African Journals Online
Southern African Linguistics and Applied Language Studies

VOLUME 19 ISSUE 3 + ISSUE 4(2001)
Abstracts

Southern African Linguistics and Applied Language Studies 19 (3-4) 2001 133–147

©2001 NISC Pty Ltd,

Do beliefs about science limit access to the science discourse community? The evidence of laboratory sessions

Ralph Adendorff¹* and Jean Parkinson²

¹Linguistics Programme and ²Faculty of Science, University of Natal, Durban 4041, South Africa

* Corresponding author, e-mail: [email protected] , [email protected]  

Abstract: While the shortage of black South Africans who are qualified in the sciences and applied sciences is severe, political changes have already begun to provide fairer access to tertiary study in these fields. Examining the role of subtler and more widely spread societal attitudes that limit access to the science discourse community, we suggest that, although necessary, political changes are not sufficient to provide wide access. Focusing on the experience of first year laboratory sessions by six students and the discourse pertinent to them, we investigate the beliefs and attitudes that the students bring to their laboratory sessions. We examine the ideologies inherent in two approaches to laboratory sessions: one which stresses efficiency in the following of instructions and the performance of key laboratory procedures, the other which stresses acquisition of the thinking skills necessary for investigative research. Our article provides evidence that the first approach confirms while the second undermines certain beliefs about science. We contend that these beliefs limit access to the discourse community of science.

Southern African Linguistics and Applied Language Studies 19 (3-4) 2001 149–161

©2001 NISC Pty Ltd,

The Language for Learning project: Developing language-sensitive subject-teaching in South African secondary schools

Beverley Burkett¹*, John Clegg², John Landon³, Tony Reilly⁴ and Cheron Verster⁵

¹ University of Port Elizabeth, PO Box 1600, Port Elizabeth 6006, South Africa

² Garden Flat, 28 The Avenue, London NW6 7YD, United Kingdon

³ Department of Education Studies, Moray House Institute of Education, The University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh EH8 8AQ, Scotland

⁴ British Council, PO Box 357, Durban 4000, South Africa

⁵ English Language Educational Trust, 369 Smith Street, Durban 4001, South Africa

* Corresponding author, e-mail: [email protected]  

Abstract: The Language for Learning project is an initiative in the Eastern Cape and KwaZulu-Natal which aims to help secondary school subject teachers to take account of language and learning. It operates in schools with varied patterns of intake and in a range of secondary school subjects. Teachers involved conduct small-scale action research projects on aspects of the role of language in classroom practice or school policy which influence the teaching of their subject.

The project takes as its starting-point the under-achievement of students who use languages other than English in home and community. It assumes that this has in large part to do with the restricted role of these languages in education, the quality of English language use in the pedagogy of subject teachers, and the learners' own lack of proficiency in academic English.

This paper discusses the theoretical and practical background of the project with respect to language in education. It then describes the aims, structure, stakeholders and workplan of the project and outlines its progress in the first few months of its operation. Finally it speculates on the outcomes of the project and their relevance in South Africa as a whole.

Southern African Linguistics and Applied Language Studies 19 (3-4) 2001 163–178

©2001 NISC Pty Ltd,

Teaching English in multiethnic schools in the Durban area: The promotion of multilingualism or monolingualism?

Keith Chick¹* and Sandy McKay²

¹ 9 Sylvania Ave, Westville 3630, South Africa

² Department of English, San Francisco State University, 1600 Holloway Avenue, San Francisco CA 94132, United States of America

* Corresponding author: e-mail: [email protected] , [email protected]  

Abstract: We describe a study we carried out recently in two former white (NED) high schools, two former Indian (HOD) schools and two primary schools (one HOD and one NED) in the Durban area. We recognise that English dominance is a potential barrier to the multilingual/multicultural goals of South Africa's language-in-education policy. Accordingly our study seeks to establish to what extent these schools are attempting to promote the sort of multilingual/multicultural identity the National Education Policy Act calls for. We report on what in our classroom and interview data led us to ask a number of critical questions including: Why is there so little code-switching? Why is Zulu not effectively maintained? Why is there so much teacher-fronted teaching? Why is there so little evidence of multicultural socialisation? Why is there such concern for standards? Why is there so much teacher anxiety? We report briefly on the research which guided the interpretation of our data (helped us formulate tentative answers to our questions) and suggest what the implications of our study are for policy makers, school administrators and teachers.

Southern African Linguistics and Applied Language Studies 19 (3-4) 2001 179–196

©2001 NISC Pty Ltd,

Prosody and pedagogy in a democratic South Africa

Stephen J Cowley

School of Psychology, University of Natal, Durban 4001, South Africa

e-mail: [email protected]  

Abstract: This article explores how prosodic patterning influences relationships. Written from an integrational point of view, it highlights the local importance of the issue by examining talk that resounds with a post-apartheid 'ugly tone'. Two central claims are made. Firstly, much understanding is the intertwining of vocalisations. Secondly, we are skilled in interpreting how this joint activity is integrated with word-based patterning. Since we take part in dialogue, we have capacities for responding in real time and, crucially, for making judgements about the unfolding sense of events.

Especially where such ways of acting are intrinsic to identity, we need to develop dialogical capacities beyond the 'in-group'. In the terms of the article, learners can be helped with first-order contextualizing and interactional ascription. By adopting these goals, local ways of speaking and listening become paramount. This leads to a new choice of oral/aural materials and a focus on tasks where learners explain judgements about talk within and across social groups. Emphasis thus goes on enhancing capacities for listening to, interpreting, and rectifying real-time dialogical events. Close examination of local speaking and listening, it is argued, will lead to development of contextually sensitive educational practices.

Southern African Linguistics and Applied Language Studies 19 (3-4) 2001 197–214

©2001 NISC Pty Ltd,

Using past events to construct the present: Voices at the Truth and Reconciliation Commission hearings

Nicole Geslin

Linguistics Programme, University of Natal, Durban 4041, South Africa

e-mail: [email protected]  

Abstract: This article analyses the discursive thread of interpersonal meanings in several sets of documents: newspaper reports of what became known as the St James Church massacre in Cape Town in July 1993; excerpts from two applicants' and one witness' deposition at the TRC hearing on the same event, in July 1997; newspaper reporting of the hearing; an extract from the TRC Commissioners' decision granting Amnesty in June 1998; and a news report of reactions to that decision.

The framework used is Appraisal theory in systemic functional linguistics, which enables a principled analysis of intersubjective strategies around issues of values and judgements. The interaction of appraisal choices made by the various protagonists in the public drama of the TRC hearings, across different texts, shows the different positioning strategies which enable the applicants and their 'hearers' (observers, journalists, the television and reading public) not so much to 'reveal' or 'discover' the past but rather to negotiate a particular present for themselves and their country.

Southern African Linguistics and Applied Language Studies 19 (3-4) 2001 215–230

©2001 NISC Pty Ltd,

Ideological paradox and intercultural possibility: Andean language-in-education policy and practice and its relevance for South Africa

Nancy H Hornberger

Graduate School of Education, University of Pennsylvania, 3700 Walnut Street, Philadelphia, United States of America

e-mail: [email protected]  

Abstract: Paralleling recent developments in South Africa, initiatives in language policy and education reform in Peru, Ecuador and Bolivia over the last three decades have opened up new possibilities for indigenous languages and their speakers through bilingual intercultural education. Examining the use and meanings of the term interculturalidad (interculturality) in policy documents and short practitioner narratives from the Andean context, this article explores the ideological paradox inherent in transforming a standardising education into a diversifying one and constructing a national identity which is also multilingual and multicultural. Specifically, I look at the use of the term interculturality in policy and practitioner discourses and what it means to the different groups using it, in terms of what cultural groups are represented and how they are constructed as interacting. I also consider why the term interculturality is invoked in policy discourse, and how it is accomplished in practitioner discourse. My analysis aims at understanding to what degree this new education is an avenue for changing the centuries-old subordination of indigenous groups in their national societies. Drawing lessons from the Andean experiences, the paper concludes with a brief section on implications for language-in-education policy and practice in linguistically and culturally diverse classrooms in South Africa and elsewhere.

Southern African Linguistics and Applied Language Studies 19 (3-4) 2001 231–240

©2001 NISC Pty Ltd,

Interaction as 'involvement' in writing for students: a corpus linguistic analysis of a key readability feature

E Hilton Hubbard

Linguistics Department, University of South Africa, PO Box 392, Pretoria 0001, South Africa

e-mail: [email protected]  

Abstract: The rapid change in the demographics of South Africa's tertiary level student population over the last decade — and most specifically the huge increase in those who have to study at a distance through a medium that is not their first language — has intensified efforts to improve the readability of distance learning material. This paper focuses mainly on one particular aspect of readability, namely 'human interest' (Flesch), and elaborates this concept in terms of Biber's textual dimension of 'involvement'. With the assistance of a concordancing programme, a comparison was carried out in terms of this dimension between an earlier version of a Unisa study guide and a later one, which the writers had intended to make more reader-friendly. The later guide, which can be deemed to have been a major factor in the higher success rates of students on the later course, was found to reveal not only higher general readability values than the earlier guide, but also significantly higher involvement values. Thus this paper exemplifies one kind of application of corpus linguistics, linking Biber's involvement dimension with readability and highlighting the connection between involvement, or interaction, and effectiveness in writing for students.

Southern African Linguistics and Applied Language Studies 19 (3-4) 2001 241–252

©2001 NISC Pty Ltd,

Critical Language Awareness: Curriculum 2005 meets the TRC

Hilary Janks

Department of Applied English Language Studies, University of the Witwatersrand,

Private Bag 3, Wits 2050, South Africa

e-mail: [email protected]  

Abstract: This article discusses the different ways in which the relationship between language and power is conceptualised in recent curriculum documents and in the Truth and Reconciliation Commission Report. It uses the commissioners' insights that language is a form of social action and that discourses constitute our identities to argue for a more sophisticated view of Critical Language Awareness in education.

Southern African Linguistics and Applied Language Studies 19 (3-4) 2001 253–273

©2001 NISC Pty Ltd,

Intercultural sociolinguistics and communication research in South Africa: Its relevance to academic settings and the service industry

Luanga A Kasanga

Department of English Studies, University of the North, Private Bag X1106, Sovenga 0727

e-mail: [email protected]  

Abstract: The increase in inter-ethnic and/or inter-racial communication in South Africa recently warrants concomittant increased attention, through intercultural communication research, to difficulties encountered in face-to-face interaction, such as: pragmatic failure and misunderstanding in same-language different-culture interaction. Pragmatic failure may lead, in the long term, to resentment, which, in turn, may lead to ethnic (cross-group) stereotyping and negative labelling. Misperceptions of non-native speakers of English has often contributed to the perpetuation (unintentionally though it may sometimes be) of exclusion and discrimination of the non-native speakers by native speakers, as observation in academic settings and the job market has shown. In this article, I use observational and elicited data of requests in English by university students to highlight the difficulties (and risks) posed by their lack of pragmatic competence in intercultural interaction. I tentatively discuss the teachability of speech act realisation and argue for the inclusion of pragmatic instruction in English language teaching and of pragmatics in teaching/learning materials, with two aims in mind: (i) to sensitise learners to the importance of pragmatic issues and heighten their metapragmatic awareness; and (ii) to alert 'gatekeepers' to the inevitability of variation in pragmatic competence due to the learners' or users' first language (L1), individual choices and preferences.

Southern African Linguistics and Applied Language Studies 19 (3-4) 2001 275–289

©2001 NISC Pty Ltd,

Through different lenses: Social and clinical constructions of identity

Sinfree Makoni¹*, Elaine Ridge² and Stanley GM Ridge³

¹ Department of English, University of Cape Town, Rondebosch 7700, South Africa

e-mail: [email protected]  

² Faculty of Education, University of Stellenbosch, Private Bag X1, Matieland 7602, South Africa

e-mail: [email protected]  

³ Department of English, University of the Western Cape, Private Bag X17, Bellville 7535, South Africa

e-mail: [email protected]  

Abstract:This article seeks to clarify some aspects of a common ageing condition by analysing an unusually rich portfolio of 'texts' about and by an ageing individual clinically diagnosed as suffering from Alzheimer's dementia. The study is unusual, both in the variety of material by and about her which is available for analysis, and in the use of different methods of analysis to provide a multidimensional view of the person and her condition. Early writings, long before the onset of the disease, allow for an insight into the person's mature personality. The rest of the analyses are thrown into relief by this diachronic perspective. A body of texts written by the person, unprompted, after entering the nursing home, is then examined from a literary and discourse analysis perspective. A video recording of the person's interactions with a researcher employing a discrete item psycholinguistic test is analysed from a pragmatics perspective. Then the discourses of the current medical files are explored to point up the ways in which her status as an individual is mediated through the categories used to describe her condition in medical terms. The implications of the various perspectives afforded by these analyses are teased out in the final section, and some implications for language studies in general are described.

Southern African Linguistics and Applied Language Studies 19 (3-4) 2001 291–301

©2001 NISC Pty Ltd,

Researching language teaching: Understanding practice through situated classroom research

Sarah Murray¹* and Malefu Nhlapo²

¹ Department of Education, Rhodes University, Grahamstown 6140

² Department of Education, NTTC, Box 1393, Maseru 100, Lesotho

* e-mail: [email protected] ; [email protected]  

Abstract: In this article we argue that second language acquisition (SLA) research and theory have a significant role to play in teacher education, especially at the masters level. The danger of overly practical approaches is that they cannot challenge current practice in ways that are both critical and rigorous. However, to engage critically with practice, SLA research must be situated in its institutional, social and cultural settings. We argue that situated research into classroom interaction provides second language teachers with opportunities to theorize and improve practice.