The focus of this article is to provide a linguistic description of the ‘language of Wakanda’ – a... more The focus of this article is to provide a linguistic description of the ‘language of Wakanda’ – a non-existent, fictional language that the makers of the Hollywood science-fiction blockbuster Black Panther represent by using isiXhosa. Our data is collected from the script, subtitles and linguistic performances of isiXhosa by the actors in the film. While cultural and media studies are germane to the discussion, they are not our primary focus, although we provide reference to scholarship on these topics generally, and more specifically to academic commentary on the film Black Panther. As the language of Wakanda has never before been described by linguists, our research objectives are to examine how this language features in the movie in relation to other languages used (a statistical analysis) and also how it is rendered in text by the makers of the subtitles (grammatical and syntactical observations) and by the actors (a phonological analysis).
This lecture will be of interest to anyone who wishes to know more about the relationship between... more This lecture will be of interest to anyone who wishes to know more about the relationship between language and culture. Go to Seeing the world as an African language speaker Is the way we see the world influenced by our language, or is it the other way around: is our language influenced by the way we see the world? You’ve all heard (the rather faulty) example of the Inuit having many words for snow – and maybe even have heard of the South American language called Yagan with a word Mamihlapinatapei which refers to the desirous look two people give each other when they want to start something but are too hesitant to do so (what a wistful, romantic culture, you might think!) But what about here in South Africa? What is it about African languages that makes them uniquely different and astonishingly original in the way they are put together? This lecture will introduce you to some of the key features (both structural and metaphorical) of our languages, features essential to understanding their cultures
Town Some degree of acculturation is necessary for successful second and third language learning.... more Town Some degree of acculturation is necessary for successful second and third language learning. A definition of acculturation is followed by an examination of the viability of including a socio-cultural component in the language curriculum. A specific case study of Xhosa third language implikasies daarvan ten opsigte van die onderrig en aanleer van derde tale bespreek.
ABSTRACT In multilingual societies, where researchers and participants often do not speak the sam... more ABSTRACT In multilingual societies, where researchers and participants often do not speak the same language, research is a challenge as a mismatch of understanding between researchers, research instruments and participants often occurs. Reporting on the translation process is crucial because of the potential implications for the validity of the data that follow from it. We aimed to report on the complexities of such a translation process and many considerations that came to our attention. Methodologically, we used a detailed case study to demonstrate that the complexity of translation might be underestimated by researchers who may neglect to report on the challenges that they experience to benefit the wider research community. We emphasise that translating documents, particularly between languages that are not cognate, requires time and financial resources that researchers often do not anticipate or plan for. By discussing what happened to texts that were translated, and how we as researchers were challenged by considerations that were primarily linguistic but also straddled cultural and socio-political domains, we hope to encourage a deeper understanding of the translation task. We conclude that consideration of these complexities is necessary if the aim is the development of translated documents which complement the researchers’ goals.
This paper assesses the effectiveness of essay tutorials offered to first-year economics students... more This paper assesses the effectiveness of essay tutorials offered to first-year economics students at the UCT (University of Cape Town) in their first language (L1). All students in the study are first-language speakers of an African language. Firstly, using propensity score matching, we econometrically assess the impact of these tutorials on students' essay marks. Although our sample size is small [n=220], our findings provide preliminary evidence of a positive impact of the intervention on a student's final essay mark. The results show that the average gain for students who attended an essay tutorial in their L1 was 4.85%, with this result being statistically significant at the 10% significance level. Secondly, students' perceptions of the tutorials' effectiveness, as documented by online evaluations and focus groups, are examined. These findings suggest that allowing for unmediated L1 use in tertiary education classrooms can foster inclusivity and promote participation in otherwise largely monolingual spaces.
There is a lack of culturally and linguistically appropriate tools for assessing the speech and l... more There is a lack of culturally and linguistically appropriate tools for assessing the speech and language development of South African infants and toddlers, particularly those who speak southern African Bantu languages. This article sets out to describe our experiences of the pre-pilot phase of the Xhosa adaptation of the MacArthur-Bates Communicative Development Inventories (CDIs). To this end, a background to the CDIs is provided, as well as discussion on biases in assessments. Data informing this discussion is drawn from observations of the spontaneous speech and gestures of Xhosa-speaking toddlers in the 16−30 month age group in both rural and urban areas, as well as focus groups and individual interviews with mothers and professional caregivers of Xhosa-speaking toddlers.
During the apartheid years Black South Africans interpreted their experience through a humour uni... more During the apartheid years Black South Africans interpreted their experience through a humour unique in that it was a part of everyday conversation, rather than a separate discourse. While there are some jokes that testify to the way people felt about discrimination, these are not an adequate reflection of the wit and ingenuity of the oppressed and exploited. For example, the conversations of Xhosa domestic workers reflect a deeply satirical and even subversive humour, while humour in Xhosa oral discourse is highly charged, emotive and dramatic, relying to a great extent on the 'comedian's' ability to impersonate and characterize. 'Who was he referring to but precisely those councillors! Because you see those headman also enjoyed par-He mfondini, khawunyawuke, nam ndingowalapha, kwaye nam ndifuna ukotha. Cartoon 4 Hey, my friend, please move up, I am also from here, I also want to get warm (lmvo 27 October 1973:4).
A Grade 4 English language teacher in a township school in Cape Town, South Africa, in her quest ... more A Grade 4 English language teacher in a township school in Cape Town, South Africa, in her quest to equip learners with new target language resources, is not held back by the perceived boundaries dividing named languages. Instead she employs language in creative and goal-directed ways that we believe have not received enough focused linguistic attention in scholarship. While recognising the importance of research into code-switching, codemixing and lexical borrowing among South Africa's indigenous languages, we draw on the work of functional linguists with an emphasis on the communicative function of linguistic signals and a de-emphasis on labelling languages. Central to this paper is the inchoative concept of translanguaging that is gaining ground in socio-and applied linguistics and aims at describing fluidity rather than reproducing established notions of separate languages. In township environments access to high-currency language resources (standard English) is often said to be absent due to teachers' lack of linguistic and pedagogic capacity and schools' lack of resources. Our main aim here is to focus on the presence of powerful language resources, rather than their absence, in such a highly scrutinised, purportedly deficient educational setting.
Southern African Journal for Folklore Studies, 2016
Much research has been conducted on African traditional healers generally (Arden 1996; Chidester ... more Much research has been conducted on African traditional healers generally (Arden 1996; Chidester 1996; Chakanza 2006; Reeder 2011), and Xhosa diviners and herbalists specifically (Hammond-Tooke 1989; Hirst 1997, 2005), but none of this work focuses on their particular public discourse. Some researchers (Tyrrell 1976; Broster & Bourn 1982) describe outward symbols and publicly knowable signs of their identity, but do not analyse the implicit meanings of these symbols. In order to reach a more nuanced understanding of how Xhosa diviners and herbalists traditionally used to market themselves to their public (how they made themselves publically known), this paper draws on information from documented investigations into diviners and herbalists in South Africa; a description of their current marketing strategies is drawn from our own research and inquiries. We argue that Xhosa herbalists and diviners are key players in negotiating the socio-cultural aspects of their respective societies, ...
ABSTRACT This article examines the language used on both formal and informal signage in Cape Town... more ABSTRACT This article examines the language used on both formal and informal signage in Cape Town. Using the theory of geosemiotics with examples of actual signage, I discuss the semantic vulnerability of language when a sign is used outside its intended context; the sociolinguistic implications of poor translations; the phenomenon of monolingual and bilingual signage as opposed to trilingual signage; the symbolic hegemony of English and Afrikaans over Xhosa; and the lessons that can be learnt from language used on informal township signs and advertisements.
Southern African Journal for Folklore Studies, 2018
While there have been a number of studies on the decontextualisation and secularisation of tradit... more While there have been a number of studies on the decontextualisation and secularisation of traditional ritual music in America, Taiwan and other parts of the globe, very little has been written on the processes and transformations that South Africa’s indigenous ceremonial songs go through over time. This study was prompted by the authors’ interest in, and engagement with the Xhosa initiation song Somagwaza, which has been re-imagined as a popular song, but has also purportedly found its way into other religious spaces. In this article, we attempted to investigate the extent to which the song Somagwaza is still associated with the Xhosa initiation ritual and to analyse evidence of it being decontextualised and secularised in contemporary South Africa. Our methodology included an examination of the various academic treatments of the song, an analysis of the lyrics of a popular song, bearing the same name, holding small focus group discussions, and distributing questionnaires to sp...
Class reduction (the loss of a noun class) in Southern Bantu languages is an acknowledged but und... more Class reduction (the loss of a noun class) in Southern Bantu languages is an acknowledged but under-researched phenomenon. A recent study of isiXhosa concords suggests an incipient merger of noun classes 11 and 5, but no research to date has examined other possible concord mergers or concord flux in the language. This study focuses on the speech of bilingual isiXhosa-speaking youth in urban areas of Cape Town and the extent to which they fail to use the concords generally associated with class 3, preferring instead to adopt those of class 1. We make use of questionnaires eliciting class 3 responses, transcriptions of natural dialogues on a topic in which a class 3 noun dominates, and examples from social media. Findings suggest that the use of class 1 concords for class 3 is becoming a widespread phenomenon for urban speakers of isiXhosa.
Southern African Linguistics and Applied Language Studies, 2016
While there has been research on the partial or complete merger of Noun Classes 5 and 11 in a num... more While there has been research on the partial or complete merger of Noun Classes 5 and 11 in a number of Bantu languages, no study has focused specifically on the acquisition of Cl. 11 by Xhosa-speaking children. In this paper we test our hypothesis that Xhosa-speaking children in both urban and rural areas no longer, or very seldom, use Cl. 11 prefixes. We use a number of speechprompting methods: eliciting responses to pictures, story-telling activities and family questionnaires, as well as observations of parent/child and carer/child interactions. We conclude that Xhosa children have internalised a grammar in which both Cl. 11 and Cl. 5 prefixes are acceptable for Cl. 11 Xhosa nouns, with Cl. 5 prefixes and concords being preferred. npx11-sleeping.mat poss11-her/his adj11-new sc11-dsj-be.pleasing-fv; ndi-lu-thand-a kakhulu sc1s-oc11-like-fv a.lot 'Her/his big, new sleeping-mat is pleasing; I like it a lot' Dowling and Gowlett 290 5/6, 11/10 and 11/6 genders Cl. 5 nouns in Xhosa have their plurals in Cl. 6, while singular Cl. 11 nouns normally have their plurals in Cl. 10. Xhosa also has an 11/6 gender, as in the diagram below, with no discernible factor governing the choice of plural. Singular Plural Cl. 5 Cl. 6 Cl. 11 Cl. 10 Locative formation In Xhosa the most general rule for the formation of locatives from nouns is to replace the initial vowel of the NPx by e-and to add a suffix {-ini ~-eni}. (2) isipili 'mirror' → esipilini 'in the mirror' umkhonto 'spear' → emkhontweni 'on the spear' This applies also to nouns of Cl. 5, whether the basic noun prefix is present or not: (3) ilizwe 'country' → elizweni 'in the country' ithemba 'hope' → ethembeni 'in (the) hope'
Diepsloot is home to diverse groups of people, most from within South Africa's borders but ma... more Diepsloot is home to diverse groups of people, most from within South Africa's borders but many from outside. The fact that it was created very recently, in 1994, means that newly arriving residents have no presumptions about officially established languages for the area. This article presents a statistical survey of the languages used on signage in Diepsloot, using a corpus of photographs taken in the township's most densely populated areas, with specific reference to domains of usage. Using current geosemiotic theories, it draws certain conclusions about why English has emerged as the most dominant code and why African languages are less visible.
... Words such as imozulu 'weather' and izithuthi 'transport' are the officia... more ... Words such as imozulu 'weather' and izithuthi 'transport' are the official terms used on UMhlobo Wenene (the main Xhosa radio station) and in Xhosa news programmes on television (although chat shows on both prefer the English borrowings). ...
The focus of this article is to provide a linguistic description of the ‘language of Wakanda’ – a... more The focus of this article is to provide a linguistic description of the ‘language of Wakanda’ – a non-existent, fictional language that the makers of the Hollywood science-fiction blockbuster Black Panther represent by using isiXhosa. Our data is collected from the script, subtitles and linguistic performances of isiXhosa by the actors in the film. While cultural and media studies are germane to the discussion, they are not our primary focus, although we provide reference to scholarship on these topics generally, and more specifically to academic commentary on the film Black Panther. As the language of Wakanda has never before been described by linguists, our research objectives are to examine how this language features in the movie in relation to other languages used (a statistical analysis) and also how it is rendered in text by the makers of the subtitles (grammatical and syntactical observations) and by the actors (a phonological analysis).
This lecture will be of interest to anyone who wishes to know more about the relationship between... more This lecture will be of interest to anyone who wishes to know more about the relationship between language and culture. Go to Seeing the world as an African language speaker Is the way we see the world influenced by our language, or is it the other way around: is our language influenced by the way we see the world? You’ve all heard (the rather faulty) example of the Inuit having many words for snow – and maybe even have heard of the South American language called Yagan with a word Mamihlapinatapei which refers to the desirous look two people give each other when they want to start something but are too hesitant to do so (what a wistful, romantic culture, you might think!) But what about here in South Africa? What is it about African languages that makes them uniquely different and astonishingly original in the way they are put together? This lecture will introduce you to some of the key features (both structural and metaphorical) of our languages, features essential to understanding their cultures
Town Some degree of acculturation is necessary for successful second and third language learning.... more Town Some degree of acculturation is necessary for successful second and third language learning. A definition of acculturation is followed by an examination of the viability of including a socio-cultural component in the language curriculum. A specific case study of Xhosa third language implikasies daarvan ten opsigte van die onderrig en aanleer van derde tale bespreek.
ABSTRACT In multilingual societies, where researchers and participants often do not speak the sam... more ABSTRACT In multilingual societies, where researchers and participants often do not speak the same language, research is a challenge as a mismatch of understanding between researchers, research instruments and participants often occurs. Reporting on the translation process is crucial because of the potential implications for the validity of the data that follow from it. We aimed to report on the complexities of such a translation process and many considerations that came to our attention. Methodologically, we used a detailed case study to demonstrate that the complexity of translation might be underestimated by researchers who may neglect to report on the challenges that they experience to benefit the wider research community. We emphasise that translating documents, particularly between languages that are not cognate, requires time and financial resources that researchers often do not anticipate or plan for. By discussing what happened to texts that were translated, and how we as researchers were challenged by considerations that were primarily linguistic but also straddled cultural and socio-political domains, we hope to encourage a deeper understanding of the translation task. We conclude that consideration of these complexities is necessary if the aim is the development of translated documents which complement the researchers’ goals.
This paper assesses the effectiveness of essay tutorials offered to first-year economics students... more This paper assesses the effectiveness of essay tutorials offered to first-year economics students at the UCT (University of Cape Town) in their first language (L1). All students in the study are first-language speakers of an African language. Firstly, using propensity score matching, we econometrically assess the impact of these tutorials on students' essay marks. Although our sample size is small [n=220], our findings provide preliminary evidence of a positive impact of the intervention on a student's final essay mark. The results show that the average gain for students who attended an essay tutorial in their L1 was 4.85%, with this result being statistically significant at the 10% significance level. Secondly, students' perceptions of the tutorials' effectiveness, as documented by online evaluations and focus groups, are examined. These findings suggest that allowing for unmediated L1 use in tertiary education classrooms can foster inclusivity and promote participation in otherwise largely monolingual spaces.
There is a lack of culturally and linguistically appropriate tools for assessing the speech and l... more There is a lack of culturally and linguistically appropriate tools for assessing the speech and language development of South African infants and toddlers, particularly those who speak southern African Bantu languages. This article sets out to describe our experiences of the pre-pilot phase of the Xhosa adaptation of the MacArthur-Bates Communicative Development Inventories (CDIs). To this end, a background to the CDIs is provided, as well as discussion on biases in assessments. Data informing this discussion is drawn from observations of the spontaneous speech and gestures of Xhosa-speaking toddlers in the 16−30 month age group in both rural and urban areas, as well as focus groups and individual interviews with mothers and professional caregivers of Xhosa-speaking toddlers.
During the apartheid years Black South Africans interpreted their experience through a humour uni... more During the apartheid years Black South Africans interpreted their experience through a humour unique in that it was a part of everyday conversation, rather than a separate discourse. While there are some jokes that testify to the way people felt about discrimination, these are not an adequate reflection of the wit and ingenuity of the oppressed and exploited. For example, the conversations of Xhosa domestic workers reflect a deeply satirical and even subversive humour, while humour in Xhosa oral discourse is highly charged, emotive and dramatic, relying to a great extent on the 'comedian's' ability to impersonate and characterize. 'Who was he referring to but precisely those councillors! Because you see those headman also enjoyed par-He mfondini, khawunyawuke, nam ndingowalapha, kwaye nam ndifuna ukotha. Cartoon 4 Hey, my friend, please move up, I am also from here, I also want to get warm (lmvo 27 October 1973:4).
A Grade 4 English language teacher in a township school in Cape Town, South Africa, in her quest ... more A Grade 4 English language teacher in a township school in Cape Town, South Africa, in her quest to equip learners with new target language resources, is not held back by the perceived boundaries dividing named languages. Instead she employs language in creative and goal-directed ways that we believe have not received enough focused linguistic attention in scholarship. While recognising the importance of research into code-switching, codemixing and lexical borrowing among South Africa's indigenous languages, we draw on the work of functional linguists with an emphasis on the communicative function of linguistic signals and a de-emphasis on labelling languages. Central to this paper is the inchoative concept of translanguaging that is gaining ground in socio-and applied linguistics and aims at describing fluidity rather than reproducing established notions of separate languages. In township environments access to high-currency language resources (standard English) is often said to be absent due to teachers' lack of linguistic and pedagogic capacity and schools' lack of resources. Our main aim here is to focus on the presence of powerful language resources, rather than their absence, in such a highly scrutinised, purportedly deficient educational setting.
Southern African Journal for Folklore Studies, 2016
Much research has been conducted on African traditional healers generally (Arden 1996; Chidester ... more Much research has been conducted on African traditional healers generally (Arden 1996; Chidester 1996; Chakanza 2006; Reeder 2011), and Xhosa diviners and herbalists specifically (Hammond-Tooke 1989; Hirst 1997, 2005), but none of this work focuses on their particular public discourse. Some researchers (Tyrrell 1976; Broster & Bourn 1982) describe outward symbols and publicly knowable signs of their identity, but do not analyse the implicit meanings of these symbols. In order to reach a more nuanced understanding of how Xhosa diviners and herbalists traditionally used to market themselves to their public (how they made themselves publically known), this paper draws on information from documented investigations into diviners and herbalists in South Africa; a description of their current marketing strategies is drawn from our own research and inquiries. We argue that Xhosa herbalists and diviners are key players in negotiating the socio-cultural aspects of their respective societies, ...
ABSTRACT This article examines the language used on both formal and informal signage in Cape Town... more ABSTRACT This article examines the language used on both formal and informal signage in Cape Town. Using the theory of geosemiotics with examples of actual signage, I discuss the semantic vulnerability of language when a sign is used outside its intended context; the sociolinguistic implications of poor translations; the phenomenon of monolingual and bilingual signage as opposed to trilingual signage; the symbolic hegemony of English and Afrikaans over Xhosa; and the lessons that can be learnt from language used on informal township signs and advertisements.
Southern African Journal for Folklore Studies, 2018
While there have been a number of studies on the decontextualisation and secularisation of tradit... more While there have been a number of studies on the decontextualisation and secularisation of traditional ritual music in America, Taiwan and other parts of the globe, very little has been written on the processes and transformations that South Africa’s indigenous ceremonial songs go through over time. This study was prompted by the authors’ interest in, and engagement with the Xhosa initiation song Somagwaza, which has been re-imagined as a popular song, but has also purportedly found its way into other religious spaces. In this article, we attempted to investigate the extent to which the song Somagwaza is still associated with the Xhosa initiation ritual and to analyse evidence of it being decontextualised and secularised in contemporary South Africa. Our methodology included an examination of the various academic treatments of the song, an analysis of the lyrics of a popular song, bearing the same name, holding small focus group discussions, and distributing questionnaires to sp...
Class reduction (the loss of a noun class) in Southern Bantu languages is an acknowledged but und... more Class reduction (the loss of a noun class) in Southern Bantu languages is an acknowledged but under-researched phenomenon. A recent study of isiXhosa concords suggests an incipient merger of noun classes 11 and 5, but no research to date has examined other possible concord mergers or concord flux in the language. This study focuses on the speech of bilingual isiXhosa-speaking youth in urban areas of Cape Town and the extent to which they fail to use the concords generally associated with class 3, preferring instead to adopt those of class 1. We make use of questionnaires eliciting class 3 responses, transcriptions of natural dialogues on a topic in which a class 3 noun dominates, and examples from social media. Findings suggest that the use of class 1 concords for class 3 is becoming a widespread phenomenon for urban speakers of isiXhosa.
Southern African Linguistics and Applied Language Studies, 2016
While there has been research on the partial or complete merger of Noun Classes 5 and 11 in a num... more While there has been research on the partial or complete merger of Noun Classes 5 and 11 in a number of Bantu languages, no study has focused specifically on the acquisition of Cl. 11 by Xhosa-speaking children. In this paper we test our hypothesis that Xhosa-speaking children in both urban and rural areas no longer, or very seldom, use Cl. 11 prefixes. We use a number of speechprompting methods: eliciting responses to pictures, story-telling activities and family questionnaires, as well as observations of parent/child and carer/child interactions. We conclude that Xhosa children have internalised a grammar in which both Cl. 11 and Cl. 5 prefixes are acceptable for Cl. 11 Xhosa nouns, with Cl. 5 prefixes and concords being preferred. npx11-sleeping.mat poss11-her/his adj11-new sc11-dsj-be.pleasing-fv; ndi-lu-thand-a kakhulu sc1s-oc11-like-fv a.lot 'Her/his big, new sleeping-mat is pleasing; I like it a lot' Dowling and Gowlett 290 5/6, 11/10 and 11/6 genders Cl. 5 nouns in Xhosa have their plurals in Cl. 6, while singular Cl. 11 nouns normally have their plurals in Cl. 10. Xhosa also has an 11/6 gender, as in the diagram below, with no discernible factor governing the choice of plural. Singular Plural Cl. 5 Cl. 6 Cl. 11 Cl. 10 Locative formation In Xhosa the most general rule for the formation of locatives from nouns is to replace the initial vowel of the NPx by e-and to add a suffix {-ini ~-eni}. (2) isipili 'mirror' → esipilini 'in the mirror' umkhonto 'spear' → emkhontweni 'on the spear' This applies also to nouns of Cl. 5, whether the basic noun prefix is present or not: (3) ilizwe 'country' → elizweni 'in the country' ithemba 'hope' → ethembeni 'in (the) hope'
Diepsloot is home to diverse groups of people, most from within South Africa's borders but ma... more Diepsloot is home to diverse groups of people, most from within South Africa's borders but many from outside. The fact that it was created very recently, in 1994, means that newly arriving residents have no presumptions about officially established languages for the area. This article presents a statistical survey of the languages used on signage in Diepsloot, using a corpus of photographs taken in the township's most densely populated areas, with specific reference to domains of usage. Using current geosemiotic theories, it draws certain conclusions about why English has emerged as the most dominant code and why African languages are less visible.
... Words such as imozulu 'weather' and izithuthi 'transport' are the officia... more ... Words such as imozulu 'weather' and izithuthi 'transport' are the official terms used on UMhlobo Wenene (the main Xhosa radio station) and in Xhosa news programmes on television (although chat shows on both prefer the English borrowings). ...
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Papers by Tessa Dowling