scholarly journals How to Sustain the Empire without Military Presence

Author(s):  
Goodenough Mashego

The common factor in the global colonial project by European countries has been the introduction of their language and culture to “vanquished” communities. This is visible in the African continent and Latin America. As they intended to create a “home away from home,” even after former British Prime Minister Harold MacMillan’s “winds of change” have breezed through, collapsing one empire after another, the mainstay feature of those colonies—language—remains at the heart of liberated nations. This often unavoidable status quo has meant that the colonial project cannot be completely dismantled without leaving remnants of it that will forever connect the colonised with their former coloniser. Language has been used through centuries as a potent weapon against native communities who have never fully developed dictionaries and other forms of language preservatives. The apartheid society, as a colonial project, went a step further by cleansing some languages and Balkanising them with others, thus creating artificial linguistic communities for reasons of ethnic governance. In its manifestation this process was supposed to produce a gradual death of “other” languages in a covert ethnic genocide that pitched ethnic communities against each other. Why has South Africa, 24 years later, not reversed this apartheid hurdle that gave birth to Bantustans and homelands? Why did the democratic government agree on a figure of 11 official languages when they knew from their own membership both inside and outside the country that there were more than nine African languages spoken in South Africa? What can be done to assist authorities to get a proper grasp of the linguistic challenges facing the country at a time that some people feel culturally conquered without a shot having been fired? And why is a democratic dispensation continuing the conquest of ethnic minorities?

2021 ◽  
Vol 50 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Medicine Magocha ◽  
Johannes Ratsikana Rammala

Migration, enterprise and the related language and culture dynamics are critical to South Africa and Zimbabwe. In the past, some scholars were of the view that the language and cultural communities created by migration pose a threat, and others argued that they are advantageous. This article presents a single-factor analytical approach to issues, which suggests that co-existing modalities should be worked out for the host citizens to accept the migrants without reservations. This acceptance is imperative as its negation results in some contexts to the flaring of ugly xenophobic manifestations. The argument presented in this article is pertinent to African languages and education, the African Union, the United Nations, civic, humanitarian organisations, respective governments, interested stakeholders and language communities, amongst others. It provides insight on how to manage cultures and morals among migrants of diverse categories. The article used a mixed research methodology. It reviews ideas on migration globally and in Africa in particular, analysing how migration contributes towards emerging language and cultural societies or communities. A sample of 100 respondents was used for this study. The paper suggests that there should be unity, deregulation and liberalisation of movement of people across the continent for trade and skills-sharing to improve sustainability. The article intends to guide African leaders to co-exist and to encourage fair competition for continental expansion, poverty alleviation and development of positive international language policies. It is one of the recent attempts to expound on the existing perspectives on migration dynamics and the formation of viable diasporic language communities in Africa and highlight their contribution towards ubuntu.


2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 1
Author(s):  
Aaron Mnguni

Language policies are the cornerstone that establish and maintain communication amongst people. Proper communication, particularly amongst speakers of many languages in a country such as South Africa hinges heavily on perceptions regarding the status of the languages used in that specific country. According to the Republic of South African Constitution (Act 108 of 1996), South Africa has eleven official languages. Nine of these official languages (the indigenous African languages), are regarded as historically disadvantaged, while the remaining two, viz. English and Afrikaans enjoyed official recognition under the then ‘apartheid’ era that lasted until 1994. The previously disadvantaged African languages still lag in terms of development, when compared to English and to a lesser extent, Afrikaans. To address this challenge and reverse the status quo, several measures have been undertaken by government, including the passing of an Act called, Use of Official Languages Act, 2012. This Act aims at managing the use of the official languages optimally, with special emphasis on the previously marginalised languages. South Africa is known for developing good language policies but often criticised for producing such good policies for one good purpose only - to display them in office shelves. Following this state of affairs, this article therefore examines the implementation challenges regarding this Act and suggest what could be done to successfully implement it in South Africa. Second, the article also seeks to alleviate the perceived apathy in implementing language policies, particularly in South Africa, and with implications for Africa as a whole.


2022 ◽  
pp. 152-161
Author(s):  
Mokgale Makgopa

Indigenous languages are the carriers of the communication, culture, and identity. It is through language that one expresses one's thoughts, emotions, and feelings. Unfortunately, colonialism created serious problems and obstacles in the development of African indigenous languages. European languages are used in Africa, rated as official languages of African countries while indigenous languages are sidelined and marginalized. Africa's own vision of decolonization, self-realization, and African Renaissance will always be a dream if African languages don't reclaim their rightful position in Africa. Intellectual decolonization is prudent for the realization of emancipation of the indigenous languages.


2021 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 61-69
Author(s):  
Ibrahima Sarr

Senegal is a melting pot of several civilizations mainly originated from the West (Europe) and the East (the Arab world). Assuming that language and culture are intrinsically related, the settlement of those people and their status as dominant minority sparked and strengthened the use of their languages in formal domains. In the long ran, as they became domesticated, thus now considered African languages because they have contributed to mold the cultural identity of younger generation, they involve in all linguistic interaction. Arab, in its classical form, remains a symbol of Islam which earns it a certain degree of sacredness. Nevertheless the contact situation with the other languages forced it to crossbreed in special ways like borrowings and interferences. As for the other foreign languages, namely French, English, Spanish, and German at a least extent, they are made to carry the weight of local cultures.


Literator ◽  
2011 ◽  
Vol 32 (1) ◽  
pp. 121-144 ◽  
Author(s):  
E. Cornelius

This article explores the nature and scope of legal translation which is an under-researched area in South Africa. In this article the author predicts that the demand for competent legal translators will increase in the future, evidenced by a recent call by the Department of Justice and Constitutional Development(DoJ&CD), inviting applications for ten positions for “legislative language practitioners”. However, legal translation differs substantially from general translation in the sense that legal translation is subject to heavy restrictions at all levels and legal considerations are of paramount importance in a country such as South Africa, which provides for eleven official languages. Legal translation involves different legal languages, different legal systems and different cultural systems that require specialised knowledge and skills of the translator. The aim of this article is to investigate the core competencies and skills the legal translator must have; to consider the balance between legal competence and translation or linguistic competence; and to propose a discourse-analytical method of source text analysis, developed by Bhatia as a simplification strategy, as this may be a powerful tool in the training of legal translators in South Africa. Recent developments in South Africa relating to the Department of Arts and Culture’s obligation to translate legislation into all official languages, have important consequences for legal translation in general and the training of legal translators in particular.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adeyemi Adetula ◽  
Patrick S. Forscher ◽  
Dana Basnight-Brown ◽  
Jordan Rose Wagge ◽  
Takondwa Rex Namalima ◽  
...  

Improving the generalizability of psychology findings to a culture requires sampling participants in that culture. Yet few psychology studies sample Africans. We believe we can expand the capacity of African psychology researchers by giving them freely available, cutting-edge research tools and workflows. We used a training method developed by the Collaborative Replication and Education Project (CREP) to support and train 23 African collaborators to conduct a paradigmatic replication of the psychology of moral transgressions (Rottman & Young, 2019) in 6 African countries (Egypt, Malawi, Morocco, Nigeria, South Africa, Tanzania). We completed extensive preparatory work, including developing training materials in African languages, assessing our collaborators’ current research capacity, and conducting a re-analysis of Rottman and Young’s original data. This project has the potential to improve research capacity in Africa and provide empirical evidence on Africans' moral judgment of purity transgressions.


Author(s):  
С.М. Кравцов ◽  
Т.Л. Черноситова

Постановка задачи. Исследование билингвальных художественных произведений, созданных писателями-транслингвами, использующими несколько языков в своей творческой деятельности, является одной из наиболее актуальных проблем теории языка, в частности таких ее областей, как социолингвистика, стилистика, язык и социум, язык и культура. Подобные произведения, переведённые автором с одного языка на другой и адресованные представителям разных этнических сообществ, носят лингвосоциокультурный характер, который достигается писателем посредством создания интертекста, содержащего внутритекстовые вкрапления, основанные на аллегориях, реминисценциях, аллюзиях, цитациях и аппликациях. При этом аппликации принадлежит весьма важная роль в решении задачи формирования лингвокультурного диалога в билингвальном романе. Результаты исследования. Во франкоязычной версии романа Нэнси Хьюстон «Cantique des plaines», созданной в результате осуществленного ею самоперевода англоязычного романа «Plainsong», выявлено много текстовых аппликаций в виде фрагментов песен, с помощью которых автор формирует лингвокультурный диалог, а также создает не только смысловой, но и музыкальный фон произведения. Установлено, что с целью формирования лингвокультурного диалога в билингвальном романе аппликации в виде отрывков песен могут не совпадать в англоязычной и франкоязычной версиях. Данный эффект достигается во франкоязычной версии благодаря использованию цитат с расширением их посредством сочетаний слов; использованию лексем с более конкретным, точным значением, чем у их английских аналогов; использованию паронимов их английских аналогов; использованию дословного перевода песен с английского языка на французский; использованию включения в перевод на французский язык строфы из англоязычной песни с сохранением при переводе рифмы без искажения исходного смысла самой песни. Выводы. Результаты исследования позволяют сделать вывод о том, что аппликация песенных фрагментов в романе Нэнси Хьюстон «Cantique des plaines» / «Plainsong» является довольно продуктивным стилистическим приемом и имеет несколько видов реализации в зависимости от потребности автора в создании определенного смыслового, эмоционального и музыкального фона произведения. Благодаря широкому использованию и адекватному выбору писателем-транслингвом того или иного вида аппликации она служит эффективным способом формирования лингвокультурного диалога в билингвальном романе Нэнси Хьюстон «Cantique des plaines» / «Plainsong. Problem statement. The study of bilingual novels created by translingual writers who use several languages in their creative activities is one of the most urgent problems of language theory, specifically in such areas as sociolinguistics, stylistics, language and society, language and culture. Such works, translated by the author from one language to another and addressed to representatives of different ethnic communities, are of a linguistic and socio-cultural nature, which is achieved by the writer through the creation of an intertext containing intra-textual inclusions based on allegories, reminiscences, allusions, citations and applications. At the same time, the application plays a very important role in problem solving of forming a linguistic and cultural dialogue in a bilingual novel. The results of the study. In the French-language version of Nancy Huston's novel «Cantique des plaines», created as a result of self-translation of the English-language version of her novel «Plainsong», many text applications in the form of fragments of songs are revealed, by means of which the author forms a linguistic and cultural dialogue, and creates not only a semantic, but also a musical background of the novel. It is established that in order to form a linguistic and cultural dialogue in a bilingual novel, applications in the form of song fragments may not coincide in the English and French versions. This effect is achieved in the French-language version through the use of citations with their extension by word combinations; the use of lexemes with a more specific, accurate meaning than their English counterparts; the use of paronyms of their English counterparts; the use of a literal translation of songs from English into French; the use of including a stanza from an English-language song in the translation into French, while preserving the rhyme without distorting the original meaning of the song itself. Conclusion. The results of the analysis lead to the conclusion that the application of song fragments in Nancy Huston's novel «Cantique des plaines» / «Plainsong» is a rather productive stylistic technique and has several types of implementation, depending on the author's need to create a certain semantic, emotional and musical background of the work. Due to the wide use and adequate choice of a particular type of application by a translingual writer, it serves as an effective way of forming a linguistic and cultural dialogue in Nancy Huston's bilingual novel «Cantique des plaines» / «Plainsong». The results of the study indicate that it is relevant not only for the theory of language, but also for Romance and Germanic linguistics.


Literator ◽  
2006 ◽  
Vol 27 (2) ◽  
pp. 109-134 ◽  
Author(s):  
L. Posthumus

Southern Ndebele is the language with the smallest number of speakers of all eleven official languages of South Africa. It is thus not surprising that there is no comprehensive description of the copulatives of this language. This article offers an exposition of the grammatical structure of the identificative copulatives of Southern Ndebele. The basic grammatical structure of the copulatives of this language is very similar to that of Zulu. However, the unfailing occurrence of a copulative verb stem “-si” in all negative stative copulatives is an outstanding characteristic of Southern Ndebele. The occurrence of this copulative verb stem in Southern Ndebele offers the strongest language external evidence (in support of language internal evidence) of the underlying negative stative copulative of Zulu as being “-si” as well. The identificative copulative particle that occurs as “ngi” with the pronouns of all persons and noun classes as complement in Southern Ndebele, also serves as language external evidence for the postulation of the identificative copulative particle of Zulu as “ngi”. Zulu grammarians postulate this identificative copulative particle of Zulu as “nga”, “ngu” or even “ng”. It is argued in this article that the identificative copulative particle of Zulu is indeed “ngi”.


2020 ◽  
pp. 579-614
Author(s):  
Paul Hendry Nkuna

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.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document