Hasil untuk "Languages and literature of Eastern Asia, Africa, Oceania"

Chinelo Eneh

Pulini, Michele

The available reconstruction systems of Old Chinese have proven to be indispensable tools for research in different fields, nevertheless, they remain flawed in many aspects and thus call for continuous refinement. Focusing on Baxter and Sagart’s reconstruction (2014), in this paper I will argue that a more systematic way of incorporating palaeographic data as an integral part of the methodology could enhance the reconstruction outcomes. In particular, the graphic forms preceding the kaishu 楷書 script of many characters and the frequent cases of phonetic borrowing in unearthed texts can provide considerable insightful data. Through some illustrative examples, I will contend that phonetic borrowings in excavated texts can provide insights for a) reconstructing items not included in current reconstructions; b) disentangling rhyme class mergers, and c) questioning and verifying the forms of items included in current reconstructions. A more porous boundary between the fields of palaeography and Chinese historical phonology could thus provide new data for answering many of the still open questions relating to Old Chinese.

Johan J. Steenkamp

No abstract available.

Troy E. Spier

Linguistic treatments of Bantu languages have traditionally focused on broadly historical/ comparative studies or on prototypical characteristics of the family, such as the nominal class system, the complexity of the verbal TAM system, or the tonal system. Consequently, far less attention has been placed upon the nominal phrase as a syntactic unit. To this end, Rugemalira (2007) proposes greater emphasis on Bantu morphosyntax generally. As such, the present study – situated within a broader discussion of the Bantu NP (cf. Chitebeta 2007, Godson & Godson 2015, Lusekelo 2009, Makanjila 2019, Möller 2011, Ondondo 2015, Rugemalira 2007) – builds upon Spier (2016, 2020, 2021) and introduces the first descriptive account of the nominal phrase in Ikyaushi, an underdocumented linguistic variety spoken in the Republic of Zambia and the Democratic Republic of Congo. The data for this study, which arrive from fourteen narratives shared orally by male and female native speakers of the grandparental generation, indicate that seven distinct elements may co-occur with the nominal, but utterances with between one and three co-occurring adnominals are far more frequently attested and more straightforwardly comprehensible to speakers.

Nguh Nwei Asanga Fon, Emmanuel Achiri

The crisis in the Anglophone regions of Cameroon that began as a protest by teachers and lawyers trade unions in late 2016 is becoming an intractable conflict which if not addressed risks destabilizing the entire Central African sub-region. Using Zartman’s “ripeness” as a theoretical premise, this paper analyses the evolution of the conflict and proposes dual track diplomacy as a possible solution to break the present deadlock. Given the difficulties for both sides to escalate their way to victory and the growing, unsustainable cost of a prolonged confrontation, the present situation shows significant traces of a mutually hurting stalemate that we propose can be exploited by actors interested in resolution of the conflict. The need for and possible policy implications of pursuing a dual track diplomatic approach is explored here. It is obvious that dual track diplomacy can contribute greatly to bringing a lasting solution to the Anglophone crisis.

Ben Dewar

This paper is a study of the topos of the king burning captives in the Assyrian royal inscriptions. This punishment is notable for both its rarity and its cruelty, being the only time that the royal inscriptions describe violence towards children. I approach this topic in terms of Donald Black’s model of social control, in which the form and severity of social control, including violence, varies in relation to the “social geometry” that separates the parties involved in a dispute or conflict. I argue that in the royal inscriptions burning is inflicted on those that the Assyrians saw as “uncivilized”: peoples inhabiting poorer cities in mountain regions who lacked the infrastructure necessary to stockpile prestige goods, such as precious metals, and were separated at a greater distance from Assyria by “social geometry” than other foreigners. These findings provide a useful insight into Assyrian conceptions of the other and give a better understanding of the variations in the severity of punishments inflicted by the Assyrians on their enemies.

Hlungwani, Madala Crous

Literature shows that anticausatives have been well investigated in European languages such as English, German, and Greek. However, this is not the case with African languages, particularly Bantu languages such as Xitsonga. The available evidence suggests that there remain unanswered questions about anticausatives across languages. This article, therefore, is an attempt to reduce this knowledge gap by providing a perspective that seems to have been overlooked in previous studies, namely how anticausatives and passives can interact and complement each other in a single construction. In Xitsonga, anticausatives are marked by the presence of neuter-passive morpheme -ek- on the verb, for example, -hlanhl-a ‘smash to pieces’ > -hlanhl-ek-ile ‘smashed to pieces’, while the passives are marked by the morpheme -iw-, for example, -hlanhl-iw-ile ‘smashed to pieces’. The anticausatives in this paper occur as the main clause while the passives occur as the subordinate hikuva ‘because’ reason clause. The main concern of the present paper is to determine the modification of the passive of the subordinate clause by the PPs denoting agents, instruments, and causers/causing events. On the whole, this paper finds that Xitsonga passives of the subordinate intransitive clause may be modified by PPs denoting agents, instruments (pure-instruments), and causers (instrument-causers) when the verb in such a clause is a motion verb with a reduplicated stem, or a weather verb, and when the passive morpheme co-occurs with the causative morpheme.

H.P. Van Coller, A. Van Jaarsveld

Every literary system possesses a canon with the classical canon as the most stable and simultaneously the one with the most restrictive access. Writers and texts can only maintain their position within the canon through continuous rewriting: critical rewriting by literary critics (as shapers of taste and gatekeepers) and creative rewriting by fellow writers. In this study the critical rewriting (and rerealisation) of one of the most acclaimed and seminal texts in Afrikaans literature, Raka (1941), by N. P. van Wyk Louw is scrutinized. Since its publication this verse epic has been firmly entrenched in the classical Afrikaans literary canon and its continuous rewriting / rerealisation can act as a case study of how a literary “masterpiece” is dependent on institutional relationships, relevant characteristics and strategic position-taking within a literary field in order to retain this status. In this second and concluding part of this study, the specifics of Raka’s rewriting / rerealisation is discussed utilising two supplementary typlogies as heuretical tools. In this survey of the rewriting / rerealisation the focus is on the continuallly changing ideological and poetical paradigms underpinning such processes.

van der Merwe, Christo H. J.

In terms of the theoretical framework of an influential recent model of Bible translation, Left Dislocation (=LD) can be regarded as a “communicate clue” that translators must try to interpretively resemble in their target text translation. This exploratory study investigates how twenty translations (fifteen English, three Afrikaans, one German, and one Dutch) have interpretively resembled (or not) nine prototypical constructions, and one less prototypical one, from the book of Genesis. It has been found that, firstly, translations on the formal equivalent pole tend to interpretively resemble LD constructions. If the LD tends to be very prototypical, this tendency is displayed even by some translations towards the functional equivalent pole. Secondly, even in the case of prototypical instances, translations on the functional equivalent pole, however, tend not to interpretively resemble the construction. In these cases, it could be argued that they are not serving the very goal that they as a rule want to accomplish—that is, to provide readers with a translation that is easy to read and process. Thirdly, the structure of English, Afrikaans and Dutch—in contrast to German—often appears to require a construal that does not formally reflect the pronominal resumption of the LD constituent in the matrix clause. Fronting the LD constituent is often used, and sometimes a pause after the fronted (i.e. then dislocated) constituent is signaled by means of a comma or a dash. These findings concur with those of some of the other papers in this volume. Resumption, for example, is not always the primary distinctive feature of a LD construction; a tonal pause between the LD and its matrix clause may also suffice. There are also historical explanations as to why some of the functions of fronting and LD constructions overlap.

Robin Gallaher Branch

No Abstract Availible

M.R. Masubelele

People have an inherent need to communicate. They communicate out of need as well as for leisure. Human speech abounds with unpleasant and undesirable statements that could embarrass and even humiliate those spoken to or oneself. Brown and Levinson assert that unpleasant and undesirable statements have the potential to threaten the ‘face’ or self-esteem of the other person or persons. They define ‘face’ as the public self-image that every member of society wants to claim for themself. Simply put, ‘facework’ refers to ways people cooperatively attempt to promote both the other’s and their own sense of self-esteem in a conversation. As linguistic speech forms, idioms perform a variety of functions in a language. Not only do they make speech more colourful, but they also perform a communicative function in that they tend to soften the embarrassment and humiliation that often accompanies unpleasant and undesirable statements in speech. IsiZulu idioms will be examined in this article to establish to what extent they could contribute to managing ‘face’ issues. Examples of idioms will be drawn from C.L.S. Nyembezi and O.E.H. Nxumalo’s work Inqolobane Yesizwe. The facework theory as espoused by Brown and Levinson will underpin this discussion on isiZulu idioms.

Risto Järv

Dion Nkomo, Mbulungeni Madiba

This article proposes a lexicographical approach to the compilation of multilingual concept literacy glossaries which may play a very important role in supporting students at institutions of higher education. In order to support concept literacy, especially for students for whom English is not the native language, a number of universities in South Africa are compiling multilingual glossaries through which the use of languages other than English may be employed as auxiliary media. Terminologies in languages other than English are developed by translating English terms or coining new terms in these languages to exploit the native language competence of most students. The glossary project at the University of Cape Town (UCT) which was conceived under the auspices of the Multilingualism Education Project (MEP) is discussed. It is shown that the UCT glossaries are compiled using methods consistent with those employed in modern lexicography or proffered in lexicographical theory. The lexicographical function theory is specifically used to account for the glossaries and their production. It is suggested that modern lexicography can provide useful guidance for the production of glossaries, given that the earliest glossaries constitute the humble beginnings of lexicography.

Jerzy Koch, Pawel Zajas

The South African Nobel Prize winner, J. M. Coetzee has a particular connection to the Netherlands. For instance, he had reviewed Dutch literature for the New York Times (the reviews were later included in a book called Stranger Shores: essays 1986–1999) and he translated and compiled an anthology of Dutch poetry (Landscape with Rowers, 2004) for the English readership. Moreover, his books are frequently published in their Dutch translation prior to their official English releases. In 1976, Coetzee translated a novel by Marcelus Emants Een nagelaten bekentenis (1894), published in English as A Posthumous Confession. Parallel to this translation work, Coetzee also worked on his second novel In the Heart of the Country (1977). This paper is devoted to a detective-like tracing of reflections that Coetzee’s close reading of the Dutch novelist might have left in his own book. Why did Coetzee in the first place decide to translate Emants’ novel? What was its appeal that attracted him so much? What was Coetzee’s reading of Emants back in the 1970s?

Weideman, Albert J

Developing a theory of applied linguistics is a top priority for the discipline today. The emergence of a new paradigm - a complex systems approach - in applied linguistics presents us with a unique opportunity to give prominence to the development of a foundational framework for this design discipline. Far from being a mere philosophical exercise, such a framework will find application in the training and induction of new entrants into the discipline within the developing context of South Africa, as well as internationally.

Stanisław Piłaszewicz

Menkveld, Jenny

One of the psycholinguistic approaches, the integrated approach, is by far the most appropriate for outcomes-based education, which forms the basis of the Revised Curriculum Statement In this article, two initial teaching methods, which are based on an integrated approach, the Oxford Storieboomreeks and Ster Stories are compared, particularly with regard to their conciliability with learning outcome 3 and the concomitant assessment standards as set out in the Revised Curriculum Statement (Curriculum 2005). This will be implemented in the Foundation Phase in 2004 (Department of Education 2002). The opinions of three grade 1 teachers form part of the discussion.

John F. García

J. van Luxemburg

This paper explores the relationship between the love story and official history in Animal triste by the German novelist Monika Maron. Despite suggestions that the love story could have happened at any time or place, a strong case can be made for a special interwovenness of the personal and the political in this Wende novel. Timelessness thus gives way to the intertwinement of a love story with a period in history, the Wende, the period of political change in Germany in 1989-1990. On the other hand, the love story's political dimensions contribute to another form of timelessness, a kind of religious belief in the eternity of love. Before discussing Animal triste, I trace the relationship between love and politics in Maron's earlier novels.

Puhl, Carol A.

Combining the teaching of thinking skills and a second language seems a plausible way to promote language acquisition. The teaching of thinking is explained, with an example from the curriculum of de Bono. Arguments supporting the thinking-L2 combination come from theory, practice, its benefits to teaching skills, national needs, and successful implementation. Research literature is reviewed, and a major study in South Africa is summarized. Die kombinasie van die onderrig van denkvaardighede en tweede taal blyk 'n aanneemlike metode om taalverwerwing te bevorder. Die onderrig van denke word aangedui, met 'n voorbeeld uit die kurrikulum van De Bono. Argumente wat die kombinasie van denke en tweede taal ondersteun, word gebaseer op teorie, praktyk, voordele vir onderwysvaardighede, nasionale behoeftes, en suksesvolle toepassing. Navorsingsartikels word in oi!nskou geneem, en 'n belangrike navorsingstudie word opgesom.