Includes bibliographical references. / This study examines the status of ALs in the school context. In this thesis I argue that AL syllabi and textbooks are not at the same cognitive, affective and psycho-social level as their English counterparts. The important role of the mother tongue as a powerful platform for cognitive and psycho-social development of the African child is also discussed. My argument is that the low status of the ALs is visible in the textbooks that are in schools. With the introduction of the new Curriculum, there arises a need to write new AL textbooks. As the expertise is lacking among AL speakers to write postmodern textbooks as envisaged by Curriculum 2005, I propose a collaboration between AL and English practitioners as a necessary and feasible transitory step in the development of new AL textbooks.

Bibliography: leaves 126-134. / The Young Africa Awards Series (YAA) was commissioned as a competition challenging South African writers to produce novels for teenagers that were relevant to their lived reality in South African society today. All the novels examined in this dissertation can be defined as realism. In this study the text is examined as a written locus of meanings around which are constellated oral and written discourses that frame the text. I discuss the ideology operating through the competition's publishers and judges. I also examine the meaning produced through the YAA competition through an analysis of reader responses to different YAA novels.

Includes bibliographical references (leaves 128-137). / The Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) (1998) report is a five-volume record of the voices of many victims and perpetrators of apartheid giving evidence of their experiences and suffering. It is encoded in sophisticated and often complex English, largely inaccessible to its public South African readership, most of whom use English as a First, Second of even Third Additional language. This study explores the nature and function of the discourse of the TRC Report as a contemporary historical text. The aim of this investigation is to establish the viability of introducing the TRC report into the classroom. It focuses on teenage learners. I examine the ability of Grade 10 and 11 English Primary Language and First Additional Language learners to read the original TRC text and a modified/simplified form of it.

Bibliography: leaves 102-104. / South Africa must see a measurable improvement in the quality of education in order for all sectors of the population to become relevant. We have a democratic constitution which promises equal opportunities for all. In practice, however, this is not always realised. In the educational domain, for example, language medium is an essential element in all learning, but, as this study shows, we still have the situation where premature learning through an insufficiently developed second or third language impacts negatively on quality of education and on students' performance. The stigma associated with Afrikaans as 'the language of the oppressor' and the perception that African languages are underdeveloped and inferior, further strengthens the position of English as the dominant language in South Africa. Because of the global status of English, it is obvious why the desire to acquire proficiency in English is high among all segments of the population. The importance of English as a language of power is not disputed. However, this study stresses the necessity for the empowerment of African language speakers in their mother-tongues as a prerequisite for empowerment in English, by showing clearly that there is a correlation between first and second language acquisition, as well as between home language, language medium and academic results. Those students who receive education through the medium of their first/home language(s) are advantaged as against the majority, who are taught through a second/foreign language.

Bibliography: leaves 79-83. / The constitution, South African Schools Act and the Language in Education Policy (LiEP) all advocate the development and promotion of all official languages. LiEP also gives a clear directive for additive bilingualism whereby the home language of learners should be encouraged as the foundation for learning additional languages. This policy is clearly aligned with the constitutional provisions for promoting parity of esteem between all languages.

Bibliography: leaves 128-134. / The study analyzes the discourse from online discussions in a Language and Communication Economics course at the University of Cape Town. The study critiques claims made by several researchers in Computer Mediated Communication that CMC as mode of Communication enhances interaction and produces hybrid discourse.

Includes bibliographical references (p. 83-89). / The aim of this study was to investigate and contrast two sites of literacy tuition, the one being an orthodox night school, set-up and run according to departmental requirements, and the other, an innovative endeavour situated within the walls of the South African Museum. My concern was to examine how different constructs of what literacy is and how it should be taught manifested themselves in curricula, pedagogy, and organisation at the two sites. I used ethnographic-style methods to gather data at the two sites. From the perspective of orthodox literacy instruction, as it has developed in adult education, the emphasis in literacy instruction is on the transmission and acquisition of a set of skills, imparted to learners in order that they might 'become literate'.

Includes bibliographical references. / In an attempt to answer the question as to what views on national identity can be found in language textbooks, this study examines the categories and nature of themes and situations that appear in a recent Flemish and Afrikaans language school textbook. Central to the study is the clarification as to which themes the situations and texts in these books are linked. Since 1991, a gradual political move towards New Right has been made 'visible' through democratic elections with sweeping victories for right-wing parties. Halfway around the world, South Africa was gradually moving out of the Apartheid-era. With a democratic win for the African National Congress in the 1994 national elections, this period seemed to be closed and relegated into history. However, based on the assumption that traces of these socio-political developments and consequent evolutions should be found in recent textbooks, I set out on this study.

This study focuses on how children in the post-Foundation phase of Primary Schooling encounter reading and writing practices and learn to be certain kinds of readers and writers in poorly-resourced school settings in the Western Cape in South Africa. The aim of this research was to investigate how literacy practices in a socially situated domain, such as a classroom in a poorly-resourced school, are shaped by both the internal dynamics of classroom teaching as well as by external factors beyond the school, relating to the social location of the school within a peripheral social context. Through an ethnographic-style case study of a multilingual context in one primary school site, this study examined how specific notions of Grade Four school-appropriate language, literacy and learning activities operated as locally normative resources that produced complex outcomes in relation to the language-of-instruction and in relation to what counted as worthwhile classroom learning. By focusing on two Grade Four classes (the 'Afrikaans class' and the 'English class'), this study investigated the ecological and cultural dimensions of the language debates that were operating at the research site, and how these influenced the children, teachers, and the school. It was found that what characterised teaching and learning at this research site involved peripheral normativity: the downscaling and localisation of educational standards and language debates to attainable local levels of possibility. The children received localised, restricted versions of language use and literacy that was context-specific. The school's educational response to the multilingual context and to the social pressure for access to high status linguistic and literacy resources was to stream the predominantly Afrikaans-speaking school community into two parallel streams where the language of learning and teaching was either 'English' or 'Afrikaans,' and these divisions reflected a broader division in the wider community between those aspiring to upward social mobility and those who more clearly constituted a social underclass. The language and literacy learning practices characteristic in both the Grade Four classes did not, however, provide the resources for school success for children in either group.

Bibliography: leaves 85-91. / The study aims at assessing purists' and prescriptivists' concerns about language as reported in Western and non-Western settings, as to find out whether they share the same views about language correctness. The data base is a series of a siSwati radio programme, called Nasi-ke siSwati 'Here is (genuine) siSwati' hosted by Jim Gama, known as 'Mbhokane'. I try to assess his attitudes to what he considers 'inferior' use of the language, with the aim of understanding what issues are at stake when African prescriptivists make their pronouncements.