scholarly journals AILA Africa Research Network Launch 2007: Research into the use of the African languages for academic purposes

2009 ◽  
Vol 42 (1) ◽  
pp. 131-134 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rosemary Wildsmith-Cromarty
Keyword(s):  
South African ◽  
Language Education ◽  
National Language ◽  
Research Network ◽  
Regional Network ◽  
The South ◽  
African Countries ◽  
Research Papers ◽  
African Languages ◽  
The One

The aim of the one-day symposium was to bring together scholars in applied linguistics with an interest in the African languages for the launch of the new AILA Africa regional network. Contributions were in the form of invited research papers from several African countries. This report focuses on the South African contribution, which highlighted current research into the use and development of the African languages for academic purposes in response to the South African National Language Education Policy (South Africa, DoE 2002) with its focus on the development of multilingualism in the country.

scholarly journals The African languages in South African education 2009–2011

2012 ◽  
Vol 46 (1) ◽  
pp. 120-124
Author(s):  
Rosemary Wildsmith
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
South Africa ◽  
South African ◽  
Language Education ◽  
National Language ◽  
African Education ◽  
African Languages ◽  
Learning And Teaching ◽  
Educational Domain ◽  
South African Education

South African National Language Education policy (South Africa, DoE 2002) enshrines multilingualism (ML) as one of its major goals. The implementation of such a policy is a slow process, however, particularly in the educational domain, where parents, teachers and students favour the dominant, ex-colonial language (English) for both historic and instrumental reasons (Dalvit & de Klerk 2005). However, results of the National Benchmarking Test (NBMT Report 2009) conducted at selected South African universities show that most non-English speaking students in higher education have underdeveloped language and numeracy skills for study at this level, one of the main barriers to access being that of language (Council on Higher Education 2007: 2). Efforts have thus intensified in South African institutions to introduce the home languages of learners into the educational domain, either as learning support alongside the main medium of instruction or as alternative languages of instruction, working towards the development of a bilingual education model. This report documents developments in research in the promotion and use of the African languages in education in South Africa in recent years, particularly since the publication of the previous report (Wildsmith-Cromarty 2009), which discussed various initiatives in the teaching, development and use of the African languages in South African education during the period 2005–2008. This report considers further developments in the use of the African languages for academic purposes in the following areas: the learning and teaching of these languages as additional languages and for professional purposes in selected disciplines for specialist programmes, and their intellectualization, which includes their use as languages of instruction, in the translation of materials and other learning resources, and development of terminology.

scholarly journals Conservation research output in sub-Saharan Africa is increasing, but only in a few countries

Oryx ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 1-10
Author(s):  
P. Christy Pototsky ◽  
Will Cresswell
Keyword(s):  
South African ◽  
Agricultural Land ◽  
Research Output ◽  
Sub Saharan Africa ◽  
Search Term ◽  
African Countries ◽  
Research Papers ◽  
North American Country ◽  
Conservation Research ◽  
Sub Saharan

Abstract We tested if peer-reviewed conservation research output has increased in sub-Saharan African countries over the last 30 years in response to increased development. We carried out a bibliometric analysis to identify the number of conservation research papers published by national authors of 41 sub-Saharan African countries during 1987–2017, to provide an index of national conservation research output. We identified country-specific development factors influencing these totals, using general linear modelling. There were positive relationships between conservation research output and population size, GDP, literacy rate, international tourism receipts and population growth rate, and negative relationships with urban population and agricultural land cover, in total explaining 77% of variation. Thirty-eight per cent of countries contributed < 30 conservation research papers (of 12,701) in 30 years. Analysis of trends in primary authorship in a random subsample of 2,374 of these papers showed that primary authorship by sub-Saharan African authors has increased significantly over time but is now at a lower rate than primary authorship for authors from countries outside the country associated with the search term, usually a European or North American country. Overall, 46% of papers had national primary authors, but 67% of these were South African. The results show that conservation research output in sub-Saharan Africa overall is increasing but only significantly in a few countries, and is still dominated by non-national scientists, probably as a result of a lack of socio-economic development.

Socio-economic Aspects of Energy and Climate Change in South Africa

2021 ◽  
pp. 304-322
Author(s):  
Roula Inglesi-Lotz
Keyword(s):  
South African ◽  
Fossil Fuel ◽  
Energy Sector ◽  
Market Transition ◽  
Living Standards ◽  
The South ◽  
Economic Growth And Development ◽  
Competitive Environments ◽  
The One

Appreciating energy and electricity as cornerstones of socio-economic growth and development, this chapter deals with a variety of concepts and factors to demonstrate the evolution of the role of energy in the South African economy and the population’s living standards. The chapter also discusses historically the various types of transition of the energy sector since the country’s first connection to electricity. The importance of energy as a factor of production and a medium of wealth is profound in the analysis. Also, the findings show that the transitions in the South African energy sector have gone through different natures: demographics of the users, sectoral transitions, regional ones until the one the sector has been undergoing since 2018 that combines a market transition (from monopolistic towards competitive environments) with a fuel transition (from a fossil-fuel-dominated system towards a cleaner, renewable mix).

Between Self-help and Dependence: Donor Funding and the Fight Against HIV/AIDS in South Africa

Africa ◽  
2008 ◽  
Vol 78 (4) ◽  
pp. 496-517 ◽  
Author(s):  
Krista Johnson
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
South African ◽  
South African Government ◽  
The South ◽  
African Countries ◽  
African Government ◽  
Global Response ◽  
Donor Funding ◽  
Self Help ◽  
Hiv Aids

This article examines funding for HIV/AIDS in South Africa, and the relationship between foreign donors and the South African government. The recognition of the AIDS pandemic as an epochal crisis has led to a proliferation of international and donor organizations now directly involved in the governance, tracking and management of the pandemic in many African countries. In many ways, the heavy donor hand that is increasingly defining the pandemic and the global response to it feeds into a new imperialist logic that subordinates pan-African agendas, masks broader issues of access central to the fight against the pandemic, and strengthens traditional relationships of dependence between wealthy Western nations and poorer African nations. The South African government's relationship with foreign donors, however, has been shaped by its efforts to develop an African response to the pandemic not determined nor primarily funded by foreign aid. This article highlights the positive and negative implications of the sometimes contentious relationship between the South African government and foreign donors, as well as the Africa-centred, self-help agenda it pursues, highlighting the opportunities as well as challenges for African governments to define the global response to the pandemic.

scholarly journals Het Suggereren van Verzoening Tijdens de Hoorzittingen van de Waarheids- en Verzoeningscommissie

Afrika Focus ◽  
2005 ◽  
Vol 18 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 73-94
Author(s):  
Annelies Verdoolaege
Keyword(s):  
South African ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
Truth And Reconciliation Commission ◽  
The Other ◽  
The South ◽  
Specific Kind ◽  
Reconciliation Commission ◽  
Truth And Reconciliation ◽  
African Context ◽  
The One

Suggesting reconciliation at the hearings of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission The South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) took place under unique circumstances and in a very particular historical context. This article will explore how such a specific kind of reality gave rise to a specific kind of discourse, a so-called ‘reconciliation discourse’. On the one hand, this discourse offered the apartheid victims a lot of opportunities regarding linguistic expression. On the other hand, though, this discourse was also regimented and limited to a certain extent. By means of fragments from the TRC victim testimonies, this article will deal with one aspect of this linguistic manipulation, namely the introduction of the concept of reconciliation. In the first part of the article, I will explain which linguistic methods were used during the TRC hearings in order to emphasize the notion of reconciliation in the narratives of the testifying victims. In doing so, a lot of attention will be paid to the concrete interaction between the testifiers and the TRC commissioners. In a second part, I will try to investigate why the construction of this specific reconciliation discourse was necessary in the South African context. We will see that, amongst others, also political considerations played a role in the control exercised over the discourse of the TRC victims. In this way, we will understand that the reconciliation discourse of the Commission was a reflection of a very ambiguous social attitude: this discourse had to reveal as much as possible about the apartheid past – and this in a manner as spontaneous, as transparent and as open as possible -, but it also had to be adapted to certain socio-political needs. This will tell us that also a quasi-judicial institution such as the TRC involves an inevitable interplay between language on the one hand and ideology and society on the other.

Inclusive Dualism

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicoli Nattrass ◽  
Jeremy Seekings
Keyword(s):  
South African ◽  
Development Strategy ◽  
Developing Economies ◽  
Labour Productivity ◽  
Health And Safety ◽  
Decent Work ◽  
The South ◽  
Economic Sectors ◽  
African Countries ◽  
Surplus Labour

W. Arthur Lewis, the founding father of development economics, saw developing economies as dualist, that is, characterised by differences in earnings and productivity between and within economic sectors. His famous model of development, in which ‘surplus’ (unemployed and underemployed) labour was drawn out of subsistence activities and into manufacturing, was reflected in the subsequent East Asian development trajectory in which labour was drawn into low-wage, labour-intensive manufacturing, including in clothing production, before shifting into higher-wage work once the supply of surplus labour had dried up. This development strategy has become unfashionable, the concern being that in a globalized world, labour-intensive industry promises little more than an impoverishing ‘race to the bottom’. A strong strand in contemporary development discourse favours the promotion of decent work irrespective of whether surplus labour exists or not. We argue that ‘better work’ policies to ensure health and safety, minimum wages and worker representation are important. Decent work fundamentalism—that is, the promotion of higher wages and labour productivity at the cost of lower-wage job destruction—is a utopian vision with dystopic consequences for countries with high open unemployment, including most of Southern Africa. We show, using the South African clothing industry as a case study, that decent work fundamentalism ignores the benefits of dualism (the co-existence of high- and low-wage firms), resulting in the unnecessary destruction of labour-intensive jobs and the bifurcation of society into highly-paid, high-productivity insiders and unemployed outsiders. The South African case has broader relevance because of the growth in surplus labour—including in its extreme form, open unemployment—across a growing number of African countries. Inclusive dualism, as a development strategy, takes the trade-off between wages and employment seriously, prioritizes labour-intensive job creation and facilitates increased productivity where appropriate, so that jobs are created, not destroyed.

The Role of the Legal Profession in the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission

2002 ◽  
Vol 20 (3) ◽  
pp. 273-298
Author(s):  
Heidy Rombouts ◽  
Stephan Parmentier
Keyword(s):  
South African ◽  
Legal Profession ◽  
Transition To Democracy ◽  
Truth And Reconciliation Commission ◽  
Truth Commission ◽  
The South ◽  
Reconciliation Commission ◽  
Truth And Reconciliation ◽  
The One ◽  
The Impact

In situations of a transition to democracy, the legal profession tends to have a strong impact. While this is quite clear in the case when criminal prosecutions are initiated against perpetrators of gross human rights violations, and when amnesty provisions are enacted for some violations, it is far less obvious in cases when a truth commission is set up. The current article looks into the role that the legal profession, i.e. the judiciary, the bar and the non-governmental organisations, has played in the notorious case of the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC). It draws on the systems analysis of political life by David Easton, which identifies how demands (input) that rise in society, are processed (conversion) and produce results (output), which provide new inputs to the political system. This ‘flow model’ is applied to two separate processes during the life of the TRC: the Special Legal Hearing of October 1997, and the legal challenges put to the Commission in Court in 1996. Our analysis reveals a number of interesting conclusions. One is that the organised profession approached the Special Legal Hearing from a very legalistic point of view, despite the non-judicial character of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission at large. This stands in contrast with the position of the Constitutional Court, which recognised the limits of the traditional judicial system and came out in support of the TRC. Another conclusion is that, although the participation of the judges and the magistrates in the Special Legal Hearing was limited to written submissions, their influence proved very large, as they threatened the TRC with a constitutional crisis. Finally, throughout the two processes under review, breaches became visible within the legal profession, between the ‘progressive’ non-governmental organisations and the ‘conservative’ organised profession on the one hand, and between the organised profession on the one hand and the judges on the other hand. In sum, it can convincingly be concluded that the impact of the legal profession remains quite important when a truth commission is opted for in a context of transition to democracy.

Fragment of an Oral History of Opposition to the 1986 Paramilitary Overthrow of Chief Leabua Jonathan’s Government

2019 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Motlatsi Thabane
Keyword(s):  
South African ◽  
Political Violence ◽  
South African Government ◽  
Military Government ◽  
The South ◽  
African Government ◽  
Coup D'etat ◽  
The People ◽  
The One ◽  
Major General

In January 1986, the Lesotho Paramilitary Force (LPF) overthrew the Basotho National Party (BNP) government of Chief Leabua Jonathan. In the aftermath of the coup d’état, Major General Justin Metsing Lekhanya led a military government with a civilian cabinet made up of individuals, some of whom, like Major General Lekhanya himself, were members of the BNP. The coup followed years of (a) general fear in the country as a result of acts of political violence and brutality perpetrated by the BNP Youth League against individuals and groups considered as anti-BNP government; and (b) the BNP government’s vociferous support of the struggle against apartheid in regional and international forums. Against that background, the overthrow of Chief Jonathan’s government was welcomed on the one hand by the people of Lesotho—happy to be rid of the BNP Youth League terror—and on the other hand by the South African government—happy to be rid of a fierce critic, Chief Jonathan, whose small country greatly depended on the South African economy. Indeed, the South African government was known to have encouraged the overthrow of Chief Jonathan’s government. This article presents oral testimonies about the events around, and opposition to, the coup. In this way, it seeks to draw attention to the experiencesof those who could be said to have failed, as opposed to the stories of the victors, which tended to dominate writings on the 1986 coup

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