. The tension between descriptive translation studies and prescriptive translation studies is examined. After decades of research, debate and writing, there is still much disagreement among scholars about meaning, equivalence, translation as a science and as a viable activity at all, and fidelity vs. freedom in translation. Risks that are real in modern theorising about translation include becoming prescriptive while advocating for descriptive translation studies, and perpetrating cultural subversion against the source language while advocating for cultural transfer to the target language. It is possible for theorists to guide and suggest while allowing the translator to have the final choice in the translation act. Theory should be based on a wider variety of examples, genres and cultures. Finally, assessment criteria both for the classroom and the workplace need to be clearer. Recommendations are supplied for remedying the perception of theory, improving classroom practice and improving conditions for translators.
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    She’s Not a Bad Girl, Brenda Fassie: Past, Present and Future, A Canon for the Construction of Post Colonial Feminist Consciousness
    (University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2023-07) Qwesha, Qhama; Mupotsa, Danai S.
    In this research report, I examine the ways that icon Brenda Fassie operates as an important archive for the articulation of quotidian feminist consciousness. In paying close attention to the present re-emergence of Fassie in South African intimate publics that include idioms, modes, praxes, aesthetics, and consumptive forms that she currently figuratively circulates. I approach the question of an archive from two central sensibilities: first, with regards to authoritative narrative accounts related to her memorialization; and second, in the ways that her figure (re)appears in these intimate publics to reconfigure the meanings we attach to African femme/womanhood and sexualities. Looking to multiple archives is a methodological gesture at assembling a range of cultural objects that include her body of work, including the aural, visual, and aesthetic performance of her work; along with the archive of work produced with or about her that often situates itself around accounts of her biography. With this understanding of her archive, the approach is to see how Fassie figuratively operates, presenting contesting identities through which she can move in and out of multiple temporalities that are often contradictory. Fassie’s ability to transgress while equally forming a part of national historic discourse allows us to inquire into the ways that she complicates notions of gender and sexuality – and how these continue to shape current articulations of feminism in post-apartheid South Africa.
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    Towards the Development of a Monolingual Sesotho Learner’s Dictionary
    (University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2023-01) Mahloane, Malefu Justina; Setshedi, Quinn Thelma Malakabane
    Sesotho practical lexicography commenced over 160 years ago and up to the time when this research was initiated, there had not been a single monolingual or online learner’s dictionary produced for the language. As a result, this research aimed to develop a Sesotho monolingual learner’s dictionary with the ultimate goal being to make the dictionary available online. To achieve this, the research investigated the different factors to consider when developing a dictionary with these characteristics. The objective of this research was to use Corpus Linguistics methodology to develop the dictionary. The methods used are both qualitative and quantitative. The contents of the dictionary are extracted from a c.a. 100 000-word corpus that was compiled specially for this research – as a corpus is the object of study or a tool in Corpus Linguistics. The corpus was processed using various language processing methods and tools, the main being the TshwaneLex Suite. The study managed to develop a prototype of the Sesotho monolingual learner’s dictionary and it is attached as Annexure 1, and the dictionary will continue to be developed beyond this research. It is anticipated that, the developed prototype dictionary presented here, will serve as evidence that there are effective means that Sesotho Lexicographers can adapt to produce other types of dictionaries beyond the usual bilingual/translation and paperback dictionaries that are the norm in Sesotho lexicography.
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    A critical review of academic practice and integrated edtech use at a South African University: The ‘real’ level
    (University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2023-06) Hoosen, Nazira; Agherdien, Najma; Abrahams, Lucienne
    This study aimed to investigate and understand how academics’ digital competence and critical digital pedagogy (CDP) knowledge shaped pedagogical practice. Freire (1970), Bhaskar (1978), Archer (1995) and Shulman (1987) were the main authors drawn upon in the literature. A qualitative research paradigm and a multiple case study methodology were employed by drawing on critical realism (CR) and social realism (SR) as a theoretical analytical framework. This entailed exploring structural, cultural and agential emergent properties to examine how each construct developed over time prior to synthesis. The analysis demonstrated that the form of agential mediation to which academics were exposed explained why some of them in the same social structures and culture enacted CDP practices, while others did not. Consequently, three crucial dimensions of CDP knowledge and enactment were made visible through this study’s data and theoretical analytical framework, namely digitally-enabling structures, digitally-informed cultures and digitally-capable agency. From a pragmatic perspective, to enact CDP practice, academics need to connect the digital reality to knowledge work and epistemic practice. In this process, academic agency and digital agency would intersect, requiring reflexive and reflective practice. However, while reflection assists in recognising the need for CDP knowledge and enactment, it is insufficient on its own: embodied action and mindful critique of the world are required. From a theoretical perspective, the concept of ‘critical’, in the literature, is related mainly to the level of social relations. This study demonstrated that there is a socio-cultural stratum and a psychological-cognitive stratum. Both these strata need to be considered as mechanisms that interact with each other to produce the outcomes of CDP practice within a digital reality. Collectively, these contributions do not translate to accepting the digital reality as a predestination. Instead, it highlighted that academics functioned in a layered HE system that required, not a singular, but a unified and pluralistic (collective) vision. Individuals and institutions are limited in their capacity to respond proactively to external change and internal complexity. Therefore, the HE system requires a rerouting from the traditional path, critically reframing learning and teaching through transformative foresight, where all parts within the system work co-terminously. One significant outcome of this study is a developmental higher education systems thinking framework focusing on the promotion of CDP practices.