A research project submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of MA in Psychology in the Faculty of Humanities, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 20 June 2018 / This study explores the relationship between multilingualism and working memory. Multilingual advantages in various executive functions have been established, but little is known about whether multilingual advantages extend to working memory capacity and functioning, or about the effect of speaking more than two languages. In a sample of 189 multilingual young adults in South Africa, this study used a multiple regression design in which numerous aspects of multilingualism - balance in proficiency across and within languages, the age of acquisition of additional languages, and speaking a third language - could be compared with one another while controlling for socio-economic status. Four aspects of working memory (verbal storage, verbal processing, visuospatial storage and visuospatial processing), measured using the Automated Working Memory Assessment (Alloway, 2007), acted as the dependent variables in respective regressions while independent variables measuring multilingualism, including the continuous measures of balance in reading, speaking and understanding proficiency across languages, were based on self-report information from the Language Experience and Proficiency Questionnaire (LEAPQ; Marian, Blumenfeld, & Kaushanskaya, 2007). Balance in proficiency emerged as a strong predictor of the verbal processing component of working memory, while no aspect of multilingualism significantly predicted visuospatial working memory. Combined with other results, this finding suggested that the effect of multilingualism on working memory may not follow the pattern observed in other tasks where multilinguals are advantaged in domaingeneral executive functions (like inhibitory control) but disadvantaged in linguistic tasks. Multilinguals’ experience in storing and processing linguistic information may lead to advantages (possibly through managing attention) that are specific to this kind of information. Keywords: bilingual advantage, executive function, multilingual advantage, trilingualism, working memory ! / GR2019

Submitted in partial fulfilment for the degree Masters in Research Psychology, University of the Witwatersrand, Faculty of Humanities, School of Human and Community Development, 2016 / Background: South Africa finds itself at the heart of an ever escalating global trend towards increased multilingualism. Along with this realisation has come an ever growing investigation of the impact of bi/multilingualism on our cognitive abilities; both positively and negatively. Aim: This rationale gets explored here in order to investigate whether multilingualism influences the executive functioning ability of South African youth. Method: This was facilitated through the current study aiming to investigate the relationship between the self reported language experience of 30 young adults and their performance on executive function tasks. The four executive functions that were targeted were planning, inhibition, cognitive flexibility and fluency. Results and Conclusion: Taking the unique South African milieu into consideration results indicated that for the characteristics investigated here cognitive flexibility did not show a significant relationship with language experience. In turn planning and inhibition only produced a moderate degree of significance for their relationships with language experience. Finally fluency showed to have a significant relationship to the language experience of these individuals. The South African reality and history was then engaged with in a discussion around these results. The conclusion was then drawn that the South African population in this sample did not perform to the preconceived internationally recorded influence of the multilingual advantage. / GR2017

D.Phil. (African Languages) / This study attempts to fill a gap in the available research on language use in Black urban speech communities. Previous studies conducted in these communities, concentrated on specific language varieties. However, no attempt at describing the entire language situation in such a community had hitherto been made. A macro-level sociolinguistic description which would serve as an orientation for various detailed studies on the language varieties occurring in these communities, was therefore needed. The aim of the present study was to provide such a description. In order to achieve this, a sound theoretical framework had to be established. Phenomena such as language 'Contact, language variation and language use had to be researched and defined in order to apply to the particular situation under investigation. In .this sense, this study has succeeded in making a contribution to the theoretical debate regarding various sociolinguistic concepts, in that it has shown how these concepts apply to the South African situation. The study also investigated qualitative research methodology. The background to and implications of this methodology were discussed and analysed. A particular type of qualitative research, namely, interactive qualitative research was explored. Within this framework, a unique approach to two basic data collection techniques, namely, individual and focus group interviewing, was proposed. These techniques were used to gather the primary data for this study, and were discussed in detail. The primary data was gathered from residents of the township known as Tembisa. The secondary data was taken from studies done on individual language varieties in other Black urban speech communities. The primary data was analysed and a comprehensive qualitative description of the entire language situation in the speech community of Tembisa was given. The findings of the Tembisa study were compared with the secondary data, resulting in the identification of a number of distinct language varieties which occur in the township situations that were studied. These are: a number of Standard languages, Fanakalo (although seldom used), a Black urban vernacular, Afrikaans-based Tsotsitaal, Zulu-based Tsotsitaal, Soweto Zulu Slang, Soweto Iscamtho, Tembisa Iscamtho, English and Afrikaans. Sociolinguistic profiles of each of these language varieties were drawn up. These profiles provided clarity on the linguistic diversity in the Black urban speech communities studied and enabled the rendering of a graphic representation of the language situation in Tembisa. The above-mentioned varieties were typologised. Based on language type and language function, the study proposed a model which may be used as a framework for describing the language situation in multilingual Black urban speech communities. The study concludes with recommendations with regard to the need for linguistic analyses of the language varieties used in Black urban speech communities. The implications of the widespread use of these varieties, particularly for education, also deserve further investigation as a matter of urgency...

This study investigates the possibilities of incorporating African languages in skills development and training in South Africa as part of functional multilingualism. This investigation is done in relation to the Skills Development Act (Act No.97 of 1998) promulgated by the South African government, through parliament in order to address skills shortage among workers in South Africa the majority of whom are black whose education and training needs can be more effectively addressed through mother-tongue instruction than through English or Afrikaans. A literature review of global trends in skills-development initiatives and strategies indicates that the use of indigenous languages in skills development ensures success in skills transference and also enhances language development and language promotion. Empirical research was done in the mining and minerals industry at Beatrix Gold Mine, Free State. / African Languages / M.A. (African Languages)

This thesis is a study of patterns of language attitudes and use among Xhosa home language speakers at the University of the Western Cape, South Africa. Speakers of Xhosa, according to Statistics South Africa 2000, form the second largest speech community in South Africa (17.9% of the total population), second only to speakers of Zulu (22.9% of the total population). The University of the Western Cape, which is situated just outside Cape Town, was originally intended to serve only the Coloured (mixed-race) population of South Africa. Coloureds form the majority group in the population of the Western Cape, one of the nine provinces of South Africa. In 1982, the university took the bold step of defying the apartheid regime, by opening its doors to students of all races. Students from all over South Africa now attend the university, but Xhosa students, drawn mainly from the provinces of the Eastern and Western Cape, form the largest language group or speech community on the campus. The thesis presents a study of the patterns of language attitudes and use with which Xhosa students enter the university, as well as patterns of change in language attitudes and use revealed by a longitudinal study of a smaller group of Xhosa students.

Language, schooling and self have always been inextricably intertwined in the life of high school adolescents. Yet, there has been a paucity of research that investigates the relationship between language, identity, and language-in-education policies that often contradict multiple and fluid identity expressions of young adolescents. The aim of this study project was to explore the relationship between multilingualism and identity construction among urban black youth in two heteroglossic schools of Soweto township and to understand identity of black urban youth in South Africa. Two phases of data collection were carried out. First, a baseline survey of language patterns was administered to a total of 138 (n=138) grade 11 adolescent youth ranging from 15-19 years old. The second phase involved focus group discussions comprising 10 and 7 self-selected multilingual adolescents per school in order to approximate out of school multilingual spaces to explore a full range of language use, identity expressions and language attitudes. The results of the study are two pronged. The survey revealed a high degree of multilingualism and multilayered identities among the participants as manifested in all spheres of their lives such as the school yard, home, and conversation with friends. However, this complex identity matrix is constrained by classroom practices that are torn between monolingual policy preferences and actual language mixing. Correspondingly, focus group-based language performance and metacognitive reflections on multilingual performance also revealed that a fluid, mobile and versatile communicative practice referred to as translanguaging, which goes a step further from traditional code-switching, is a norm among these urban youth adolescents. The study concludes by highlighting tensions on identity constructions of highly multilingual urban youth. The pervasiveness of identity construction through the translanguaging phenomenon suggests cross-language boundaries and emergence of new urban identities that are expressed through hybrid varieties such as ‘kasitaal’. Multilingually sensitive education approaches that are considerate of the inextricable relationship between age of identity construction, language and education as well as new areas for further research are recommended.

This study is a qualitative evaluation of how one state school interprets and makes a decision on the language medium to use as guided by the Language in Education Policy [LiEP] that advocates multilingualism in schools. The study asks how the LiEP ideal informs the language policy in the school, and establishes reasons parents give for choosing English as medium of instruction to be used in classrooms. Following Parlett and Hamilton‟s (1976) evaluation as illumination framework, this study outlines the language medium ideal expressed in LiEP and describes the actual Language Policy of the School in practice and how it accords with LiEP in guiding the medium of instruction. Data collection methods in this report included document analysis, classroom observations, interviews and questionnaires. The key findings from the data illuminate; parents of the learners in the school view the national language policy in a positive light that it is inclusive despite the challenges it presents to implementation. The findings reflected the decision makers‟ endeavour to strengthen their case that by choosing English as medium of instruction is not to contravene the policy, but a democratic right to benefit their children. Findings in the report suggest that the national language policy in South Africa is regarded a valuable document to guide the selection on the medium of instruction in schools, but raises issues that need to be addressed to make it play a more effective role in educational contexts.

Thesis (Ph.D. (Languages)) -- University of Limpopo, 2007 / Refer to the document / University of Limpopo

Thesis (M.ED.) --University of Limpopo, 2008 / Language prejudice is of two types: positive and negative. Negative prejudice is image effacing. It is characterized by negative evaluation of one’s own language or speech patterns and a preference for someone else’s. An example of this kind of self- -denigration is the case of David Christiaan, the Nama Chief in Namibia, who, in response to the Dutch missionaries’ attempt to open schools that would conduct their teaching using Nama as a medium of instruction, is reported to have shouted, “Only Dutch, Dutch only! I despise myself and I want to hide in the bush when I am talking my Hottentot language” (Vedder, 1981: 275 as quoted in Ohly, 1992:65. In Ambrose, et al (eds.) undated: 15).

D. Tech. Language Practice. / The objective of this study is to draw out, and establish, the attitudes held by Setswana first language (L1)-speaking university students toward their L1, in a context of that L1 being one of the many spoken in a multilingual society, South Africa. The study also aims to test the potential influence of the following nine variables on attitudes toward Setswana: (1) gender; (2) age group; (3) years at university; (4) level of study; (5) competence in Setswana; (6) linguality; (7) location of nurture; (8) field of study; and, (9) type of university attended. The following variables are new in language attitudes studies in South Africa: competence in ones L1; linguality; location of nurture; and, type of university attended.