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<p>This thesis proposes a new reading of Romans 9:1–18. The history of biblical interpretation of the passage is explored with the purpose of mapping out the diversity of interpretations and noting points of agreement between these interpretations and that which is proposed. The main objective is the proposed reading of Rom 9:1–18. It is argued that when full weight is given to Rom 9:1–5 as Paul's fleshly desire, what follows in 9:6–18 is correctly understood as Paul's appropriation of Israel's Scripture to address his own desire and grief. This brings to the fore a recurrent theme in the pentateuchal passages that Paul evokes: the conflicting desire of significant figures in Israel's history – Abraham, Isaac, and Moses – with God's will. As Paul applies Scripture to his own situation, Paul's desire for the salvation of his fellow Israelites based on ethnic descent conflicts with God's will to harden Israel and call Gentiles. But in the end Paul's desire for Israel's salvation is granted (11:26).</p> / Master of Arts (MA)

The following thesis examines Pieter Bruegel the Elder's religious paintings and audience engagement, as based not solely on the content of the works, but on their formal structure, as well. Vignettes and smaller figure groups within Bruegel's compositions provide the basic structure and platform for an intertextual and intervisual engagement. The religious, social, and political context of the mid-sixteenth century is also considered to help frame the connection between the viewer and the following paintings: Procession to Calvary (1564, Vienna), Sermon of St. John the Baptist (1566, Budapest) and Conversion of St. Paul (1567, Vienna). / Art History

The detection of intertextual references in text corpora is a digital humanities topic that has gained a lot of attention in recent years. While intertextuality – from a literary studies perspective – describes the phenomenon of one text being present in another text, the computational problem at hand is the task of text similarity detection, and more concretely, semantic similarity detection. In this notebook, we introduce the Vectorian as a framework to build queries through word embeddings such as fastText and GloVe. We evaluate the influence of computing document similarity through alignments such as Waterman-Smith-Beyer and two variants of Word Mover’s Distance. We also investigate the performance of state-of-art sentence embeddings like Siamese BERT networks for the task - both as document embeddings and as contextual token embeddings. Overall, we find that Waterman-Smith-Beyer with fastText offers highly competitive performance. The notebook can also be used to upload new data for performing custom search queries.

The reading comprehension scores of students in secondary education have been stagnant since the collection of national statistics on reading comprehension began (National Assessment on Educational Progress [NAEP], 2015, 2017, 2019). This study explored the effect of providing dialogic and thematic support on reading comprehension and intertextuality. The theories of dialogic pedagogy (Fecho, 2011; Stewart, 2019) and cognitive flexibility in reading (Spiro et al., 1987), along with the construction-integration model of reading comprehension (Kinstch, 2004) formed the foundation for this study. The study focused on the reading comprehension and ability to make connections across texts of 184 participants enrolled in 9th or 10th grade English classes in a high school in the Appalachian region of the southeastern United States. Methods included an experimental study which required participants to participate in two rounds of testing: the Nelson Denny Reading Test to provide reading levels and the Thematically Connected Dialogic Pedagogy (TCDP) testing which introduced dialogic and thematic support for reading comprehension and intertextuality. For the TCDP testing, participants were randomly assigned to one of three conditions: Thematically Connected Texts (TC), Thematically Connected Texts with Dialogic Support (TCDS), or a Control. Results from testing were analyzed to compare performance on outcome measures for reading comprehension and ability to make connections between texts. These comparisons suggest that the interventions do not affect either outcome measure significantly, though the data highlight the need for a nuanced approach to reading intervention and the development of adolescents' ability to use textual evidence. The findings drawn from the data point to implications for English educators, teacher educators, and administrators in the areas of assisting adolescents in making meaning from texts at a level that facilitates applying that knowledge in effective ways in order for them to fully participate in social, civic, and economic matters. / Doctor of Philosophy / This quantitative study focused on the effect of reading support for adolescents centered on a dialogic pedagogy in an effort to improve reading comprehension outcomes and the ability of adolescents to make connections across texts. The study involved an experimental research design in which participants enrolled in 9th and 10th grade English classes in the southeastern United States were randomly assigned to one of three test conditions. Performance on outcome measures for reading comprehension and participant ability to make connections between texts were compared between conditions. These comparisons suggest the interventions do not affect either outcome measure significantly, though the data highlight the need for further support for adolescent readers with implications for English educators, teacher educators, and administrators in supporting adolescent reading comprehension and intertextuality to promote full social, civic, and economic participation for future generations.

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This research examines the poetry of A.M Maphumulo by utilising selected strategies from the deconstructive literary theory. The exploration involves a critical analysis and application of deconstruction to isiZulu poetry, and more specifically to a selection of Maphumulo’s poems. This research shows that deconstruction does not constitute a traditional analysis of poetry, but that the theory attempts to interplay various meanings at the same time without giving prominence to a singular meaning. Perceptions regarding deconstruction are highlighted such as that the readings merely dismantle creative works without contributing much to its value. This research sets out to prove this observation wrong by first providing a deconstructive thematic reading of two themes of Maphumulo; that of death and education. Furthermore, the deconstruction approach is outlined and applied with specific attention to the multiplicity of meaning in Maphumulo’s poetry. Intertextuality and influence are also examined as it is evident that the poet Maphumulo was influence by his culture, the Bible and nature, amongst other influences. It is shown how the poet synthesises different influences and styles of poetry into a new original mode. Although this research focuses on selected aspects of the deconstructive procedure in analysing isiZulu texts, it is finally recommended that more research should be effected on deconstruction, and especially on Maphumulo’s poetry. / African Languages / M.A. (African Languages)

This master thesis is an autoethnographic study, wherein the author presents and analyzes her approach to composition practice through intertextuality. Drawing on previous research in literary and musical studies, she aims to identify and/or define the types of intertextuality that she uses in her compositional practice, and their interaction within compositions. She also investigates, in which ways different musical and literary texts can mutually influence and enhance each other, as well as how these forms of intertextuality function in specific performance settings. Finally, the author contemplates on the question how intertextual elements might mediate in translating the author’s intentions to the audience, at least from the perspective of the composer. After a quick overview of ten of Astar’s musical works, making use of intertextuality as a composition strategy, the study focuses on a detailed analysis of two pieces, Escape and The Checkered Flag Villanelle, that rely upon contrasting ways of building cross-textual relationships. The analysis utilizes, among others, the topologies found in the works by Genette, Burkholder and Kawamoto. The author also makes an attempt at extending the existing terminology by suggesting such new terms as concept borrowing, interpermeating intertextuality, imposed intertextuality, transverbal prosodization and some other. This terminology is applied in the work to describe the types of cross-textual strategies used in Astar’s classical compositions that do not appear to be covered by any of the aforementioned topologies. The work also offers a first-person perspective at a close collaboration of a composer and a poet, where the result is a variety of artistic works, all of which employ multi-layered intertextuality and an intermedial approach.

This research comprises a comparative examination of the transformation of Afrikaans and Dutch youth narratives into drama texts. Attention has been paid to the story elements embodied in various narratives and dramas, and, in addition, to aspects related to narrative and drama. By means of the comparison of the constants and variants with regard to the four texts, the possibility of creating a transformation model has been examined. The transformation model derived from the research, is applicable, firstly, to the narratives and drama texts upon which this study has been based. It is therefore presented as a conception for the conversion of a narrative text into a drama text, but the uniqueness of each separate narrative is taken into consideration; hence the model is not prescriptive, and it is assumed that the model may be adjusted in line with each adaptation. The comparison is effected between Afrikaans and Dutch texts, in view of the existence in the Low Countries of an established culture of bookshops, publishers and theatrical companies, focused on youth literature and theatre. Some publishers and bookshops, moreover, exclusively publish and sell youth narratives and dramas. Theatre productions aimed at children and young adults are plentiful, and attract a large percentage of young people. Should the fact that some theatres specialise in youth theatre productions be taken into account, also, the contrast and the gaps pertaining to the Afrikaans literary system are marked. The research in respect of the transformation of prose texts into drama texts has identified those procedures employed to adapt the narrative aspects (narrator, focalization, character, event, time and space) in such a way that it is reconcilable with the unique nature of the dramatic aspects (didascalia, dialogue, character, action, time and space). By virtue of the transformation of youth narratives into drama texts (with the purpose of the eventual performance thereof), the adolescent reader is made aware in a different manner of the value of narrative. / Thesis (M.A. (Afrikaans and Dutch))--Potchefstroom University for Christian Higher Education, 2003