bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Echoes of orality in Christian Xhosa songs
Authors: Somniso M.M.
Published: August 2012

This article is an attempt to investigate and explore certain patterns in traditional Christian Xhosa songs as found in Xhosa music. The corpus of contemporary Xhosa music is vast, and difficult to explore properly without recognising the patterns of traditional music. In order to recognise these patterns Xhosa music in general will be discussed first – Xhosa music also as a form of art. Having done that, it will try to uncover certain elements of traditional songs in Christian Xhosa music. A comparative approach will be used to reveal the similarities between traditional and Christian songs. To compare certain aspects in a literary work does not imply attaching more significance to one element than to another. This method rather implies a way of looking beyond narrow boundaries, and to explore other spheres of human activities.
Afstand en belewenis: liminale ruimtes en oorlewing in Niggie deur Ingrid Winterbach
Authors: Du Plooy H.
Published: August 2012

Distance and experience/endurance: liminal spaces and survival in Ingrid Winterbach’s Niggie (Cousin) In this article aspects of Ingrid Winterbach’s novel, “Niggie” (“Cousin”), which is set against the backdrop of the last months of the Anglo-Boer War (1899-1902) are analysed. The geographical (spatial) and psychological isolation of the characters and the influence of the historical situation on the psyche of the characters are discussed. Special attention is paid to the relation of the characters to nature. The main characters seem to find themselves in a series of liminal situations. The war experiences force them to accept the inevitable, but also to find ways and means to transcend personal and collective trauma. Though they do change irrevocably and have to exploit their own creativity and psychological resources to the utmost, they do survive and eventually continue their lives under more normal circumstances. The novel explores the experience of trauma and the possibility and quality of survival, but the sensitive analysis of the human aspects of the specific historical circumstances has a wider resonance – so that the novel can be regarded as a historical novel about the future.
Subverting the pastoral: the transcendence of space and place in J.M. Coetzee’s Disgrace
Authors: Smit-Marais S. , Wenzel M.
Published: August 2012

This article investigates how J.M. Coetzee’s “Disgrace” (1999) – portrayed as a postcolonial and postmodern fictional event – embodies, problematises and subverts the vision of the pastoral farm novel tradition by transcending traditional configurations of space and place. The novel offers a rather bleak apocalyptic vision of gender roles, racial relationships and family relations in post-apartheid South Africa and expresses the socio-political tensions pertaining to the South African landscape in terms of personal relationships. As a fictional reworking of the farm novel, “Disgrace” draws on the tradition’s anxieties about the rights of (white) ownership, but within a post-apartheid context. As such, “Disgrace” challenges the pastoral farm novel’s “dream topography” (Coetzee, 1988:6) of the family farm ruled by the patriarch – a topography inscribed – with the help of the invisible labour of black hands – as a legacy of power and ownership to be inherited and cultivated in perpetuity. Accordingly, the concept “farm” is portrayed as a contested and liminal space inscribed with a history of violence and dispossession – a dystopia. This article therefore conceptualises “Disgrace” as an antipastoral farm novel that reconfigures the concept “farm” – within the context of the South African reality – by subverting, inverting and parodying the structures of space and place postulated by the pastoral farm novel.
Wildernis en woestyn: omgewingskragte teen die mens s’n in Boendoe en Toewaaisand
Authors: Meyer S.
Published: August 2012

Wilderness and desert: environmental forces against man’s in Boendoe and Toewaaisand In Chris Barnard’s “Boendoe” (1999) and Christoffel Coetzee’s “Toewaaisand” (2003), the relationship between man and nature is stressful. This article investigates the nature and intensity of the characters’ experience of and reaction to geographical isolation and natural environmental crises and forces in the novels. In both novels evidence of heightened interdependency between the characters is found, but also a degradation of social and communication skills and disillusionment regarding the inability to create and maintain meaningful relationships. Surrounding environmental circumstances and events lead to trauma and exhaustion in the characters from “Boendoe” and experiences of the disruption of life, isolation and estrangement of loved ones in “Toewaaisand”. Findings from within psychology are applied in this article to conjoin the experiences of characters and individual narratives with the general, human inclination to indicate relevance within the reader’s life. In both novels the influence of natural environmental factors is related to the development of liminal fields of experience. The characters experience the phases of “separation” and “limen” in Turner’s transformation model, but this is not followed by the experience of “reincorporation”. Opposed to the creativity that is usually linked with liminality, in these novels a destructive process is taking place: liminality without a hopeful or constructive prospect.
V.S. Naipaul’s A way in the world: contesting liminality by translating the historical past
Authors: Ying ZHU
Published: August 2012

In this article the concept of liminality is understood in a broad sense to mean the incompleteness of historical representation and the restrained view of reality. The ensuing discussion of the theme will be divided into three parts; each incorporating parts of Paul Ricoeur’s analyses in “The reality of the historical past” (1984). Ricoeur investigates the reality of the historical past under three categories – the Same, the Other, and the Analogue. Under the sign of “the Same”, contesting liminality is first discussed as the re-enactment of the historical past. This re-enactment of the past, however, has differences in the present on account of imaginative reinterpretations and repatternings of documentary evidence. Under the sign of ”the Other”, the second part or the article discusses Naipaul’s strategy of taking distance to counteract liminality in rewriting the historical past from the vantage point of a writer-traveller. Finally, the analysis under the sign of “the Analogue” points out that the commitment to combat liminality implies an unending attempt at rectifying and reconfiguring the historical past in order to accomplish continuity and renewal.
Die skryf vind plaas in selfgeveg: versoeningstrategieë in Kleur kom nooit alleen nie deur Antjie Krog
Authors: Taljard M.
Published: August 2012

Writing takes place in wrestling the self down: strategies of reconciliation in Kleur kom nooit alleen nie (Colour never comes on its own) by Antjie Krog One of the central themes in “Kleur kom nooit alleen nie” (2000), a volume of poetry by Antjie Krog, is the reconciliation between people of different races and political orientations. Krog regards reconciliation through the medium of language and the poem as the task of the poet. In the volume under discussion these actions often take place within the liminal zone. The speaking “I” goes “underground” in the isolated space far from the centre, in order to consider ways in which people can co-exist in new, peaceful relationships. The destabilisation of textual stability by stressing the ambiguous meaning of words is a transgressive action, implying a rethinking of the meaning of words in order to aid reconciliation. Speaking abjection, the liminal action where traumatic events are made public in an attempt to reconcile with the past, is an important modus operandi in some of these poems. It therefore seems as if the liminal zone offers fertile space to the poet to think about and reconsider reconciliation and peaceful coexistence.
History, memory and reconciliation: Njabulo Ndebele’s The cry of Winnie Mandela and Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela’s A human being died that night
Authors: Goodman R.
Published: August 2012

This article deals with two texts written during the process of transition in South Africa, using them to explore the cultural and ethical complexity of that process. Both Njabulo Ndebele’s “The cry of Winnie Mandela” and Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela’s “A human being died that night” deal with controversial public figures, Winnie Mandela and Eugene de Kock respectively, whose role in South African history has made them part of the national iconography. Ndebele and Gobodo-Madikizela employ narrative techniques that expose and exploit faultlines in the popular representations of these figures. The two texts offer radical ways of understanding the communal and individual suffering caused by apartheid, challenging readers to respond to the past in ways that will promote healing rather than perpetuate a spirit of revenge. The part played by official histories is implicitly questioned and the role of individual stories is shown to be crucial. Forgiveness and reconciliation are seen as dependent on an awareness of the complex circumstances and the humanity of those who are labelled as offenders. This requirement applies especially to the case of “A human being died that night”, a text that insists that the overt acknowledgement of the humanity of people like Eugene de Kock is an important way of healing South African society.
Male-male relationships in J.M. Coetzee’s Disgrace
Authors: Crous M.
Published: August 2012

Kochin (2002:8) makes the following interesting observation regarding the life of the main character, David Lurie, in Coetzee’s novel, “Disgrace” (1999), and his observation will be explored in detail when analysing the novel, and in particular the presentation of masculinities: “Lurie has no relationship of depth with men. His one effort is with Isaacs, Melanie’s father, and seems to be more of a quest for the sources of Melanie’s beauty than the expression of a desire for friendship with a man.” The focus of my investigation is on male-male relationships and the way in which they impact on the other characters in the novel. What contribution does the novel make to the debate on masculinity within the context of South African literary studies?
Vooruitgang en ondergang: historiese dialektiek in twee tekste van Hans Magnus Enzensberger
Authors: Van den Berg J.P.C.
Published: August 2012

Progress and decline: historical dialect in two texts by Hans Magnus Enzensberger The interpretation of history as a process of dialectical development has been one of the most important ideas of Marxist philosophy. Whereas earlier Marxists optimistically considered this process as steering inevitably towards a sociopolitical utopia, subsequent thinkers in the Marxist tradition, especially those identified as Neo-Marxists (like Theodor Adorno), had a more pessimistic interpretation of dialectics. Influenced especially by Adorno, German poet and social commentator Hans Magnus Enzensberger uses the concept of “historical dialectics” as a seminal theme in two of his literary works: “Mausoleum: siebenunddreißig Balladen aus der Geschichte des Fortschritts” and “Der Untergang der Titanic”. In these two texts the representation of the ambiguity of “Fortschritt” or historical development presupposes a more pessimistic account of the historical process. This ambiguity is present both in a bird’s-eye view of the historical process (“Mausoleum”), and in the focus on one specific historical incident (“Der Untergang der Titanic”). Enzensberger subsequently continues to consider the role of art within this dialectical context. In this article, both Enzensberger’s literary use of the philosophical concept of historical dialectics and its artistic implications (as identified by him) are examined.
Reise in identiteit: aspekte van plek en hoort in verhale van Elsa Joubert en Riana Scheepers
Authors: Meyer S.
Published: August 2012

Travels in identity: aspects of place and belonging in novels by Elsa Joubert and Riana Scheepers An investigation into the experience of place and its changing nature in the story “Bloed” [Blood] (from Melk, [Milk] 1980) by Joubert and some stories from Scheepers’ collection Die ding in die vuur [The thing in the fire] (1990) serves to establish the role of the experience of place with regard to the development of identity in these stories. In “Bloed” [Blood] the dynamic way in which the experience of place influences identity is clear: on a single day trip the main character’s experience of alienation in Africa is transformed into an identification with Africa; a process that is directly related to the radically changing experience of place in the story. All the core markers of identity construction – gender, class, race and sexuality – are involved in this process of re-orientation; and the simultaneous, intertextual appropriation and subversion of a classic Western poem occur in the portrayal of the powerful adaptive reaction in terms of the experience of place and identity within the post-colonial situation. Scheepers’ stories: “Tweede kind” [Second child], “Drie sinvolle gesprekke” [Three meaningful conversations] and “Dom koei” [Daft cow] represent phases in the changing experience of identity that correlate with the journey of identity in “Bloed” [Blood], but the identity changes more subtly and gradually – intratextually played out over three stories – as well as less completely. The changing nature of the experience of place, as portrayed by means of the topographic structure of the stories and the effect of the filter-focalisation, again supports the process of a change in perspective on, and identification with Africa.
Onderwysstudente se parodieë as hibridiese tekste: ’n navorsingsverslag
Authors: Kruger E.
Published: August 2012

Parody as hybridic text: research report Parody can be seen as one of the techniques of selfreferentiality through which a consciousness of the context dependency of meaning is revealed in an aesthetic way. This article explores the theoretical background of parody as literary style against which the researcher challenged a group of teacher education students in a research programme to generate their own parodies. The task required that they choose a well-known fairy tale and use its structure to mock their own society. Students of another group were asked as the writers’ peers to read the stories in order to engage in a dialogue between encoder and decoder in the process of reception. The educational aim of the programme was to equip students to reflect critically and react creatively to social, political and economic issues that surround them. Furthermore, the researcher wanted to discover how these texts would generate a flexibility, fluency and hybridity in relationship with the students’ cultural identity and how they would project their own liminality in a no-man’s land between youth and adulthood. Analysis and interpretation of the parody texts revealed themes of late capitalism, materialism and consumerism, as well as typical student cultural manifestations of language usage and some of their existing attitudes toward the South African political society in post-apartheid. The students’ parodies have intertextual density with imitation and subversion of the original text contexts and values. The writers used a variety of stylistic techniques to generate double-voiced narratives as manifestation of literary creativity.
Identificative copulatives in Southern Ndebele: evidence for diachronic postulations in Zulu
Authors: Posthumus L.
Published: August 2012

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”.
Teks op teks op teks: intertekstualiteit in Ingrid Winterbach se Niggie
Authors: Botha M. , Van Vuuren H.
Published: August 2012

Text on text on text: intertextuality in Ingrid Winterbach’s Niggie This article focuses on the creative adaptation of Anglo-Boer War material in Ingrid Winterbach’s (formerly Lettie Viljoen) “Niggie” (“Cousin”) (2002) with specific reference to the historiographical-metafictional element and intertextual game with texts written during or shortly after the Anglo-Boer War in Dutch, such as Totius’ “Vier-en-sestig dae te velde: ’n oorlogsdagboek” (“Sixty four days afield: a war diary”) (1977) and in English, “Woman’s endurance” (1904) by A.D.L. and Deneys Reitz’s “Commando: a Boer journal of the Boer War” (1932). The intertextuality of more recent texts such as “Op soek na generaal Mannetjies Mentz” (“In Search of General Mannetjies Mentz”) (1998) by Christoffel Coetzee, Klaas Steytler’s “Ons oorlog” (“Our war”) (2000) and Etienne Leroux’s “Magersfontein, O! Magersfontein” (1976) will also be discussed. A literary analysis is done of the novel “Niggie”, with specific focus on the nature and function of Anglo-Boer War material in Winterbach’s text. The question is posed why is there such a sustained focus and creative adaptation of Anglo-Boer War texts in Winterbach’s oeuvre, especially in “Belemmering” (“Impediment”) (1990); “Karolina Ferreira” (1993); “Buller se plan” (“Buller’s plan”) (1999) and “Niggie” (“Cousin”) (2002)? How does she adapt this material? What is the function of this process and in what way does this novel impact on the reader a century after the war?
Country of my skull/Skull of my country: Krog and Zagajewski, South Africa and Poland
Authors: Van Schalkwyk P.
Published: August 2012

In the ninth poem of the cycle “land van genade en verdriet” (“country of grace and sorrow”) in the collection “Kleur kom nooit alleen nie” (“Colour never comes on its own”), Antjie Krog contends that the old is “stinking along” ever so cheerfully/ robustly in the new South African dispensation. This could also hold true for the new democratic Poland. Krog and the Polish poet Adam Zagajewksi could, in fact, be described as “intimate strangers”, specifically with regard to the mirrored imagery of “country of my skull”/“skull of my country” present in their work. The notion of “intimate strangers” may be seen as pointing toward the feminine dimension of subjectivity, which could be elaborated along the lines of Bracha Ettinger’s concept of “matrixial borderlinking”. Ettinger has made a significant contribution to the field of psychoanalysis, building on Freud and Lacan. She investigates the subject’s relation to the m/Other, and the intimate matrixial sharing of “phantasm”, “jouissance” and trauma among several entities. Critical of the conventional “phallic” paradigm, Ettinger turns to the womb in exploring the “borderlinking” of the I and the non-I within the matrix (the psychic creative “borderspace”). With these considerations as point of departure, and with specific reference to the closing poem in Krog’s “Country of my skull” and Zagajewski’s “Fire” (both exploring “weaning” experiences in recent personal and public history), I intend to show how the public/political is connected to the personal/psychological, and vice versa, and how committed literary works like those of Krog and Zagajewski can be clarified further from a psychoanalytical perspective. The image of the skull in the texts under scrutiny is investigated with recourse to the Lacanian notion of the “cavity”, as adopted and adapted by Ettinger. True to the mirror experience as described within psychoanalysis, this exercise in mirroring Krog and Zagajewski has confirmed the ambiguous, eluding and illusory nature of identification and identity.
'Confessing out the soul to conform to the rhythm of thought': a reading of Allen Ginsberg’s Beat poetry
Authors: Kruger H.
Published: August 2012

Much critical writing about the Beat Movement has focused on the strong interrelationship between the literary and social discourses within and around the movement. However, the study of Beat literature also necessitates an awareness of its position within the literary discourse of the twentieth century. Beat writing may be seen as standing in the unstable, shifting territory between two equally unstable, shifting literary movements: modernism and postmodernism. Beat poetry pits itself against high modernism and the New Critical tradition, draws upon some aspects of early avant-garde modernism, and simultaneously remoulds these aspects into what may be regarded as the beginnings of postmodernism in the USA. This article presents a reading of Allen Ginsberg’s Beat poetry against this literary-historical background. A brief general overview of some of the key characteristics of Beat poetry is given, followed by a discussion of a number of Beat poems, organised around some salient features of Ginsberg’s Beat poetry that may be linked to Beat poetry’s position in the transition from modernism to postmodernism.
The symbolic significance of P.T. Mtuze’s poem 'Isinagogo' in Uyavuth’ umlilo
Authors: Mtumane Z.
Published: August 2012

This article examines the symbols used by P.T. Mtuze in the poem, “Isinagogo”, which is contained in “Uyavuth’ umlilo” (1990). The symbols used in the poem include “isinagogo” (the black barbet), “amavukuthu” (the doves), “izadunge” (the dirty water ponds) and “umphathi wamavukuthu” (the master of the doves). In the discussion it will be illustrated how these symbols represent Nelson Mandela when he was a prisoner, the South African Police, the then State President of South Africa, P.W. Botha, and Robben Island. However, before the actual discussion of the symbols, an attempt will be made to define the concept of symbolism.
Musikale narratief in Benjamin Britten se opera Billy Budd
Authors: Vermeulen K. , Spies B.
Published: August 2012

Musical narrative in Benjamin Britten’s opera Billy Budd In Herman Melville’s story, which is set on a British warship during the Napoleonic wars, Billy Budd becomes the object of a jealous master-at-arms, John Claggart. When the young Billy faces Captain Vere about Claggart’s false accusation of mutiny, he stutters and in a moment of despair, kills Claggart with one blow. The death sentence is inevitable. The discrepancy between the nature of the three main characters and their actual deeds results in ambiguity. Billy, the innocent boy, kills. Vere, the father figure, does not protect Billy on the day of his conviction. Claggart, the manipulator, cannot avoid his own death and dies as the victim. This article takes Melville’s story and its historic background as a point of departure to investigate the correspondence between the narrative and the unfolding of the music in the opera by Benjamin Britten. The analysis shows that specific musical images depict the diverse, dualistic nature of the three main characters in the opera. Furthermore, the manner in which these musical images are transformed in the course of the opera depicts the evolving plot to create a musical narrative. By promoting the understanding of the manner in which the musical narrative communicates a message, this article is an attempt to contribute to the hermeneutic project in the field of music.
Mystery in Sepedi detective stories
Authors: Mojalefa M.J. , Magapa N.I.
Published: August 2012

The aim of this article is to illustrate the importance of the concept “mystery” in the classification of Sepedi detective stories. Mystery is therefore first defined, and then some rules governing how mystery is created and sustained in a narrative are reviewed. Examples are given of how the writers of Sepedi detective stories mislead their readers in order to create mystery. Mystery is then examined according to five of its constituent elements, namely the real character of the detective, the name of the criminal, the identity of the victim, the evidence that reveals the mystery in the end, and the investigation that reveals the mystery. Each category is explored by citing relevant examples from Sepedi detective stories.
Spore van migrasie en verlies in Krzysztof Kieślowski se Three colours trilogy
Authors: Nel A.
Published: August 2012

Traces of migration and loss in Krzysztof Kieślowski’s Three colours trilogy This article will focus on Krzysztof Kieślowski’s “Three colours trilogy”, technically a French-Polish-Swiss co-production. Kieślowski lived in the West while filming the trilogy and therefore the theme of migration can be linked to the director as well as to the films. Kieślowski’s condition, however, is not a condition of exile but rather a state of being betwixt-and-between, a hybrid composed of past and present places (Poland and Western Europe). The transition from one space to another can also be identified as a threshold experience: it is an experience of loss of all that has gone before, of absence of both before and after, of anxiety generated by loss and uncertainty, and of desire, which arises from the lack which arose from these experiences. Kieślowski’s personal transition and liminal state bring forth the themes and style of the trilogy. The characters also find themselves in transition between two worlds; they live as émigrés of the imagination, conveying the feeling of being both part and not part of their personal world. Each character, in different ways, tries to cope with the loss: Julie in “Blue”, through a threshold fixation, Karol in “White”, through wrathful revenge, and Kern in “Red”, through the strategy of disavowal.
Die gebruik van humor om kreatiewe skryf in die onderrig van Afrikaans te stimuleer: ’n gevallestudie
Authors: Kruger E.
Published: August 2012

The use of humour to stimulate creative writing in the teaching of Afrikaans: a case study This article reports on of a qualitative research programme in which humouristic material was used as part of an Afrikaans language teaching programme. The primary participants in this programme were education students at Stellenbosch University who intend to teach Afrikaans in secondary schools. The ways in which humour can influence the classroom atmosphere and form part of cultural experience are also discussed. Specific attention is given to the use of humouristic material to facilitate creative writing as part of the relevant teaching programme. The humour of adolescents is discussed, especially the use of sarcasm and non-sense humour which can possibly contribute to discipline problems in the classroom. Finally, the researcher reports on the analysis of one of the students’ parodies as a case study. Analysis and interpretation of the parodic text revealed several forms of creativity – parody as burlesque, dialogue between codes, postmodern metafiction, manifestation of divergent thinking, and play with words and boundaries.
Hard Times as Bodie: the allegorical functionality in E.L. Doctorow’s Welcome to Hard Times (1960)
Authors: Van der Merwe P.
Published: August 2012

“Welcome to Hard Times” (1960), E.L. Doctorow’s first novel, differs from the rest of his oeuvre because it is not set in a metropolitan context like New York. References to historical events that contain an apparent “mixture” of “factual” and fictional elements that are typical of Doctorow’s oeuvre are less prominent than in his other fiction, though definitely not absent. An analysis of the pioneer setting, the town Hard Times, reveals that other settings (including metropolitan ones like New York) are not merely representations of specific contexts, but portrayals with allegorical elements. Criticism of Doctorow’s fiction does not sufficiently point out the rationale of Doctorow’s fiction in relation to his first novel: it is not just the basic level that contains the true topicality but also the underlying causal and thematic relationships. This article sets out to explore “Welcome to Hard Times” as a case in point. The objective of this article is therefore also to show that an analysis of this novel provides a valuable basis for understanding the allegorical character of his fiction. Angus Fletcher’s theoretical analysis, “Allegory: the theory of a symbolic mode” (1964), serves as a useful starting point for the analysis of the allegorical value of space and the town Hard Times as a microcosmic or symbolic society, as well as the “daemonic agents” in the town and the role of causality.
The mnemonic oral tradition with special reference to the management and expression of conflict in Zulu-speaking communities
Authors: Turner N.S.
Published: August 2012

The identification of features of oral studies and especially the issue of conflict and their terms of reference, have recently become a topic of increasing interest among researchers in Southern Africa. The National Research Foundation is nowadays encouraging academics to focus on the area of indigenous knowledge systems. Included in that focus area is the recommendation that research should be done on the impact that indigenous knowledge has on lifestyles and the ways in which societies operate. The study of ways in which specific societies articulate issues of conflict is inextricably linked with the way in which language is used in particular communities. This study deals with African and specifically Zulu communities, and how the mnemonic oral tradition plays an essential role in the oral strategies used as a means of dealing with issues of conflict. These strategies are based on an age-old mnemonic oral tradition which is socialised and used as an acceptable norm of group behaviour. Furthermore it is an acceptable way of managing and expressing conflict in social situations where direct verbal confrontation is frowned upon and deemed unacceptable.
In the shadow of the cross: on Lagerkvist’s Barabbas
Authors: Van der Linde G.
Published: August 2012

In Lagerkvist’s novel, the course of Barabbas’ life is shaped by the burden of being linked to Jesus’ death. Barabbas is faced with the question of who Jesus was and of how to respond to beliefs about the alleged Saviour of the oppressed, although Jesus is never manifested as such. True to his nature, Barabbas’ responses are often violent and impulsive. In contrast to Jesus’ seeming absence and powerlessness, Barabbas actively resists oppressive authority. He wánts to believe, but this is counterbalanced by his inability to break out of a solitary existence marked by the absence of God. A final act of revolt, inspired by momentary belief in the risen Jesus leads to Barabbas’ death by crucifixion. Ultimately, he achieves a kind of redemption by sharing Jesus’ fate as a consequence of his own freely chosen actions. At the end of his life, Barabbas reaches out towards an implied presence which remains unnameable and undefined. Jesus is an implicit presence in Barabbas’ crucifixion, but He remains elusive and enigmatic. Lagerkvist is concerned with exploring the existential iss
Die taal of die cheetah? Perspektiewe op die belang van taalsigbaarheid by die nuwe Vrystaatse nommerplaat as openbare teken
Authors: Du Plessis T.
Published: August 2012

The language or the cheetah? Perspectives on the importance of language visibility on the new Free State number plate as public sign This article investigates the importance of language visibility on the new Free State number plate, on the basis of a survey that was conducted during 2002 among a representative group of motor-vehicle owners in the province. This survey tested the opinions of respondents in respect of two aspects. On the one hand, opinions regarding the illustrated design of the new number plate which was introduced in 2002, were tested; and on the other hand, opinions concerning the linguistic features of the number plate were also investigated. In this article, selected responses to two sets of questions relating to the above will be compared, in order to determine the effect of the graphic design of the new number plate on respondents’ opinions regarding language visibility. A positive identification therewith would provide an indication of the degree to which the negative effect of reduced language visibility on the illustrated number plate in the province’s two main languages, by this minimised.
Humour and the locus of control in The Gruffalo (Julia Donaldson & Axel Scheffler)
Authors: Van der Westhuizen B.
Published: August 2012

The purpose of this article is firstly to distinguish between the notions “external locus of control” and “internal locus of control”, secondly to indicate ways in which the locus of control in humour in “The Gruffalo” by Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler can be identified and thirdly to indicate possible ways in which emphasis on the internal locus of control in the young reader can assist him/her in the development of a general mental/- psychological well-being. Different kinds of literary humour contribute to the ways in which young listeners/readers can identify with stories, poems, dramas and films. The young listener/reader can recognise him/herself in humorous situations, in the humorous use of imagery, wordplay and illustrations/visuals. He/she can also identify with or distance him-/herself from or reject the characters, the values represented and the author who created the text. When in interaction with the works of authors who use negative as well as positive kinds of humour to point out the dos and don’ts, the rights and the wrongs in life, the horizon of a young listener’s/reader’s experience can be expanded. Such a reading would contribute to the development of the young reader’s cognitive, emotional, social and moral values as it links up with an unconscious or conscious decision about the locus of control in his/her life.
A psychoanalytical interpretation of the characters in A.C. Jordan’s novel Ingqumbo yeminyanya
Authors: Kwatsha L.L.
Published: August 2012

Psychoanalysis is a way of treating certain nervous disorders of the mind by examining all the ways that sufferers can be helped to remember their past life, dreams, et cetera. This is an effort to find hidden forgotten anxieties or desires influencing one’s behaviour without one’s knowledge thereof. The aim of this article is to make a detailed interpretation of the characters Zwelinzima and Thembeka/Nobantu in A.C. Jordan’s novel, “Ingqumbo yeminyanya”, so as “to uncover the hidden causes of the neurosis in order to relieve the character of his or her conflicts, thus dissolving the distressing symptoms” (Gräbe, 1986). This article will look at the behaviour of the different characters in Jordan’s novel. Psychoanalysis is rooted in the idea that humans have unconscious longings that must be analysed in order to understand behaviour. The accent of the article will fall on how psychoanalysis can help the reader, critic or analyst to penetrate the inner workings of the minds of the characters.
From self-identity to universality: a reading of Henri Lopes’ works
Authors: Mwepu P.K.
Published: August 2012

Born in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo, yet a citizen of Congo-Brazzaville, Henri Lopes is one of those African writers who were not only educated in Europe (France) but also lived there while writing a certain portion of their literary work. Being an influential political figure in his country, the author expresses his vision of an independent Africa through his literary works such as “Tribaliques” 1 (1971), “La nouvelle romance” (1976), “Sans tam-tam” (1977) and “Le pleurer-rire” (1982). However, from 1990, Lopes distances his writings from general political issues. In “Le chercheur d’Afriques” (1990) and “Le lys et le flamboyant” (1997), he veers into a new ideological direction, predominantly embedded in issues pertaining to existence: the quest for identity and issues related to hybridisation are recurrent themes and objects of scrutiny. It is clear that this biological approach serves as a pretext for the author to perform an in-depth interrogation of the complex issues of the universal in the context of a modern and globalising world. In his works, human blood and race represent an important aspect of culture; the blending of different cultures is an essential element for the construction of society. A community founded on cultural diversity is thus depicted as dynamic, strong and sustainable. One wonders whether the author is not describing his own life experiences through fiction. This might indeed be the case, considering that Lopes himself is a person of mixed origins, herein referred to as a “métis”. However, the experience described by the author, who lives in France, transcends race; it addresses the modern debate on the issue of cultural hybridisation.
Verbal extension sequencing: an examination from a computational perspective
Authors: Anderson W.N. , Kotzé A.E.
Published: August 2012

Lexical transducers utilise a two-level finite-state network to simultaneously code morphological analysis and morphological generation rewrite rules. Multiple extensions following the verb root can be morphologically analysed as a closed morpheme class using different computational techniques. Analysis of a multiple extension sequence is achieved by trivial analysis, based on any combination of the closed class members, but this produces unnecessary over-generation of lexical items, many of which may not occur in a lexicon. Limiting the extension combinations, in an attempt to represent examples that may actually exist – in terms of both the possible number of extensions in a sequence and the relative ordering of the extensions – leads to a radical reduction in the generation of lexical items while the ability to analyse adequately is maintained. The article highlights details of an investigation based on both trivial analysis and an approach that prevents dramatic overgeneration. The article is based on test data reflecting possible extension sequences and the morphophonemic alternations of these extensions for Northern Sotho, garnered from literature research, lexicographic investigation and the computational morphological analysis of texts.
Outomatiese lemma-identifisering vir Afrikaans
Authors: Groenewald H.J. , Van Huyssteen G.B.
Published: August 2012

Automatic lemmatisation for Afrikaans Automatic lemmatisation is a general normalisation procedure in text processing, where all inflected forms of a lexical word are normalised to a single lemma (i.e. a meaningful, uninflected base form from which more complex word forms could be formed). Traditionally, lemmatisers are developed by writing language-specific rules to identify lemmas. In this article an alternative approach is investigated, namely a machine learning approach, to develop a lemmatiser for Afrikaans (LIA: “Lemmaidentifiseerder vir Afrikaans”). An overview regarding the process of inflection in Afrikaans is provided with the aim of identifying the categories of inflection that are relevant for lemmatisation in Afrikaans. The format of the input and output is described with special reference to the nine inflectional categories for Afrikaans that the system should be able to handle. Then the task of lemmatisation as a classification task for machine learning is described, and a concise introduction to memory-based learning is provided. The development and evaluation of LIA is discussed in detail, and it is illustrated how the performance of the initial classifier is improved through feature selection and parameter optimisation. The best classifier reaches an accuracy of 92,8%. The article concludes with a view on some future work.
Die ontwikkeling van ’n fleksievormgenereerder vir Afrikaans
Authors: Pilon S.
Published: August 2012

The development of an inflected form generator for Afrikaans In this article the development of an inflected form generator for Afrikaans is described. Two requirements are set for this inflected form generator, viz. to generate only one specific inflected form of a lemma and to generate all possible inflected forms of a lemma. The decision to use machine learning instead of the more traditional rule-based approach in the development of this core-technology is explained and a brief overview of the development of LIA, a lemmatiser for Afrikaans, is given. Experiments are done with three different methods and it is shown that the most effective way of developing an inflected form generator for Afrikaans is by training different classifiers for each affix. Therefore a classifier is trained to generate a plural form, one to generate the diminutive, one to generate the plural of diminutive, et cetera. The final inflected form generator for Afrikaans (AIL-3) reaches an average accuracy of 86,37% on the training data and 86,88% on a small amount of new data. It is indicated that, with the help of a preprocessing module, AIL-3 meets the requirements that were set for an Afrikaans inflected form generator. Finally suggestions are made on how to improve the accuracy of AIL-3.
Derivational relations in English, Czech and Zulu wordnets
Authors: Bosch S. , Fellbaum C. , Pala K.
Published: August 2012

This article investigates one kind of cross-part-of-speech relation for English, Czech and Zulu lexical resources in the form of semantic networks (wordnets). Many languages have rules whereby new words are derived regularly and productively from existing words via morphological processes. The morphologically unmarked base words and the derived words, which share a semantic core with the base words, can be interlinked and integrated into wordnets, where they typically form “derivational nests”, or subnets. Efforts are described to capture the morphological and semantic regularities of derivational processes in English, Czech and Zulu to compare the linguistic mechanisms and to exploit them for suitable computational processing and wordnet construction. While some work has been done for English and Czech already, wordnets for Zulu and other Bantu languages are still in their infancy. This article illustrates how Zulu can benefit from existing work.
Besigheidsprosesbestuur in mensetaaltegnologiehulpbronontwikkeling: ’n gevallestudie
Authors: Janke U.
Published: August 2012

Business process management in human language technology resource development: a case study Resources play a crucial role in human language technology (HLT), since research and development are largely dependent on its availability. It follows that effective management of these resources is essential to this domain and there are a number of international initiatives that contribute towards such management, e.g. through setting standards for development. Against this backdrop, the objective of this particular article is to investigate the potential of business process management (BPM) to facilitate effective management and standardisation of HLT resource development. BPM systems and principles are commonly applied in production, revenue cycles, process documentation, risk and project management, and a variety of other administrative areas, to improve efficiency. However, its application in the context of HLT resource development has not been thoroughly investigated in the literature. This article presents a theoretical BPM framework for standardisation which takes cognisance not only of routine processes, but also of the unique nature of HLT when it entails software development, which is marked by creative problem-solving processes that are difficult to control. The framework is composed of philosophy and culture definition, standardisation along a selected framework, protocols and tools, and deployment. The validity of this framework is tested in a case study of an HLT research and development centre. Preliminary findings suggest that the framework has the potential to standardise HLT resource development and management processes.
An overview of the EtsaTrans machine translation system: compilation of an administrative domain
Authors: Ehlers L.
Published: August 2012

The EtsaTrans machine translation system has been in development at the University of the Free State for the last four years and is currently the only machine translation system being developed in South Africa for specialised and nongeneral translation needs. The purpose of this exposition is to present the program through its phases of development, and to report on current levels of performance. We analyse the output, the size of the database, and then propose the future implementation of a part of speech tagger and word stemmer into the program to improve its linguistic performance. Our goal with the system is not to translate all types of document, but to work in a specialised domain that will allow the system to translate documents that are repetitive in nature. This will enable translators to spend more time on non-repetitive subject matter. By capturing the nature of the language of such repetitive documents in the database, we are able to create a standardised language usage for the specialised domain.
The possibility of an island; or, The double bind of Houellebecq’s apocalypse: when the end is not the end
Authors: Snyman E.
Published: August 2012

The purpose of this article is to demonstrate that “The possibility of an island” (2005), the latest novel by the controversial French author Michel Houellebecq, utilises a variety of so-called marginal genres such as millennial, apocalyptic, Utopian writing and science fiction to question and to continue the millennial project he elaborated in “Atomised” (2001). The latter novel, first published in French in 1998, explores the idea of a new order that would gradually come into existence during the new millennium, namely that of a neo-humanity produced through cloning. In “The possibility of an island” this Utopian construction turns unequivocally into a dystopia. This novel thus adds a double bind to the Apocalypse foreseen in “Atomised”: the end was not the end, but just the beginning of an intermediary phase.This analysis of Houellebecq’s novelistic techniques is based on theoretical descriptions of the genres on which the two novels draw, as well as narratological concepts formulated by Roland Barthes and Gérard Genette. The conclusion of the article points out that Houellebecq’s utilisation of marginal genres enables him to question contemporary civilisation and to investigate the consequences of scientific research on future generations.
Woorde wat teken en be-teken – ikonisiteit in die poësie
Authors: Du Plooy Heilna
Published: August 2012

Words as signs and signatures – iconicity in poetic texts In this article aspects of iconicity in language and in poetic texts are discussed. The recent renewed interest in the anti-arbitrary debate is used as a point of departure in order to examine the iconic characteristics and the iconic functions of language and poetic texts. Some less known theoretic views on aspects of iconicity are mentioned and discussed. To underscore the theoretic discussion a few poems of the poet T.T. Cloete are analysed and interpreted focusing on iconicity. The most important conclusions which are once again put forward in the article are firstly that the functioning of poetic texts cannot be adequately described, analysed and interpreted according to logical semantic and linguistic systems alone and that the motivated or iconic origin and archetypical meanings in language can and may indeed play an important role in the production of meaning and secondly that the referential aspect of a text should not be neglected because text analyses of iconic poems once again underscore the view that referentiality indeed remains the basis of the production and communication of meaning.