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5398 results in Wits University Press

Page 130 of 270

  • 2 - Language empowerment and intellectualisation through multilingual higher education in South Africa

  • from Part One - African language empowerment: concept formation and intellectualisation
    • By Pamela Maseko, associate professor in African Language Studies at Rhodes University and holds a doctorate in the field of African language intellectualisation., H Ekkehard Wolff, world-renowned sociolinguist based at the University of Leipzig and specialising in African sociolinguistics.
  • Edited by Russell Kaschula, Pamela Maseko, H. Ekkehard Wolff
  • Christine Anthonissen, Bassey E. Antia, Ken Barris, Rebecca Domingo, Jeanne Toit, Regine Fourie, Nompumelelo Frans, Wanga Gambushe, Eunice Ivala, Michael Joseph, Gregory Kamwendo, Hleze Kunju, Noleen Leach, Linda Manashe, Koliswa Moropa, Andre M. Mostert, Ndimande-Hlongwa, Dion Nkomo, Anneke Potgieter, Monwabisi Ralarala, Esther Ramani, Justus C. Roux, Feziwe Shoba, Zakhile Somlata, Undine S. Weber, Nogwaja S. Zulu
  • Book:
    Multilingualism and Intercultural Communication
    Published by:
    Wits University Press
    Published online:
    23 March 2018
    Print publication:
    31 December 2017, pp 34-60

  • Summary

    The context

    South African society is characterised by particular challenges relating to practically all types of multilingualism: territorial, institutional, societal and individual. In facing these challenges, South Africa is similar to other African postcolonies where, as a result of their political histories, a de jure language policy hegemonically imposes an official language which is foreign to the majority of the population. This makes the linguistic situation in the postcolonies quite distinct from that in the former colonial motherlands, such as the UK and other European countries, where the official language is the mother tongue (MT) of the vast majority of the population (albeit as the result of historical processes of equally hegemonic imposition, even if only to impose a ‘standard’ variety on a multitude of dialects). This European policy model of hegemonic monolingualism has been uncritically adopted by many post-independent African countries despite the completely different sociocultural and sociolinguistic ecology in which language policies in Africa must function, including in the higher education (HE) terrain. Following the overthrow of apartheid and guided by the country's new Constitution, South Africa has broken with the European colonialist tradition and has opted for a remarkable, multilingual official language policy which is unique in allowing for 11 official languages: nine indigenous African languages (of ‘Bantu’ linguistic stock) plus the two former hegemonic languages of European provenance, English and Afrikaans.

    Multilingualism in South African society in general, and in HE in particular, is understood to be the accepted parallel use of several languages either by individual speakers with different language backgrounds and linguistic biographies, or by whole communities of speakers who have settled for patterns of communicative behaviour which are characterised by using more than one language functionally in different domains and for different purposes. Parallel use of more than one language may take different forms and instantiations, involving respective mono-, bi- and trilingual discourse patterns, including practices like code-meshing or code-switching and nonce-borrowings, now referred to as ‘translanguaging’. Such multilingual communication practices, albeit common in day-to-day verbal interaction among multilingual individuals, were regarded with disapproval and were excluded from the domains of formal education. Often in the colonial and even postcolonial African school reality, children were explicitly forbidden to use their mother tongues or home languages (L1) on school premises and were punished when caught doing so.

  • CHAPTER 2 - The material logic of evil and the augmented self

  • Robert Thornton
  • Book:
    Healing the Exposed Being
    Published by:
    Wits University Press
    Published online:
    22 March 2018
    Print publication:
    31 December 2017, pp 44-73

  • Summary

    [W]hen one sees the people giving up their whole minds to it, submitting without resistance to the circumcision and putting up with extreme hardships in the way of cold and disease in the lodges, and the entire suspension of their ordinary duties, it makes it difficult to dispel the idea that it is their form of religion or perhaps some cherished national custom handed down to them.

    Olden Times in Zululand, Bryant 1929

    If bungoma is not a deficient or ‘traditional’ medicine, and not a science, is it not then a form of religion? If traditional healing is not fully traditional, can it be reduced to a single task that we call ‘healing’? Does its use of ritual, formulaic language, music, song and intangible person-like agents make it a kind of African traditional religion? Some scholars have argued that it is indeed a form of traditional religion (Chidester 1996; Chidester et al. 1997; Dovey and Mjingwana 1985; Kruger 1995; Mbiti 1975, 1990; Setiloane 1973, 1976, 1986; Smith 1929) and that it must be respected as such. But the argument that traditional healing is a limited, early, or ‘traditional’ form of religion – or, in the words of the missionary Edwin Smith (1929), a ‘twilight religion’ – has the same drawback as representing it as a simpler and alternative medicine. Both positions rest on the assumption that bungoma is a deficient form of something else, either a not-quite religion, or a ‘barefoot’ medical practice rooted in superstition and misunderstanding.

    By presenting the philosophy of traditional medicine in its own terms we can ask in what sense it might also be a form of medicine or a form of religion. I would claim that bungoma is certainly a form of medical practice, even though it is not only a medical practice. It is not, however a form of religion, that is, it is not a deficient theology. Surprisingly, the earliest Christian missionaries agreed that it was not religion.

    In order to understand how and in what ways southern Africans got along perfectly well without ‘religion’ we can explore why early Christian missionaries agreed that there was no religion in southern Africa.

  • 11 - Competition, regional integration and inclusive growth in Africa: A research agenda

  • from Part Four - Conclusion
    • By Simon Roberts, professor of economics and executive director of the Centre for Competition, Thando Vilakazi, senior economist at the Centre for Competition, Regulation and Economic Development (CCRED), Witness Simbanegavi, currently the director of research at the African Economic Research Consortium (AERC)
  • Edited by Jonathan Klaaren
  • Anthea Paelo, Genna Robb, Simon Roberts, Witness Simbanegavi, Nicholas J. Sitko, Imraan Valodia, Thando Vilakazi, Tatenda Zengeni, Isaac Tausha
  • Book:
    Competition Law and Economic Regulation in Southern Africa
    Published by:
    Wits University Press
    Published online:
    23 March 2018
    Print publication:
    31 December 2017, pp 263-287

  • Summary

    REGIONAL INTEGRATION AND INCLUSIVE GROWTH: DOES COMPETITION MATTER?

    In recent years there has been increased attention, once more, on regional integration and its potential contribution to African economic development. However, there are very different emphases and perspectives. On the one hand, regional integration is essentially viewed as removing tariff and non-tariff barriers to trade; in essence, a second-best to unilateral liberalisation. It is also advocated as part of ‘defragmenting Africa’ – overcoming the legacy of colonial borders – adding the reduction (or even removal) of border controls to the agenda of tariff liberalisation. Other perspectives emphasise the constructive measures required for more meaningful and deeper integration, ranging from investments in improved transport infrastructure to developing effective institutional arrangements. This can include provisions for collaboration on a regional industrial policy, to build capabilities and regional value chains.

    A key aspect in the different perspectives is the extent to which natural markets and the behaviour of firms are understood as regional in scope. As firms are internationalised – including through ownership relations, strategic partnerships and distribution arrangements – a regional perspective to firm decision making, such as regarding investment and location of production, is necessary. Given scale economies and relatively small national markets, firms make decisions across countries. However, when trade barriers are raised, firms can protect their market power within countries, which would otherwise be undermined by competition at a regional level.

    It is evident that the market power of large firms, whether exerted unilaterally or through coordination with each other, harms economic development and low-income groups. Such power means higher prices for goods and services and distorts the development path of economies where it relates to the pricing of important inputs (such as the effect of fertiliser costs on farmers). The nature of competitive rivalry, and the power and interests of large firms and their owners, is thus at the heart of how countries develop (see Acemoglu and Robinson, 2012; North, Wallis and Weingast, 2009). The decisions of large firms shape the economy as they can make the investments required in productive capacity, provide the upstream inputs and services required by smaller businesses and, in many areas, are also the main routes to market. In crude terms, it is critical whether these firms extract rents through market power, or whether the returns reward effort, creativity and entrepreneurship.

  • 9 - Competition and regulation in Zimbabwe's emerging mobile payments markets

  • from Part Three - Competition and regulation in reshaping African markets
    • By Genna Robb, economist with Acacia Economics and is a senior research fellow at the Centre for Competition, Isaac Tausha, research analytical officer with the Zimbabwe Competition and Tariff Commission, Thando Vilakazi, senior economist at the Centre for Competition, Regulation and Economic Development (CCRED)
  • Edited by Jonathan Klaaren
  • Anthea Paelo, Genna Robb, Simon Roberts, Witness Simbanegavi, Nicholas J. Sitko, Imraan Valodia, Thando Vilakazi, Tatenda Zengeni, Isaac Tausha
  • Book:
    Competition Law and Economic Regulation in Southern Africa
    Published by:
    Wits University Press
    Published online:
    23 March 2018
    Print publication:
    31 December 2017, pp 215-233

  • Summary

    INTRODUCTION

    Mobile money has attracted global attention because of its ability to bring people from the cash-based, ‘unbanked’ economy into modern systems of ‘book-entry money’. This process is commonly referred to in the industry as ‘banking the unbanked’ (Klein and Mayer, 2011). It involves the use of mobile phone technology to make financial transactions. Generally, this allows users to engage in transactions ranging from buying and transferring airtime, to transferring funds and making payments from their mobile devices (ITU, 2011). A ‘traditional’ form of this is where banks have mobile phone applications which allow their customers to interact with their bank accounts on their phones.

    As a subset of mobile banking, and of particular interest to this chapter, is the ability to transfer money in person-to-person (P2P) transactions, that is, from the bank account or mobile operator ‘wallet’ of one person, to the mobile number or mobile operator wallet of another. These services allow customers to use their mobile device to send and receive monetary value – to transfer money using their phone, which in some cases includes international, cross-border and/or domestic remittance transfers. Importantly, these services can be provided even when the sender and/or recipient does not have a bank account. In Zimbabwe, this led to rapid adoption by users since NetOne and Telecel both launched their mobile money transfer (MMT) services in January 2011, followed by Econet in September 2011. Users include customers in rural areas where access to banking services has been limited and remittance transfers from large cities and abroad are an important source of income (Dermish, Hundermark and Sanford, 2012). This is especially relevant given the withdrawal of the majority of Zimbabweans from formal banking services during the prolonged period of economic distress over the past decade, leading to a largely cash-based economy and the use of direct, informal cash transfer mechanisms, such as through minibus taxi services and travelling relatives or friends (Dermish, Hundermark and Sanford, 2012).

    These aspects of mobile money have important implications in terms of competition and economic development. The ability to draw in subscribers that are unbanked and marginalised by formal financial services through simple, affordable, convenient and safe platforms contributes to greater financial inclusion (Klein and Mayer, 2011), and facilitates transactions between individuals (e.g., remittances) as well as between enterprises.

  • Chapter 3 - Oliver Tambo and the National Question

  • from PART ONE - KEY FOUNDATIONAL TRADITIONS
  • Edited by Edward Webster
  • John Mawbey, Jeremy Cronin, Alex Mohubetswane Mashilo, Robert van Niekerk Niekerk, Luli Callinicos Callinicos, B. G. Brown, M. P. Giyose, H. J. Peterson, C. A. Thomas, A. R. Zinn, Siphamandla Zondi, T. Dunbar Moodie, Enver Motala, Salim Vally, Gerhard Maré, Xolela Mangcu, Shireen Hassim, Alec Erwin, Sian Byrne, Nicole Ulrich, Lucien Walt, Martin Legassick, Daryl Glaser
  • Book:
    The Unresolved National Question in South Africa
    Published by:
    Wits University Press
    Published online:
    21 April 2018
    Print publication:
    31 December 2017, pp 60-76

  • Summary

    Oliver Tambo's steadily widening and inclusive concept of the nation in the history of the African National Congress (ANC) is a familiar narrative. Pixley ka Isaka Seme's rallying cry in 1911 – ‘We are one people. These divisions, these jealousies are the cause of all our troubles and of all our ignorance today’ – attracted traditional leaders as well as educated liberals and nationalists. It inspired the many generations that followed the launch of the South African Native National Congress in 1912 (renamed the African National Congress in 1924).

    Despite its uneven and slow progress against racial hostility and segregation in the years that followed, the ANC was the organisation that young Africanists joined some thirty years after its inception. By the 1940s, however, the voice of the ANC had become muted, confined to eloquent ‘cap-in- hand’ petitions. That approach had failed to counter increasing legislative aggression against blacks, and Africans in particular. The 1936 Natives’ Representations Act had removed the direct vote from the few black men who (in the Cape Province only) were still entitled to a qualified franchise, whereas all white adults, women and men, had access to the vote.

    In 1949, the year after the apartheid government was voted into power by a white electorate, the ANC Youth League issued its programme of action. Founded by Walter Sisulu, Oliver Tambo and Nelson Mandela, the ANCYL was first led by the passionately articulate political philosopher and law clerk, Anton Lembede. The young, predominantly male, African-elite initiators of the Youth League concluded that the answer lay in mass action.

    Above all, they were unapologetically Africanist. ‘The problems of African churches, trade unions, teachers, traders, industrialists, farmers and peasants represent merely certain aspects of our colonial national struggle which is one, single and indivisible,’ asserted Lembede (1944) in sketching out the task of uniting a nation.

    The formation of the ANC Youth League was strongly informed by a rejection of the paternalism of missionaries and liberals, who assumed that Africans had a primitive, simple culture riddled by superstition and unbridled self-indulgence and were unable to discern the civilising influence of the values of indigenous humanism, and the sophistication of oral skills in the transmission of knowledge.

  • 7 - Managing multilingualism in education: policies and practices

  • from Part Three - Language in education
  • Edited by Russell Kaschula, Pamela Maseko, H. Ekkehard Wolff
  • Christine Anthonissen, Bassey E. Antia, Ken Barris, Rebecca Domingo, Jeanne Toit, Regine Fourie, Nompumelelo Frans, Wanga Gambushe, Eunice Ivala, Michael Joseph, Gregory Kamwendo, Hleze Kunju, Noleen Leach, Linda Manashe, Koliswa Moropa, Andre M. Mostert, Ndimande-Hlongwa, Dion Nkomo, Anneke Potgieter, Monwabisi Ralarala, Esther Ramani, Justus C. Roux, Feziwe Shoba, Zakhile Somlata, Undine S. Weber, Nogwaja S. Zulu
  • Book:
    Multilingualism and Intercultural Communication
    Published by:
    Wits University Press
    Published online:
    23 March 2018
    Print publication:
    31 December 2017, pp 131-156

  • Summary

    The context

    As a country with 11 official languages, South Africa is strongly reliant on a lingua franca for communication across linguistic and cultural borders. With the hegemony of Afrikaans steadily declining since the transition to an inclusive democracy in 1994, English has, not surprisingly, emerged as the most powerful contender, its status as a global language no doubt serving as the driving force. Perceived as a status marker, for many South Africans English has become symbolic of education, affluence, internationalism and freedom (for example, see Nomlomo 2004; Sigcau 2004; Heugh 2007). It is regarded as serving not only the nation in promoting public and cross-cultural communication2 but even more so the individual, as the golden key to upward socioeconomic mobility. How this perception of the value of English will affect traditional identities, indigenous languages and cultural heritage is a moot point. Whatever the long-term effect, South Africans who at this point in time have acceptable levels of proficiency in English, certainly do benefit from it (Heugh 2007). For this reason, the conviction prevails that all South African learners should be allowed equal and sufficient opportunities to attain an enabling level of English proficiency. The reality, however, is that comparatively few South African learners have been afforded such access and, ‘whilst English is believed to be the horizontal language of access, it has in effect become the vertical language of exclusion’ (Heugh 2007: 200).

    Scholars such as Nomlomo (2004) and Probyn (2005) have referred to a common misconception that being exposed to English as medium of instruction (MoI)3 for as much time as possible, regardless of the learner's first language (L1), is a secure strategy for attaining a high level of proficiency in the MoI. Although the national Language in Education Policy (DoE 1997) promotes, on linguistically solid grounds, additive bilingualism4 with the home language as MoI at least during the foundational years, it is widely agreed that this policy has not been actively implemented (Plüddemann et al. 2004; Heugh 2007; Beukes 2008). According to Probyn (2005), the African schools that adapted their language policy generally chose to incorporate English as the language of learning and teaching at an even earlier stage than is recommended.

  • Chapter 5 - Labour Aristocracy or Marginal Labour Elite? Cosatu members' income, other sources of livelihood and household support

    • By Christine Bischoff, Wits City Institute at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, Bianca Tame, Lecturer in the Department of Sociology at the University of Cape Town
  • Edited by Andries Bezuidenhout, Malehoko Tshoaedi
  • Christine Bischoff, Janet Cherry, Nkosinathi Paul Jikeka, Boitumelo James Malope, Johann Maree, Sandla Nomvete, Ntsehiseng Nthejane, Ari Sitas, Bianca Tame
  • Book:
    Labour Beyond Cosatu
    Published by:
    Wits University Press
    Published online:
    21 March 2018
    Print publication:
    31 December 2017, pp 62-84

  • Summary

    WORKERS, HOUSEHOLDS AND SOUTH AFRICA'S SOCIO-ECONOMIC ORDER

    This chapter attempts to examine critically the view of Cosatu workers as a labour aristocracy or a ‘self-interested’ elite. It does so by examining wage data gathered from members of Cosatu affiliates in the fifth of a series of surveys of Cosatu membership which have been conducted since 1994, and it looks at the wage data through a number of other variables derived from questions in the 2014 survey of membership.

    The notion of Cosatu members as a labour aristocracy can be related to the growing divisions in the labour market between permanent and temporary workers and high-income and low-income earners (see Forslund and Reddy 2015: 84–88). Our data suggests that Cosatu does not organise many temporary workers but it does organise workers who earn low wages. Importantly, those who support the labour aristocracy thesis often use labour market data as applied to individuals. In this chapter we take seriously the point that trade union members support dependents on their wages. Pnina Werbner's (2010) use of the notion of a ‘marginal labour elite’ provides a far more useful way of understanding Cosatu's membership. Werbner's ‘marginal labour elite’ locates trade union members outside of the workplace and in relation to their social reality by focusing specifically on their role in the household as a wage earner.

    Twenty years into democracy, South African society is still marked by immense socio-economic problems such as chronic levels of unemployment and incessant levels of poverty and inequality. The number and intensity of strikes have increased in private and public sector workplaces. Globally, in the phase of informationtechnology- led capitalism, the number of workers employed as permanent workers is decreasing as the number employed as temporary, casual or part-time workers is increasing.

    This trend is explained by Jan Theron's (2010) description of the interrelated processes of ‘informalisation from above’ and ‘informalisation from below’. Whereas ‘informalisation from below’ refers to those who engage in survivalist activities or self-employment, ‘informalisation from above’ is a response to employers’ efforts to restructure workplaces by externalising labour. This process fragments and differentiates the workforce by creating a layer of workers who, despite being located in the formal workplace, find themselves on the outside of labour legislation and collective bargaining because their employer, the service provider, determines their working conditions and is not legally bound to an employment relationship with the core business.

  • Chapter 17 - Contesting reconstruction

  • from PART THREE - Post-rebellion politics
  • Robert Ross
  • Book:
    These Oppressions Won't Cease
    Published by:
    Wits University Press
    Published online:
    21 April 2018
    Print publication:
    31 December 2017, pp 155-170

  • Summary

    Document 76: The rebels’ view of a post-rebellion society

    Translation of a communication received by the Governor from certain Rebel Hottentots, now without the Colony, addressed jointly to the Governor and to the Parliament.

    17 January 1855

    The object of Memorialists is to give Your Excellency a short sketch of the causes of the later War.

    These subjects of the British Government, placed under and governed by Laws carried out by Commissioners, or Functionaries, appointed by Government and regarded as faithful and upright persons in the execution of their several duties and offices connected therewith,—they were expected to be upright and impartial in the exercise of such duties, according to law; but have at last greatly to regret that prejudices against colour and condition existed, so that the poor and ignorant mostly became the sufferers where justice and lawfulness were to be exercised.

    As a proof of the aforesaid, and to corroborate that injustice is more minded than praised, when it concerns the coloured classes, Memorialists will give a circumstance which occurred between Sir A. Stockenström and the white colonists relative to his administration as Lieut.-Governor of the Eastern Province: he was forcibly opposed, and the greatest discontent was shown, as if they could, or would, not agree with him. We do not know the reasons they had, for we had not opportunity of ascertaining it, and also took no part, and had no vote of approval or disapproval of his retaining the situation of Governor here.

    Memorialists can judge, partly, as he is a person whom they love as far as they have witnessed his character, for under his orders they have done much service for the government, and he placed rich and poor under the law (as judges and rulers ought to do) on the same footing; and, partly, because there is no respect of colour or condition with him, who, in as far as we have studied his character, cared only (to the extent that God gave him knowledge and ability) to preserve peace and prosperity among Her Majesty's subjects in general, and who exerted himself, to the utmost of his power, to become acquainted with the circumstances and wants of Her Majesty's poor coloured subjects, and to apply remedies where possible.

  • Chapter 6 - The Interbellum

  • from PART ONE - The incorporation of the Khoesan into the colonial body politic
  • Robert Ross
  • Book:
    These Oppressions Won't Cease
    Published by:
    Wits University Press
    Published online:
    21 April 2018
    Print publication:
    31 December 2017, pp 72-84

  • Summary

    In the dozen or so years between the end of Hintsa's War and the beginning of the War of the Axe, the Eastern Cape Khoekhoe continued to express their ‘Hottentot nationalism’. They gave their commentary on, and participated in, the debates on the political development of the Cape Colony. Most often, these comments were made in language that seems subservient, but in fact contains a surprising degree of sharpness.

    Document 23: Address to Sir Andries Stockenström

    This address to Andries Stockenström, as the new lieutenant-governor of the Eastern Province, though apparently conventional, should be seen in the context of the great hostility which his appointment and he himself met among the British settlers of Grahamstown and its surrounds. This was occasioned by Stockenström's testimony before the Select Committee on Aborigines, which was regarded both as a slander on the character of the settlers and as the reason for the Glenelg Dispatch, by which Queen Adelaide Province (roughly the area between the Keiskamma and the Kei rivers) was returned to the amaXhosa, thus annulling its acquisition through conquest during Hintsa's War. As a result, many white settlers lost the lands which they had been expecting to acquire in the province. Stockenström was received in Grahamstown with considerable hostility, and eventually forced to resign as lieutenant-governor on account of settler opposition. The Kat River people's endorsement of Stockenström and of his policies was thus in no way a neutral act.

    To His Honor Andries Stockenström Esq., Lieut-Governor of the Eastern Province of the Cape of Good Hope, &c. &c.

    We the undersigned Inhabitants of the Kat River Settlement, beg to express the unfeigned pleasure we feel at the safe return of your Honor and family to this colony, but more especially at the appointment of your Honor to that high station which His Majesty, our gracious King, has been pleased to assign to you, knowing as we do your qualifications for that office. After the independent manner in which evidence has been given before the Committee of the House of Commons, on the subject of colonial affairs, and from the intimate knowledge which you possess of native character and feelings, we place implicit confidence in the justice of your proceedings, being assured that they will be of a conciliatory nature towards the Caffers, and will tend to the peace and prosperity of the Settlement and of the colony at large.

  • 19 - In a Closing Net

  • Rusty Bernstein
  • Book:
    Memory Against Forgetting
    Published by:
    Wits University Press
    Published online:
    23 March 2018
    Print publication:
    31 December 2017, pp 301-314

  • Summary

    1964

    For reasons which I no longer understand it seems vital that I do not go down those stairs again. If I am going to be rearrested it must be in open court, in full sight of the press and public. I elbow my way through the ring of policemen around the dock – they are uncertain whether to restrain me – and push through to our lawyers in the well of the court.

    Detective Sergeant Dirker rushes over and starts to drag me away. He says I am under arrest. Vernon Berrangé intercepts him: ‘After your disgraceful exhibition in the witness box, I take it you will not oppose bail when we apply for it.’ Dirker is intimidated and pulls me away, muttering a reply which I cannot catch. Captain Swanepoel comes across and joins him and together they hurry me past the empty dock and out of the court. My colleagues are already down in the cells below, and I have not even seen them go.

    Suddenly I feel terribly alone. We have been together, on and off, for so many years. We have sat together, talked together and decided everything together during the whole year of the trial. We have learnt to depend on each other for advice, for strength and courage. Now, suddenly it is all over. They have gone, without our being able to exchange a word or touch, and without any farewells.

    It will be twenty-seven years before I see them again. Things are happening too fast. I no longer feel in control of my own fate, but have become a puppet being pushed about by people like Swanepoel and Dirker. I am unable to celebrate my good fortune; I am still shocked and numb as they take me back to the prison to collect my few belongings. Apart from the warders I see no one I know and talk to no one. I am put into the back of a car filled with Special Branch men and taken back to Johannesburg.

    Swanepoel is bragging to the others as though I am not there. If he had his time over, he says, he would be a advocate – big money just for asking questions. The talk just washes over me.

  • Chapter 3 - Chiefs, Missionaries, Communities and the Department of Native Education

  • Linda Chisholm
  • Book:
    Between Worlds
    Published by:
    Wits University Press
    Published online:
    23 March 2018
    Print publication:
    31 December 2017, pp 41-58

  • Summary

    Lucas Mangope, a local traditionalist who was later installed as a Bantustan leader, continued the practice of chiefly alliance with the mission, which had been established by earlier generations of chiefs. The close relationship the Hermannsburgers enjoyed with Mangope did not, however, characterise all relationships between the mission and the chiefs. Indeed, relationships were often tense and conflictual, and became increasingly so during the 1950s. Much of this conflict emerged in the preceding decades when local communities challenged chiefly authority on the grounds of financial mismanagement or efforts to extract levies from communities who belonged to the ethnic group but did not have any interest in the land, to pay for indebted land.

    Particularly in the 1940s and 1950s, there is evidence that these conflicts spilled over into schooling. If in the earlier period conflict had centred within the ethnic group, in the later period the mission was identified as a problematic locus of authority alongside the chief. As schools became central to conflicts between communities, missionaries and chiefs, their authority was increasingly challenged and their position became more vulnerable. The chief inspectors of Native Education and the Native Affairs department were recruited by both sides in these battles and played a critical mediating role.

    The Bantu Education Act (No. 47 of 1953) envisaged a removal of control from missionaries, not only to the state, but in rural areas also to local African communities linked with traditional authorities recognised by the state. While many African schools did have some form of school board or committee before the Act was passed, the Act now specified their composition: in rural areas two of their seven members were to be nominated by the secretary for Bantu Education to represent religious or other interests, while the rest were to be nominated by the tribal authority or by the chief subject to the secretary's approval. The ‘retribalisation’ purposes of the Act have been well-documented: to situate Africans ‘psycho-ideologically where the Bantustans placed them physically and politically’.

  • Suddenly the Storm: the play script: A play in five scenes

  • Paul Slabolepszy
  • Book:
    Suddenly the Storm
    Published by:
    Wits University Press
    Published online:
    21 April 2018
    Print publication:
    31 December 2017, pp 1-2

  • Summary

    CHARACTERS

    DWAYNE … sixty-plus

    SHANELL … pushing fifty

    NAMHLA … forty

    Launched to coincide with the 40th anniversary of the Soweto Uprising of 1976, Suddenly the Storm had its world premiere at the Barney Simon at Johannesburg's Market Theatre on 7 June 2016. The production was directed by Bobby Heaney, with set and costume design by Greg King and lighting design by Wesley France.

    Dwayne was played by Paul Slabolepszy, Shanell by Charmaine Weir-Smith and Namhla by Renate Stuurman.

    The play was subsequently performed with the same cast at the Auto & General Theatre on the Square, Nelson Mandela Square, Sandton, from 27 October 2016.

    The action takes place in the office-cum-workshop of a security gate and fence works on the outer reaches of the Far East Rand, the home of an ageing former policeman and his much younger wife.

    The time is early summer 2016.

  • 16 - Language, intercultural communication and literature

  • from Part Five - Language, culture and intercultural communication
  • Edited by Russell Kaschula, Pamela Maseko, H. Ekkehard Wolff
  • Christine Anthonissen, Bassey E. Antia, Ken Barris, Rebecca Domingo, Jeanne Toit, Regine Fourie, Nompumelelo Frans, Wanga Gambushe, Eunice Ivala, Michael Joseph, Gregory Kamwendo, Hleze Kunju, Noleen Leach, Linda Manashe, Koliswa Moropa, Andre M. Mostert, Ndimande-Hlongwa, Dion Nkomo, Anneke Potgieter, Monwabisi Ralarala, Esther Ramani, Justus C. Roux, Feziwe Shoba, Zakhile Somlata, Undine S. Weber, Nogwaja S. Zulu
  • Book:
    Multilingualism and Intercultural Communication
    Published by:
    Wits University Press
    Published online:
    23 March 2018
    Print publication:
    31 December 2017, pp 301-312

  • Summary

    What does knowing an individual's cultural identity tell you about that individual? If you assume that that individual is like everyone else in that culture, you have stereotyped all the many various people in that culture into one mould. You know that you are different from others in your culture. Other cultures are as diverse. The diversity within cultures probably exceeds the differences between cultures. So, just knowing a person's cultural identity doesn't provide complete or reliable information about that person.

    Fred E Jandt, An Introduction to Intercultural Communication

    This chapter investigates intercultural communication in literary texts. The chapter analyses Sesotho and isiZulu novels, aiming to answer the following questions: What is it that texts encourage or discourage about personal, relational and communal identities? How do texts represent cultural identities such as age, gender, religion, social class, race, ethnicity and nationality, among other aspects? Do they represent intercultural interaction that encourages the positive interplay between cultural differences and similarities? What do they present as barriers to intercultural communication, or its facilitators?

    Underpinning the chapter is the contextual approach to intercultural communication proposed by Neuliep (2012). The approach is ‘based on the idea that whenever people from different cultures come together and exchange verbal and nonverbal messages, they do so within a variety of contexts, including a cultural, micro-cultural, environmental, socio-relational and perceptual context’ (Neuliep 2012: xiii).

    At this stage, it may perhaps be useful to answer the question: What is ‘intercultural communication’? Intercultural communication occurs between people of different cultures and involves a ‘minimum of two persons from different cultures’ (Neuliep 2012: 24). As a field of study, intercultural communication concentrates on intercultural relationships based on the dynamics at work in those intercultural interactions (Martin and Nakayama 2007). It is from narratives of such relationships that ‘we can learn a tremendous amount about other people and their cultures and about ourselves and our own cultural background’ (Martin and Nakayama 2007: 4).

  • 11 - Language and law: ‘cultural translation’ of narratives into sworn statements

  • from Part Four - Language in the professions: law, media, science and language technology
    • By Monwabisi K Ralarala, associate professor and director of the Language Centre at the University of Fort Hare.
  • Edited by Russell Kaschula, Pamela Maseko, H. Ekkehard Wolff
  • Christine Anthonissen, Bassey E. Antia, Ken Barris, Rebecca Domingo, Jeanne Toit, Regine Fourie, Nompumelelo Frans, Wanga Gambushe, Eunice Ivala, Michael Joseph, Gregory Kamwendo, Hleze Kunju, Noleen Leach, Linda Manashe, Koliswa Moropa, Andre M. Mostert, Ndimande-Hlongwa, Dion Nkomo, Anneke Potgieter, Monwabisi Ralarala, Esther Ramani, Justus C. Roux, Feziwe Shoba, Zakhile Somlata, Undine S. Weber, Nogwaja S. Zulu
  • Book:
    Multilingualism and Intercultural Communication
    Published by:
    Wits University Press
    Published online:
    23 March 2018
    Print publication:
    31 December 2017, pp 211-222

  • Summary

    Theorising about cultural translation

    The concept of ‘cultural translation’, which underlies this discussion, has its roots in the discipline of cultural anthropology. In his convincing article, ‘The Concept of Cultural Translation in British Social Anthropology’, Asad (2010: 26–27) provides a critical account of the concept of cultural translation, as follows:

    The process of ‘cultural translation’ is inevitably enmeshed in conditions of power – professional, national, international. And among these conditions is the authority of ethnographers to uncover the implicit meanings of subordinate societies. Given that that is so, the interesting question for enquiry is not whether, and if so to what extent, anthropologists should be relativists or nationalists, critical or charitable, toward other cultures, but how power enters into the process of ‘cultural translation’, seen both as a discursive and as a non-discursive practice.

    In the same vein, Sturge (2007: 8–9) complements this view when pointing out that:

    The powerful ethnographic ‘authority’ of the text subsumes the voice of the original speakers into seamless written English partly by hiding the processes of editing and translation that have gone on … Because of the unequal relationship between the cultures concerned, the translation does not remain cordoned off inside some Western ivory tower but instead takes up a powerful position in the practical world.

    In the light of the aforementioned observations, it is worth commenting briefly on imperatives related to the work of ‘transpreters'1 and their pre-statement taking and record reconstruction of sworn statements within the police service:

  • • The process of seeking information or obtaining information by transpreters for purposes of further investigation, and possibly securing a conviction, is inevitably and intrinsically authoritative. Thus, power and authority are a hallmark of this exercise.

  • • The instant relationship between the transpreters and the complainants or witnesses is best described as a relationship between unequals.

  • • The question of ‘translation’ or representation – central in this discussion – resonates with the assigned function of transpreters, who are duty-bound to ‘translate’ (from African languages into English) original narratives of those who lack proficiency in the language of the legal record in order to benefit the English-speaking readership – primarily the courts. Within this context, transpreters assume an audible ‘voice’ in the ‘story retelling’ process, the content of which may not be contested or disputed by those that are being ‘represented’.

  • 13 - Using African languages to teach Science in higher education

  • from Part Four - Language in the professions: law, media, science and language technology
    • By Wanga Gambushe, PhD candidate at SOAS, University of London., Dion Nkomo, lectures in the School of Languages and Literatures, African Language Studies, at Rhodes University., Pamela Maseko, associate professor in African Language Studies at Rhodes University and holds a doctorate in the field of African language intellectualisation.
  • Edited by Russell Kaschula, Pamela Maseko, H. Ekkehard Wolff
  • Christine Anthonissen, Bassey E. Antia, Ken Barris, Rebecca Domingo, Jeanne Toit, Regine Fourie, Nompumelelo Frans, Wanga Gambushe, Eunice Ivala, Michael Joseph, Gregory Kamwendo, Hleze Kunju, Noleen Leach, Linda Manashe, Koliswa Moropa, Andre M. Mostert, Ndimande-Hlongwa, Dion Nkomo, Anneke Potgieter, Monwabisi Ralarala, Esther Ramani, Justus C. Roux, Feziwe Shoba, Zakhile Somlata, Undine S. Weber, Nogwaja S. Zulu
  • Book:
    Multilingualism and Intercultural Communication
    Published by:
    Wits University Press
    Published online:
    23 March 2018
    Print publication:
    31 December 2017, pp 247-261

  • Summary

    Background

    Although access to higher education (HE) in South Africa has widened since 1994 to reflect the country's linguistic and cultural diversity, patterns of high failure and repetition rates, underperformance and low throughput rates remain typically linked to race and language (see Statistics on Post-School Education and Training in South Africa: 2011 [DHET 2013]; Review of Higher Education in South Africa: Selected Themes [CHE 2007]; Higher Education Monitor: The State of Higher Education in South Africa [CHE 2009]). Multilingualism is now a norm in South African HE, as it is an acknowledged societal norm in the country at large. However, it is a norm only as far as the linguistic composition of students and (to a lesser extent) staff is concerned. Teaching in most institutions is monolingual in the medium of English, which is a second language to most South African HE students. The choice for English as a language of learning and teaching (LoLT), especially for speakers of languages other than English, may be considered a historical legacy. On the one hand, English is historically the language of academia in South Africa, given the marginalisation of African languages in HE during the pre-1994 period. On the other hand, it is a global language and is seen as presenting opportunities for economic and social mobility. African languages are not regarded as well-developed enough for use as languages of academia (Jokweni 2004). Research on bi- and multilingual teaching and learning that embraces African languages in HE (Bamgbose 1991; Obanya 2004) is also not considered advanced enough to provide models that can be used to support cognition, and therefore success and throughput for English second language (ESL) students (Mesthrie 2008). Yet this research confirms the important relationship between language and cognition in the learning process, and illustrates that the mother tongue of a learner is critical in contributing to quality education.

    The relationship between language and learning is motivated by the fact that students enter a learning process in possession of their mother tongue with its set of linguistic and conceptual knowledge. Cummins (1981), one of the proponents of mother-tongue-based bilingual learning, argues that bilingual learners should be encouraged to draw on their mother tongue to acquire new knowledge, and opportunities should be presented for the newly acquired knowledge to be contextualised within the pre-existing knowledge, and new knowledge to emerge in this process.

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