Panel on Contemporary South African Poetry

1976 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 25-33
Author(s):  
Mongane Wally Serote ◽  
Oswald Mtshali ◽  
Romanus Egudu ◽  
Pol Ndu
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
South African ◽  
Indigenous Languages ◽  
Black South African ◽  
The Sixties ◽  
Dennis Brutus ◽  
As If

The only was I can describe black South African writing is to say it’s a very tragic thing in its own way because of what is happening in South Africa. The writing seems to have no continuity; usually when we talk about black South African writing, we start around the sixties, but I think it started long before then. We have people writing in Setswana, Sevenda, Shangaan, Xhosa, and many other indigenous languages, and I’m sure that up to now we still aren’t fully aware of the wealth of literature written in those languages.When I started writing, it was as if there had never been writers before in my country. By the time I learned to write, many people—Zeke, Kgositsile, Mazisi Kunene, Dennis Brutus—had left the country and were living in exile.

English in South Africa

2001 ◽  
Vol 25 (3) ◽  
pp. 219-235 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jan Bernsten
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Language Policy ◽  
South African ◽  
Language Use ◽  
Indigenous Languages ◽  
The Other ◽  
African Countries ◽  
Black South African ◽  
Official Languages ◽  
South African Constitution

In a departure from language policy in most other African countries, the 1996 South African Constitution added nine indigenous languages to join English and Afrikaans as official languages. This policy was meant to provide equal status to the indigenous languages and promote their use in power domains such as education, government, media and business. However, recent studies show that English has been expanding its domains at the expense of the other ten languages. At the same time, the expanded use of English has had an impact on the varieties of English used in South Africa. As the number of speakers and the domains of language use increase, the importance of Black South African English is also expanding. The purpose of this paper is to analyze current studies on South African Englishes, examining the way in which expanded use and domains for BSAE speakers will have a significant impact on the variety of English which will ultimately take center stage in South Africa.

The Socio-Economic Challenges of South African Indigenous Musicians: A Case Study of Venda-Based Vho-Ntshengedzeni Mamphodo

2019 ◽  
Vol 29 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
N G Mugovhani ◽  
Lebogang Lance Nawa
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
South African ◽  
Empirical Data ◽  
Cultural Policy ◽  
Qualitative Case Study ◽  
Arts Management ◽  
Black South African ◽  
Indigenous Music ◽  
Entire Country

This article discusses and raises awareness about the socio-economic plight of indigenous musicians in South Africa. Through a qualitative case study of the Venda musician, Vho-Talelani Andries Ntshengedzeni Mamphodo, dubbed the “Father of mbila music,” the article highlights the fact that the welfare of Black South African artists, particularly indigenous musicians in South Africa, is generally a precarious affair. Their popularity, at the height of their careers, sometimes masks shocking details of exploitation, neglect, and the poverty they are subjected to, which are exposed only after they have died. Empirical data identifies this as a symptom of, among other things, cultural policy and arts management deficiencies in the promotion of indigenous music. The article aims to find ways to redress this unfortunate situation, which is partially a product of general apathy and scant regard that these artists have perennially been subjected to, even by their own governments, as well as some members of their societies. All these factors mentioned are compounded by ignorance on the part of South African artists. Part of the objective of this study was to establish whether the exposition of the Vhavenda musicians is a typical example of all Black South African indigenous musicians and, if this is the case, whether the suggested ways to redress this unfortunate situation could contribute to or play a role in alleviating the plight of such artists in the entire country.

Philological Reversion in Post-Apartheid South Africa: The Sand Writing and Alternate Alphabets of Willem Boshoff

2018 ◽  
Vol 3 (4) ◽  
pp. 524-549
Author(s):  
Kurt Campbell
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
South African ◽  
Central Place ◽  
Indigenous Languages ◽  
Educational Policies ◽  
Current Debate ◽  
Critical Thought ◽  
Education Act ◽  
Contemporary Artist ◽  
Democratic Elections

Abstract This article focuses on the conceptual implications of specific works of contemporary artist and wordsmith Adriaan Willem Boshoff. Boshoff uses his creations to challenge the terms of the current debate around indigenous languages in southern Africa through artworks such as Blind Alphabet and his Sand Writing Series. These works call viewers to an emphatic return to an understanding of scripts (and the worlds they produce) as embodied systems of tradition that occupy the central place not only in the groups they serve, but indeed in a larger vision of a culturally tolerant and affirmative nation. The article tracks key South African educational policies such as the Apartheid era Bantu Education Act of 1953, and the Corrective Language Act of 1998 after the first democratic elections to contextualize the politics of legislative development in South Africa as related to indigenous scripts and languages. Beyond this bureaucratic history, the article foregrounds partisan agency that individuals such as Wilhelm Bleek, Lucy Lloyd and Magrieta Jantjies displayed as custodians of endangered scripts and languages, culminating in a discussion of the provocative works Boshoff created to stimulate critical thought on contemporaneous philological concerns in South Africa.

Language Policy Execution

2020 ◽  
pp. 579-614
Author(s):  
Paul Hendry Nkuna
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Language Policy ◽  
South African ◽  
Indigenous Languages ◽  
Public Institution ◽  
Ministry Of Education ◽  
Language Policies ◽  
South African Universities ◽  
Official Languages ◽  
The Republic

South Africa is a multilingual country with 11 official languages. The Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, 1996, provides that every learner may use the official language of his or her choice in any public institution of the country. The Language Policy for Higher Education (Ministry of Education, 2002) requires all South African universities to develop and execute language policies. This chapter focuses on language policy execution by South African universities. The emphasis is on the execution of language policy in relation to the promotion and development of the nine official indigenous languages, namely isiNdebele, isiXhosa, isiZulu, Sepedi, Sesotho, Setswana, siSwati, Tshivenda and Xitsonga.

Xhosa English as an institutionalised variety of English

2003 ◽  
Vol 24 (2) ◽  
pp. 221-243 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vivian de Klerk
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
South African ◽  
Significant Proportion ◽  
Linguistic Features ◽  
Black South African ◽  
Black Language

This paper aims to examine the English of Xhosa speakers (a significant proportion of speakers of Black South African English, since Xhosa is the second largest indigenous black language in South Africa), in terms of Williams’ (1987) criteria for Non-native Institutionalised Varieties of English (NIVEs). Using a corpus-based approach, the article reports on the results of analyses of a range of linguistic features in the newly-developed corpus of spoken Xhosa English (over 500 000 words), in an effort to go some way towards providing the evidence so necessary for the endorsement of newly established norms, and to counteract the pull of native English norms, “which tend to result in the stigmatisation of some of the major indexical markers of the non-native varieties” (Bamgbose 1998:3).

scholarly journals CRITICAL DISCOURSE OF AFRICAN VERNACULAR ROOTED IMAGERIES IN PITIKA NTULI’S SCULPTURES

ARTis ON ◽  
2019 ◽  
pp. 140-151
Author(s):  
Sule Ameh James
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Cultural History ◽  
South African ◽  
Visual Analysis ◽  
Formal Analysis ◽  
Critical Discourse ◽  
Black South African ◽  
Political Events

My paper presents a critical discourse on African vernacular rooted imageries in the contemporary sculptures of Ntuli, the ideas they convey to viewers and how Africanness is indicated in each depiction produced between 2007 and 2016. I read Ntuli’s contemporary sculptures as African vernacular rooted because he appropriates in them cultural imageries from engagement with African contexts. Five images of his sculptures and installations were purposively selected for thematic and visual analysis. I adopt visual hermeneutics theory, formal analysis and cultural history methods for the reading of each work. The narrative reveals that Ntuli’s vernacular imageries reflects black South African men and a woman rooted in past and present socio-political events in South Africa. The thematic interpretations of the imageries reveal ideas on massacre not merely during apartheid but in post-apartheid South Africa, torture of victims detained without trial, anti-racialism and reflection on a historical hero from Zulu culture.

scholarly journals The structure and features of the SMS language used in the written work of Communication English I students at a university in South Africa

2015 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Chaka Chaka ◽  
Mampa L. Mphahlele ◽  
Charles C. Mann
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
South African ◽  
Undergraduate Students ◽  
Syntactic Structure ◽  
Morphological Structure ◽  
Text Messages ◽  
African Languages ◽  
Black South African ◽  
University Of Technology ◽  
English I

Employing an explanatory design, this study set out to investigate the morphosyntactic structures of the SMS language of Communication English I students, and the types of SMS language features used in their written work at a university of technology in South Africa. The study randomly sampled 90 undergraduate students (M = 40; F = 50) enrolled for a national diploma programme during the first academic semester in 2013. Their ages ranged from 19–22 years; they all spoke English as a second language, whilst having one of the five black South African languages as their home language. The study had two types of data: participants’ mobile phone text messages (in two sets), and their writing samples. Two of the findings of the study are: the morphological structure of the textisms used in the participants’ text messages deviated from that applicable to formal, standard English, whereas much of their syntactic structure did not; and, the frequency and proportion of textisms in participants’ writing samples were lower than that reported in studies by Freudenberg (2009) and Rosen et al. (2010).

scholarly journals Black and White in Ink: Discourses of Resistance in South African Cartooning

2002 ◽  
Vol 1 (4) ◽  
pp. 385-406 ◽  
Author(s):  
ANDY MASON
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
South African ◽  
Public Discourse ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Struggle ◽  
Comic Strips ◽  
Black Newspapers ◽  
Black South African ◽  
Black And White ◽  
Vexing Question

ABSTRACT This author contends that cartooning in its various forms in South Africa played an important role in crystallising issues of allegiance and identity, introducing revolutionary concepts into public discourse, undermining the ideological hegemony of the apartheid state and legitimating the political struggle against apartheid. However, in spite of the fact that numerous black newspapers have subsisted to this day, there remains a dearth of black cartoonists in South Africa. The vexing question of why so few black cartoonists have emerged demands an answer. The villains of the piece appear to be the editors of the socalled 'liberal' newspapers who did nothing (and continue to do very little) to identify indigenous cartooning talent or promote the development of black South African cartooning, choosing rather to share the services of a few white cartoonists and to buy syndicated comic strips. Mason analyses this situation and offers a remedy for solving the problem.

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