Stellenbosch Papers in Linguistics Plus-SPiL Plus最新文献

{"title":"Validating the performance standards set for language assessments of academic readiness: The case of Stellenbosch University","authors":"K. Sebolai","doi":"10.5842/56-0-796","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5842/56-0-796","url":null,"abstract":"Twenty-five years into the post-apartheid period, South African universities still struggle to produce the number of graduates required for the country’s socio-economic development. The reason most often cited for this challenge is the mismatch that seems to exist between the knowledge that learners leave high school with, and the kind that academic education requires them to possess for success. This gap, also known as the “articulation gap”, has been attributed to, amongst others, the levels of academic language ability among arriving students. The school-leaving English examination, and a pre-university test of academic literacy are the commonly used measures to determine these levels. The aim of this article is to investigate whether predetermined standards of performance on these assessments relate positively with academic performance. In order to determine this, Pearson Correlations and an Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) were carried out on the scores obtained for these assessments by a total of 836 first-year students enrolled at Stellenbosch University. The results show that the performance standards set for the standardised test of academic literacy associate positively with first-year academic performance, while the scores on the levels of performance set for the school-leaving English examination do not.","PeriodicalId":42187,"journal":{"name":"Stellenbosch Papers in Linguistics Plus-SPiL Plus","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2019-09-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46793294","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Are dialects markers of ethnic identity? The case of Setswana dialects and ethnic groups","authors":"M. Bagwasi","doi":"10.5842/56-0-790","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5842/56-0-790","url":null,"abstract":"Many studies on dialects present language in neat, organised groupings that highlight similar language habits and linguistic features of people who belong to the same social, linguistic or regional group. In that way, social and regional groups are identified by the dialects that they speak, and vice versa. However, given the fluid and mobile nature of languages, dialects, and people, it is time that this relationship between language and identity was reviewed, and its complexity exemplified. The fluidity and dynamism of language makes it difficult to attach any linguistic features to any group of people or location. Using examples from Botswana, this paper argues that the relationship between Setswana dialects and Botswana ethnic and regional groups is non-representational and non-exclusive. Thus, the paper makes a distinction between Setswana ethnic groups and Setswana dialects, and challenges current perceptions of Setswana dialects which are based on ethnicity. The argument of the paper is based on historical claims, and translanguaging and levelling theories.","PeriodicalId":42187,"journal":{"name":"Stellenbosch Papers in Linguistics Plus-SPiL Plus","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2019-06-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42546888","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"China Town as a multilingual workplace","authors":"Miché Thomson","doi":"10.5842/56-0-785","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5842/56-0-785","url":null,"abstract":"Since the emergence of China within the BRIC [1] -group in 2001 (BRICS as from 2010), people of Chinese origin have gradually secured a market share in Africa that is successful at both formal and informal levels. A fitting example present at the informal level is the establishment of China Town stores and Chinese markets. These Chinese markets are characterised as a network of small, family-owned businesses which sell goods imported from China at competitive prices. This business model has become part of most towns and cities in Africa, with Chinese-owned stores featuring in lower- and middle-class areas. Overwhelmingly, the stores are managed by Chinese patrons who employ shop assistants of African migrant origin. Both groups have integrated themselves into specialised occupations, with the Chinese opening these (in)formal stores and the Africans working closely with them as shop assistants. The shopkeepers and their assistants speak different languages, but living and working in a multilingual South Africa, they communicate in English which is the common lingua franca. This research report presents an overview of an ongoing doctoral study which focuses on the Chinese markets in South Africa, with a specific interest in the nature of interaction between the Chinese shopkeepers and their African shop assistants. It seeks to describe and explain how language-in-interaction is performed or socially produced, where participants do not have a common first language, and English is the lingua franca. The data comprises audio recordings of the interaction between shopkeeper and assistants throughout the workday, as well as field note from observations of the research site. The ongoing study wishes to describe what happens linguistically when these different groups of migrants find themselves in new social and linguistic environments to which they acclimatise in profound ways. [1] BRIC: abbreviation for rapidly developing economies in Brazil, Russia, India and China, coined in 2001; in 2010 South Africa joined, so that then the group became “BRICS”.","PeriodicalId":42187,"journal":{"name":"Stellenbosch Papers in Linguistics Plus-SPiL Plus","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2019-06-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47767330","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Extended exponence in isiNdebele morphology","authors":"M. Ndlovu, Progress Dube","doi":"10.5842/56-0-788","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5842/56-0-788","url":null,"abstract":"This article discusses extended exponence and headedness in the context of isiNdebele morphology. An attempt will be made to distinguish extended exponence from circumfixes. Headedness will be discussed in general, and how it is expressed in extended exponence. The main submission in this article is that isiNdebele has derivational and inflectional extended exponents, and that extended exponents are predominantly left-handed in nature. This assumption is founded on the premise that the terminal affixes of extended exponents can be done away with in some contexts. The study also establishes that morphological heads can either be right members of a word or left members.","PeriodicalId":42187,"journal":{"name":"Stellenbosch Papers in Linguistics Plus-SPiL Plus","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2019-04-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49475851","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Definition and design: aligning language interventions in education","authors":"A. Weideman","doi":"10.5842/56-0-782","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5842/56-0-782","url":null,"abstract":"The management of language diversity and the mastery of language required by educational institutions affect those institutions from early education through to higher education. This paper will deal with three dimensions of how language is managed and developed in education. The first is the design of interventions for educational environments at policy level, as well as for instruction and for language development. The second dimension concerns defining the kind of competence needed to handle the language demands of an academic institution. The interventions can be productive if reference is made throughout to the conditions or design principles that language policies and language courses must meet. The third dimension concerns meeting an important requirement: the alignment of the interventions of language policy, language assessment and language development (and the language instruction that supports the latter). The paper will use a widely used definition of academic literacy to illustrate how this supports the design of language assessments and language courses. It is an additional critical condition for effective intervention design that assessments and language instruction (and development) work together in harmony. Misalignment among them is likely to affect the original intention of the designs negatively. Similarly, if those interventions are not supported by institutional policies, the plan will have little effect. The principle of alignment is an important, but not the only design condition. The paper will therefore conclude with an overview of a comprehensive framework of design principles for language artefacts that may serve to enhance their responsible design.","PeriodicalId":42187,"journal":{"name":"Stellenbosch Papers in Linguistics Plus-SPiL Plus","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2019-04-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45103959","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Mind the Gap: Towards Determining Which Collocations to Teach","authors":"Déogratias Nizonkiza, K. V. D. Poel","doi":"10.5842/56-0-775","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5842/56-0-775","url":null,"abstract":"Collocations form part of formulaic language use that is considered by many scholars as central to communication (Henriksen 2013; Wray 2002). Today, most scholars agree that teaching collocations to second and/or foreign language users (henceforth “L2 students”) is a must. This study offers a reflection on the directions L2 researchers and teachers may explore, and that could contribute to modelling the teaching of collocations or at least spark the debate on this issue. The fundamental point raised here is the extent to which pedagogy may be informed by knowing the most common lexical collocations (combinations of content words) and using frequency of collocates as a key factor in selecting which collocations to bring to learners’ attention. The results from this study indicate that out of the eight different lexical collocations, adjective+noun and verb+noun collocations are the most common, and should therefore be introduced first. Furthermore, most collocates (“co-occurring words” in Sinclair’s (1991) terms) come from the 1,000 and 2,000 most frequent words. Therefore, this study suggests that the same way that “[u]sing the computational approach as a starting point makes it possible to distinguish between collocations of varying frequency of use” (Henriksen 2013: 32), frequency may be used to select the target words and their collocates once collocations have been identified. This could potentially contribute to addressing the issue of selection criteria of which collocations to teach.","PeriodicalId":42187,"journal":{"name":"Stellenbosch Papers in Linguistics Plus-SPiL Plus","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2019-04-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42742564","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"An analysis of metaphorical idioms in South African Indian English","authors":"Suren Naicker","doi":"10.5842/56-0-784","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5842/56-0-784","url":null,"abstract":"This study looks at a selected number of expressions used in the variety of English known as “South African Indian English” (SAIE). Mesthrie (1992, 2010a) compiled a dictionary of expressions used within this language variety, which is the primary source of data for this study. Mesthrie has also published numerous scholarly works documenting various aspects of SAIE (cf. Mesthrie 1991, 1992a). A selection of five metaphorical idioms have been chosen for analysis, and the meanings as put forth by Mesthrie (1992, 2010a) have been cross-checked with 10 native speakers of SAIE, as well as the author’s native-speaker intuitions. The informants were all middle-class, professional, educated persons of Indian origin, who speak English as a first language; they were all between 30 and 60 years of age, and reside either in Johannesburg as internal economic migrants from Durban, or currently reside in Durban. As this analysis is undertaken through the lens of Conceptual Metaphor Theory, the various metaphorical idioms are analysed as expressions of underlying conceptual metaphors, which confirms the idea that many entrenched idiomatic expressions are surface manifestations of underlying conceptual metaphors, and therefore part and parcel of the same human conceptual system. The analysis follows an adapted format used by Kovecses (2010), whereby the metaphorical idiom is stated, followed by the meaning, then the underlying conceptual metaphor. A table illustrating how the idiom is typically mapped in context, followed by a brief discussion of the import, is also in line with Kovecses (2010). One of the key findings is that this is indeed a viable approach to the study of idioms in general, and a more comprehensive study should be made of more expressions like these to see whether or not all entrenched expressions can be viewed as emanating from underlying conceptual metaphors.","PeriodicalId":42187,"journal":{"name":"Stellenbosch Papers in Linguistics Plus-SPiL Plus","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2019-03-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"70971910","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Voorkeurstrategieë in die Noord-Sotho-vertaling van Terminologie van het tolken","authors":"E. Cornelius, M. Pienaar","doi":"10.5842/55-0-781","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5842/55-0-781","url":null,"abstract":"Cornelius and Pienaar (2017) point out that there is a need for standardised interpreting terminology in South Africa, not only in the indigenous languages, but also in English and Afrikaans. In order to bridge this gap and to contribute to the standardisation of interpreting terminology, these authors decided to translate the 2008 publication by Salaets, Segers and Bloemen, with the Dutch title Terminologie van het tolken , published by Vantitlt in Nijmegen, in Afrikaans and in English, and to provide translation equivalents of the terms in one Nguni (Zulu) and one Sotho language (Northern Sotho). The original Dutch was adapted accordingly. The title of this multilingual product is Interpreting terminology / Terminologie van het tolken / Tolkterminologie / Mareo a botoloki /Amatemu okutolika (Pienaar & Cornelius 2018). The first phase of the project is reported in Cornelius and Pienaar (2017), consisting of the following actions: (1) expanding the original lemma list to include interpreting terms with high frequency of use in South Africa, whilst at the same time also limiting the original lemma list to only those terms that are in use and relevant in a South African context, (2) translating the dictionary articles into Afrikaans and English, (3) localising the content for the South African user, including the additional comments and examples, and (4) adapting the original Dutch to reflect resulting localised content. In this article the focus is on the second phase of the project, namely the provision of translation equivalents in Zulu and Northern Sotho. Finding translation equivalents in Northern Sotho proved to be particularly difficult. In contrast to standardised languages such as English and Afrikaans, the lack of a Northern Sotho standard variety forced the translators who collaborated on the project to act mainly as terminologists, and not translators, as they were continuously confronted with problems relating to zero equivalence (lexical/linguistic gaps). Despite similarities and overlap, translation and terminology represent different knowledge domains. Problems translators grapple with can of course be terminological in nature, for instance when confronted with instances of lexical or linguistic gaps, where the target language lacks a translation equivalent for a source language term. Different approaches to terminography can be followed (Alberts 2017). In order to assist with the standardising of interpreting terminology, whilst also contributing to language development in Zulu and Northern Sotho, the traditional subject-oriented methodology was preferred in Interpreting terminology . This approach focuses on the concept, and the relationship between concepts and conceptual systems. Standardised terms and concepts enable effective communication and knowledge transfer in a particular domain. This approach typically involves eleven steps. In this article we demonstrate how the decision to include translation equivalents in Northern S","PeriodicalId":42187,"journal":{"name":"Stellenbosch Papers in Linguistics Plus-SPiL Plus","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2018-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47075775","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"A heuristic framework for voice instruction at the doctoral level","authors":"A. Olivier, A. Carstens","doi":"10.5842/55-0-768","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5842/55-0-768","url":null,"abstract":"The notion of voice as an integral aspect of language use has been extensively theorised in linguistics. However, empirical research and pedagogical models have not yet matched the sophistication of voice theories in linguistics, and little attention has been paid to advanced academic writing. This article attempts to address two pertinent gaps in the pedagogical and empirical literature: inadequate training of doctoral students to make an authentic contribution to knowledge creation in their respective fields, of which a distinctive authorial voice is a criterial feature; and bridging the gap between theory-and practice. An account is given of two theoretical models of voice – both embedded in Systemic Functional Linguistics – that have served as the basis of the majority of instruments aimed at concretising the somewhat elusive notion of voice. An overview is given of existing heuristics of voice designed by other scholars, followed by the presentation and description of a self-developed and comprehensive heuristic framework for voice that may inform the development of instructional toolkits for doctoral students.","PeriodicalId":42187,"journal":{"name":"Stellenbosch Papers in Linguistics Plus-SPiL Plus","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2018-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49448609","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Speaker’s reference, semantic reference and public reference","authors":"J. Smit","doi":"10.5842/55-0-777","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5842/55-0-777","url":null,"abstract":"Kripke (1977) views Donnellan’s (1966) misdescription cases as cases where semantic reference and speaker’s reference come apart. Such cases, however, are also cases where semantic reference conflicts with a distinct species of reference I call “public reference”, i.e. the object that the cues publicly available at the time of utterance indicate is the speaker’s referent of the utterance. This raises the question: do the misdescription cases trade on the distinction between semantic reference and speaker’s reference, or the distinction between semantic reference and public reference? I argue that Kripke’s own construal in terms of semantic reference and speaker’s reference is at best incomplete, and probably wrong. I also explain the general importance of the notion of ‘public reference’.","PeriodicalId":42187,"journal":{"name":"Stellenbosch Papers in Linguistics Plus-SPiL Plus","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2018-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47271593","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}