Informed by the functionalist perspective, the study analyzes the Basotho accordion music over the period 1980 â 2005. Of particular importance are the various themes addressed by the verbal text that comes up in the music. Specifically, the study analyzes the language used in the composition of the songs accompanying the Basotho accordion music; the rationale behind the use of such language. The study also looks at the status of the composers or artists of the music as well as the role of their music among Basotho; and last, it looks at the reception of the Basotho accordion music by Basotho. In order to address the above purposes of the study, the qualitative method was used to interpret the songs. The population of the study was all the Basotho artists, radio presenters of the music, shop owners selling the music, street vendors and the public that listens to the music and buys it. A stratified random sampling method was used to select with the subjects of the study. A total of 100 songs were analyzed while 81 subjects were interviewed for this study. The findings of the study on the issues investigated are that, Basotho accordion music promotes or helps in the aesthetics of the Sesotho language; that it is a reservoir of rich language. The recurring themes in the music range from social, political and economic issues. The music forges patriotism among Basotho by promoting customs, norms and values of the nation. In terms of status, the artists are either illiterate or semi-literate and the music is their main means of livelihood. On the whole, most Basotho are receptive to Basotho accordion music in many different ways. The study concludes that Basotho accordion music is part of the oral traditional music of Basotho since it retains some features of oral traditional music. Accordion music is very rich in a variety of linguistic techniques common in oral traditions of Basotho. The music also reflects the lifestyle of Basotho because of its historicity and coverage of concerns of the nation

From the early years of the Nineteenth Century, language investigation had been undertaken to show what the relationship was between the languages of Africa, and in particular, Southern Africa. Perhaps one of the earliest informed investigators who postulated the concept of distinctive language "types" among the languages of Southern Africa and particularly with the Southern Bantu languages, was Heinrich » Lichtenstein. Writing in 1 808, he divided the peoples and languages of Southern Africa into two distinctive groups: the "Hottentots" and the Hottentot class, of languages, and the "Kaffirs", and the "Kaffir" class of languages. He clarified this relationship by stating, "All linguistic types of the South African aborigines must be classified as dialects of 2 either one or the other of these two principal classes." Implied in this statement is the concept that within the group composed of all the languages of his "Kaffir" class, as indeed of his "Hottentot" class, distinctive dialectical qualities came about through dialectical divergence. Despite this implication he did not attempt to analyse the relational aspects of each of the dialects composing his "principal ("Kaffir") class". 1 .0.01 It was not until twenty-seven years later, in 1837» that William Boyce, in his introduction to Archbell’s "Grammar of the Bechuana Language", enlarged upon Lichtenstein's division by stating, "....(that) the second division or family, of his South African languages....(is composed of) the sister dialects spoken by the Kafir and Bechuana tribes." The linguistic boundaries were now enlarged to include two distinctive linguistic families, rather than "types", viz. the Hottentot family and the Nguni ("Kafir") and Sotho (Bechuana) families. In 18 5O, J. W.Appleyard, produced his "The Kafir Language; comprising a sketch of its History; remarks upon its Nature and a Grammar". In this work he postulates four groups within our future Bantu family, those of Congo, Damara (i.e. Herero), Sechuana and "Kafir" It is noteworthy that in this work he classified Sotho under the "Sechuana"^ group, from which it could be implied that Sotho was either a dialect or a separate Cluster of the Tswana group. This is the first discernible effort to note that under the main families of the Southern Africa geographical areas there could be dialects that were affiliated to larger groups.

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Bibliography: pages 124 -138. / This study aims: (i) to find out if language interference and language change would cause the students to fail Xhosa. The response of schools to this situation will be investigated and an attempt will be made to understand the dichotomy that exists in spoken and written Xhosa. (ii) to look at the implications on nonstandard Xhosa of sociolinguistic factors such as attitudes, language policies, communicative influence of the mass media, and language use in multilingual societies. (iii) to examine the effects of 'dialects' of Xhosa on standard Xhosa. (vi) to investigate the causes of this apparent lack of learners' interest towards learning Xhosa. (iv) to assess the contribution of language planners towards remedying the situation.

This thesis reports on research conducted into the teaching and learning of an isiXhosa Communication Skills course as a Second Language (SL) at the University of Cape Town (UCT). The research was an exploration of an isiXhosa language teaching pedagogy with a particular focus on learning and teaching and the usage of isiXhosa in the isiXhosa Communications Skills classroom. In doing this research, I wanted to know what could be the cause of these attitudes. Questions that need to be considered in developing this pedagogy are: What are the benefits of its usage in the classroom? What are the language pedagogies that the teachers are struggling with? The study was carried out with second year medical students. In this study, questionnaires were distributed to 63 research subjects. Four classroom observations were carried out and 12 students were interviewed. I observed that teachers as a group had characteristic pedagogical styles and approaches. The teachers were using more teacher-centred method, relying heavily on the use of textbooks, focused more on the teaching of pure isiXhosa language and used less varied techniques of instruction and engagement. There was little evidence of learner-centred teaching and incorporation of more communicative, interactive lessons and activities that help students for speaking competence. Students had strong positive attitudes towards learning isiXhosa communication skills. The students' views from the interviews and classroom observations point towards broadly issues of learning second language and pedagogy in learning and teaching. Students seemed to be concerned and frustrated with the fact that they cannot speak in isiXhosa with the patients. They felt that learning isiXhosa was essential for their future careers, and the ability to speak isiXhosa would be beneficial for their work. The students' interviews reinforced the conclusions that I drew from the classroom observations and yielded insights into how teachers teach a Second Language.

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The importance of languages in the UDC is consistent with the significance of linguistic facets for knowledge organization in general. Languages are the main facet category implicated in processes as crucial as the development of the Linguistics class, the organization of national and regional literatures, the categorization of human ancestries, ethnic groupings and nationalities, and the description of the language in which a document is written. Language numbers are extensively used across the entire UDC scheme, and form the basis for a faceted approach in class structuring and number building. For this reason, Common Auxiliaries of Languages (Table 1c) deserve special attention. Upon the completion of the revision of American indigenous languages (2007-2008), it was evident that other language families would benefit from the same careful examination. The next class we are looking to improve is =4, Afro-Asiatic, Nilo-Saharan, Congo-Kordofanian, Khoisan languages. Thus, in 2009 the author has started a research into indigenous languages of Africa. In this paper, the initial research findings for the improvement of the class =4 are presented.

A thesis submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy of the University of the Witwatersrand December 2015 / Language use is irreducibly social and historical, bearing the complexities of difference, location, and power. These dynamics are particularly visible in “post”-apartheid South Africa, where historical and contemporary asymmetries of race and class are refracted through language politics, practices and experiences. “Youth embody the sharpening contradictions of the contemporary world in especially acute form” (Comaroff & Comaroff, 2005, p. 21) because they are often at the coalface of societal change. At this particular historical moment the paradoxes and challenges of South African students are acutely visible when examining the role of language in reproducing a bifurcated education system, and indeed society. Methodologically, I examined 15 student narratives about their experiences of language in everyday life. The narratives were generated using a multi-modal approach to language biographies, where participants’ linguistic repertoires are visually represented in different colours on a pre-given body outline (Busch et al., 2006). The inclusion of the visual component provided participants with a nuanced vocabulary for constructing their narrative accounts. This narrative data was then thematically analysed with a focus on participants’ subject positioning. Firstly, it was found that the notion of an authentic identity functioned as an ideological claim. The participants referred to a desire for authentic cultural roots, through reference to what they considered “pure” African languages. They articulated a sense that an authentic cultural identity might be lost by virtue the ubiquitous nature of English in their lives. Participants positioned themselves and others as either belonging or not belonging, depending how “authentic” a member of an identity category one was assessed to be. The narratives demonstrated that the nuances of language and voice become the site for the nano-politics of identity and authenticity (Blommaert & Varis, 2015), especially when cultural and racial identity categories appear to be in crisis. Secondly, English was constructed as a variable symbolic asset across different fields. Representations of English and African languages were positioned in line with existing colonial and racial tropes where English was represented as the language of the mind and rationality, while African languages, even when positively described, were construed as languages of the body or emotion. For black participants, while it was appropriate and desirable to speak English at university, in other fields, such as the home, English could be negatively sanctioned. It is the relation of power between fields in the symbolic economy that influences the reception of a linguistic asset. I argue that English was negatively sanctioned (while still being desirable) as a way of containing the power of English qua whiteness. The link between desirability and derision that English represents makes claims to authenticity, as well as accusations of betrayal, pivotal in the subject positioning of participants in relation to their experiences of language across different fields. These student narratives about experiences of language capture a particular historical moment and demonstrate how the youth straddle the contradictions of the past and the future. However, while these narratives are historically specific they also point to the universal process of becoming a subject through language.

This paper will reassess the role of the Black woman in Black resistance before the Civil War. In the process it will attempt to destroy two myths: 1) that Blacks were passive victims of slavery and oppression and 2) that those persons who did resist their victimization were men. It will point out that the Black woman's oppression under slavery was certainly different and arguably worse than the Black male's because she was sexually oppressed. Finally, it will show that Black women equally challenged slavery along with their male counterparts, using the same methods as they as well as their own unique methods which responded to the unique oppressions they faced as Black women. As much as possible, the role of the Black woman in Black resistance will be gleaned from sources which directly relate her experiences. These include female slave narratives, docu mentary source references, anti-slavery newspapers, the judicial cases 2 on American slavery, as well as a number of secondary sources. It is hoped that these sources will reveal the ways Black women forged their own paths in their struggle against slavery and oppression during the antebellum era.

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