scholarly journals Out with old, in with the new: Negotiating identity in re-naming a Xhosa umtshakazi

2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 66-76
Author(s):  
Evangeline Bonisiwe Zungu ◽  
Nomvula Maphini
Keyword(s):  
South African ◽  
Religious Practice ◽  
African Languages ◽  
Gender Culture ◽  
The World ◽  
African Context ◽  
Newly Married ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Key Words Gender ◽  
People’S Perceptions

Umtshakazi (singular) is a bride and abatshakazi (plural) are brides in  isiXhosa language. The word is derived from the word ‘tsha’ which means new in isiXhosa. The word is popularly known as Makoti in other African languages, such as isiZulu. In short, a bride is a woman about to be married or newly married and thus a “new member” of the husband’s family. In a South African context, naming is not reserved for new-born children as there are circumstances whereby older people get new names. In Xhosa re-naming of abatshakazi, is a religious practice where name-givers bestow a name on a newlywed and then expect brides to live up to their newly acquired names. Like most things cultural, the brides  have no choice but to accept the  new name, embrace what the name entails and live up to the family’s expectations. Through the re-naming process the bride assumes a new identity which means taking the responsibility that comes with it. This article examines how such a process gives brides new roles to play; how brides make a conscious effort to live up to the name and how this changes their identity. This article is going to take a phenomenology stance. The phenomenology theory is a theoretical proposition which focuses on people’s perceptions of the world in which they live and what it means to them. It focuses on people’s lived experiences. This theory is essential in this article as the article focuses on the individual experiences of Xhosa  abatshakazi in the naming process. Key Words: gender, culture, names, identity, marriage

scholarly journals Revisiting ‘Translatability’ and African Christianity: The Case of the Christian Catholic Apostolic Church in Zion

2017 ◽  
Vol 53 ◽  
pp. 448-475
Author(s):  
Joel Cabrita
Keyword(s):  
South African ◽  
Religious Practice ◽  
Faith Healing ◽  
African Christianity ◽  
North Americans ◽  
History Of ◽  
African Context ◽  
Complex Relationships ◽  
Late Modern ◽  
Regional Histories

Focusing on the ‘translatability’ of Christianity in Africa is now commonplace. This approach stresses that African Christian practice is thoroughly inculturated and relevant to local cultural concerns. However, in exclusively emphasizing Christianity's indigeneity, an opportunity is lost to understand how Africans entered into complex relationships with North Americans to shape a common field of religious practice. To better illuminate the transnational, open-faced nature of Christianity in Africa, this article discusses the history of a twentieth-century Christian faith healing movement called Zionism, a large black Protestant group in South Africa. Eschewing usual portrayals of Zionism as an indigenous Southern African movement, the article situates its origins in nineteenth-century industrializing, immigrant Chicago, and describes how Zionism was subsequently reimagined in a South African context of territorial dispossession and racial segregation. It moves away from isolated regional histories of Christianity to focus on how African Protestantism emerged as the product of lively transatlantic exchanges in the late modern period.

Africa's Endangered Languages

2017 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Endangered Languages ◽  
Symbiotic Relationship ◽  
African Language ◽  
African Languages ◽  
Theoretical Perspectives ◽  
Language Research ◽  
The World ◽  
African Context

Relatively little is known about Africa’s endangered languages. In an era when we are racing against time to study and preserve the world’s threatened languages before they go extinct, a disproportionately low amount of research and funding is devoted to the study of endangered African languages when compared to any other linguistically threatened region in the world. More regrettably, even less has been done to create a community of Africanists and concerned linguists who might work on rectifying this situation. This book puts some of Africa’s many endangered languages in the spotlight in the hope of reversing this trend. Both documentary and theoretical perspectives are taken with a view toward highlighting the symbiotic relationship between the two approaches and exploring its consequences for research on and preservation of endangered languages, both in the African context and more broadly. The articles that comprise this volume collectively advocate nurturing synergistic partnerships between documentary and theoretical linguists researching endangered African languages in order to stimulate and enhance the depth, visibility, and impact of endangered African language research in the service of altering the landscape of scholarship and activism in this field.

scholarly journals Towards A Bill of Rights for a Democratic South Africa

1991 ◽  
Vol 35 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 21-43 ◽  
Author(s):  
Albie Sachs
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Human Rights ◽  
South African ◽  
Bill Of Rights ◽  
Equal Rights ◽  
World Community ◽  
African People ◽  
Constitutional Level ◽  
The World ◽  
The Individual

All revolutions are impossible until they happen; then they become inevitable. South Africa has for long been trembling between the impossible and the inevitable, and it is in this singularly unstable situation that the question of human rights and the basics of government in post-apartheid society demands attention.No longer is it necessary to spend much time analysing schemes to modernize, reform liberalize, privatize, or even democratize apartheid. Like slavery and colonialism, apartheid is regarded as irremediably bad. There cannot be good apartheid, or degrees of acceptable apartheid. The only questions are how to end the system as rapidly as possible and how to ensure that the new society which replaces it lives up to the ideals of the South African people and the world community. More specifically, at the constitutional level, the issue is no longer whether to have democracy and equal rights, but how fully to achieve these principles and how to ensure that within the overall democratic scheme, the cultural diversity of the country is accommodated and the individual rights of citizens respected.

scholarly journals Identifying phonological processing deficits in Northern Sotho-speaking children: The use of non-word repetition as a language assessment tool in the South African context

2016 ◽  
Vol 63 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Carien Wilsenach
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
South African ◽  
Phonological Processing ◽  
Language Assessment ◽  
South African Context ◽  
African Languages ◽  
Word Repetition ◽  
Northern Sotho ◽  
Language Tests ◽  
African Context

Diagnostic testing of speech/language skills in the African languages spoken in South Africa is a challenging task, as standardised language tests in the official languages of South Africa barely exist. Commercially available language tests are in English, and have been standardised in other parts of the world. Such tests are often translated into African languages, a practice that speech language therapists deem linguistically and culturally inappropriate. In response to the need for developing clinical language assessment instruments that could be used in South Africa, this article reports on data collected with a Northern Sotho non-word repetition task (NRT). Non-word repetition measures various aspects of phonological processing, including phonological working memory (PWM), and is used widely by speech language therapists, linguists, and educational psychologists in the Western world. The design of a novel Northern Sotho NRT is described, and it is argued that the task could be used successfully in the South African context to discriminate between children with weak and strong Northern Sotho phonological processing ability, regardless of the language of learning and teaching. The NRT was piloted with 120 third graders, and showed moderate to strong correlations with other measures of PWM, such as digit span and English non-word repetition. Furthermore, the task was positively associated with both word and fluent reading in Northern Sotho, and it reliably predicted reading outcomes in the tested population. Suggestions are made for improving the current version of the Northern Sotho NRT, whereafter it should be suitable to test learners from various age groups.

Retrouver le temple du sacré : la logique des extrêmes dans le roman de Durtal

2013 ◽  
pp. 108-115
Author(s):  
Eléonore Sibourg
Keyword(s):  
19Th Century ◽  
Religious Practice ◽  
Spiritual Belief ◽  
Contemporary Society ◽  
Main Character ◽  
Late 19Th Century ◽  
Primitive Form ◽  
Belief In God ◽  
The World ◽  
The Individual

In the late 19th century a reversal of the values linked to the sacred and the profane can be observed. As Religion retreats, Positivism and faith in Progress fill the gap left by the abandoned spiritual belief. A nostalgia for transcendence arises amongst writers. Naturalism turns out to be sterile, but, sill, a belief in God seems to have become impossible. It is in this context that Huysmans writes his novels. The Durtal tetralogy in particular focuses on this theme: desperate, the main character wanders around Catholicism, seeking a sense of the Sacred. He first explores the world of Satanism before the conversion. But even when faith is regained, problems are not solved. In the religious domain itself, Durtal condemns the sacralization of the profane. Henceforth, the Durtal tetralogy manifests itself as a novel of the in-between: from brothel to church, between up-above and down-below, between almighty materialism and bourgeois Catholicism, this misanthropic writer prays for a renewed and primitive form of religious practice in which the individual can access the Sacred again. The quest for the supernatural, through a questioning of contemporary society, becomes a quest for Identity.

scholarly journals Speech-language assessment in a linguistically diverse setting: Preliminary exploration of the possible impact of informal ‘solutions’ within the South African context

2012 ◽  
Vol 59 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Joanne Barratt ◽  
Katijah Khoza-Shangase ◽  
Kwandinjabulo Msimang
Keyword(s):  
South African ◽  
Linguistic Diversity ◽  
First Language ◽  
Linguistically Diverse ◽  
Language Therapy ◽  
African Languages ◽  
Therapy Services ◽  
African Context ◽  
Diverse Setting ◽  
Communication Impairments

Speech-language therapists (SLTs) working in the context of cultural and linguistic diversity face considerable challenges in providing equitable services to all clients. This is complicated by the fact that the majority of SLTs in South Africa are English or Afrikaans speakers, while the majority of the population have a home language other than English/Afrikaans. Consequently, SLTs are often forced to call on untrained personnel to act as interpreters or translators, and to utilise informally translated materials in the assessment and management of clients with communication impairments. However, variations in translation have the potential to considerably alter intervention plans. This study explored whether the linguistic complexity conveyed in translation of the Western Aphasia Battery (WAB) test changed when translated from English to isiZulu by five different first-language IsiZulu speakers. A qualitative comparative research design was adopted and results were analysed using comparative data analysis. Results revealed notable differences in the translations, with most differences relating to vocabulary and semantics. This finding holds clinical implications for the use of informal translators as well as for the utilisation of translated material in the provision of speech-language therapy services in multilingual contexts. This study highlights the need for cautious use of translators and/or translated materials that are not appropriately and systematically adapted for local usage. Further recommendations include a call for intensified efforts in the transformation of the profession within the country, specifically by attracting greater numbers of students who are fluent in African languages.

scholarly journals Die verband tussen gemeentebouprosesse en missionale gemeente-ontwikkeling

2011 ◽  
Vol 67 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
André G. Ungerer ◽  
Malan Nel
Keyword(s):  
South African ◽  
Local Church ◽  
Dutch Reformed ◽  
Local Churches ◽  
Local Congregation ◽  
Reformed Church ◽  
The World ◽  
African Context ◽  
Key Aspects ◽  
Mission Field

This article dealt with the process of building up the local congregation and the manner in which missional objectives are achieved. The article was undertaken against the background of the disturbing decline in membership numbers, particularly in the two traditional Reformational churches in South Africa, namely the Dutch Reformed Church (DRC) and the Netherdutch Reformed Church of Africa. This decline is in line with similar tendencies in mainstream churches the world over. The key aspects of the theory of building up the local church was discussed and mission in the current South African context dealt with, particularly in view of the fact that an entirely new mission field has opened itself up with the influx into the country of so many people from neighbouring countries who have come to live in our midst. Missional objectives for the local church, as well as aspects that can be subjected to empirical testing are determined all along. The hypothesis wanted to verify whether local churches that have undergone a structured process of building up the local church are more successful missionally than those that have not undergone a structured process.

scholarly journals THE RISE OF THE INFORMAL SECTOR IN INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENTAL DISCOURSE

Politeia ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 33 (1) ◽  
pp. 50-65
Author(s):  
Mark K. Ingle
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
South African ◽  
Informal Sector ◽  
Common Denominator ◽  
Economic Sector ◽  
South African Context ◽  
The World ◽  
African Context ◽  
The Common ◽  
The Government

This article documents the rise to prominence of the informal economic sector in academic developmental discourse. After a brief survey of the South African context, the article contrasts the new way of viewing the informal sector with the old. It shows how this shift in attitudes, ranging from grudging respect to outright advocacy, has generated new conceptual tools with which to theorise economic informality. A keen appreciation of the imperatives entailed by the different perspectives of the main protagonists is vital to any reconciliation of the divergent policy prescriptions being advanced for the informal sector.Bureaucrats and human rights activists view informality through very different lenses. The World Bank’s exit/exclusion philosophy recognises that economies at different stages of development will require customised approaches in coming to terms with economic informality. However, the common denominator of the theoretical views articulated in the article is a recognition that the informal sector cannot be dismissed out of hand, and that it has grown to the extent that it warrants serious attention and respect. Measures taken by the government to compensate for losses incurred due to informality could prove ultimately to be counter-productive. The informal economic sector has become a force to be reckoned with.

scholarly journals From appeal to transgression: problems of modern discourse of religious Transitions

2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 43-52
Author(s):  
E. V. Khlyshcheva ◽  
V. S. Dryagalov
Keyword(s):  
Comparative Analysis ◽  
Religious Practice ◽  
Social Effect ◽  
Religious Worldview ◽  
The Social ◽  
The World ◽  
Islam And Christianity ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Different Cultures ◽  
Modern Identity

Globalization processes, which are aimed at forming a single language of different cultures, raise problems of modern identity and its transformation. The process of self-identification is complex and depends on the existing worldview, so the transformation of identity entails a change in the worldview, and vice versa. In other words, such transformation can be seen as transgressive processes, which is clearly demonstrated in the example of religious practice.The religious worldview is rather stable, but significant changes are observed today. Influenced by syncretism fashion, new religious practices start blurring the boundaries of the world confessions that have been formed over the centuries, replacing the sacrament of conversion with an act of uncontrolled religious transgression, which is especially characteristic of believers who do not feel a special craving for integral system of dogmas.The authors used the term transgression to fix the phenomenon of crossing the impassable border between the possible and the impossible, leading in some cases to a breakthrough beyond the boundaries of everyday commonness and generally accepted norms. This process is both constructive and destructive, but it is destructive to social norms. Therefore, special attention is paid to the act of religious transgression related to the transition to another faith, which makes it necessary to study in the framework of the article bans and recommendations designed to create a limit of impassability on the borders of world confessions. Based on the comparative analysis of various rules and regulations adopted in Judaism, Islam and Christianity in order to regulate believers’ behavior, the social effect on the formation of the individual religious worldview is analyzed.

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