This critical assessment is a study of B.K.M. Mtombeni's literary achievements in the Tsonga literature. The literary trend which persists throughout his novels Mibya ya nyekanyeka and Ndzi tshikeni, his volumes of short stories Ndzhaka ya vusiwana and Mavala ya yingwe and his plays Malangavi ya mbilu, Vuhlangi bya vuhlangi and Mihizo ya kayivela, was identified. Mtombeni has been a successful writer, who through his thematic patterns, plot, characterization, language and style, was able to bring out his ideas and thoughts to his readers effectively. Each chapter of this study dealt with special literary issues which contributed to the accomplishment of the research. The first chapter is a general introduction setting out the aim of the research: a biographical sketch; definitions of key terms of the topic and the literary approaches; the motivation behind the selection of the topic; the method of research; and the scope and composition of subsequent chapters. The thematic patterns of Mtombeni's works and his attitude to life are handled in chapter two, whilst the focus of the third chapter is on conflict, which is a major element of plot. Reference is also made to the other elements of plot such as climax and denouement. Chapter four addresses characterization with the aim of determining the lifelikeness, plausibility and. credibility of characters in Mtombeni's works. Chapter five analyses Mtombeni's language and style, the focus being on diction, whilst syntactic patterns, preambles or introductory paragraphs, imagery, proverbs and idioms, tone and dialogue form chapter six. Mtombeni's use of patterned language in his plays is treated in the seventh chapter, whilst the last chapter is the general conclusion of the study, with recommendations for future research. / African Languages / D. Litt. et Phil. (African Languages)

This critical assessment is a study of B.K.M. Mtombeni's literary achievements in the Tsonga literature. The literary trend which persists throughout his novels Mibya ya nyekanyeka and Ndzi tshikeni, his volumes of short stories Ndzhaka ya vusiwana and Mavala ya yingwe and his plays Malangavi ya mbilu, Vuhlangi bya vuhlangi and Mihizo ya kayivela, was identified. Mtombeni has been a successful writer, who through his thematic patterns, plot, characterization, language and style, was able to bring out his ideas and thoughts to his readers effectively. Each chapter of this study dealt with special literary issues which contributed to the accomplishment of the research. The first chapter is a general introduction setting out the aim of the research: a biographical sketch; definitions of key terms of the topic and the literary approaches; the motivation behind the selection of the topic; the method of research; and the scope and composition of subsequent chapters. The thematic patterns of Mtombeni's works and his attitude to life are handled in chapter two, whilst the focus of the third chapter is on conflict, which is a major element of plot. Reference is also made to the other elements of plot such as climax and denouement. Chapter four addresses characterization with the aim of determining the lifelikeness, plausibility and. credibility of characters in Mtombeni's works. Chapter five analyses Mtombeni's language and style, the focus being on diction, whilst syntactic patterns, preambles or introductory paragraphs, imagery, proverbs and idioms, tone and dialogue form chapter six. Mtombeni's use of patterned language in his plays is treated in the seventh chapter, whilst the last chapter is the general conclusion of the study, with recommendations for future research. / African Languages / D. Litt. et Phil. (African Languages)

La presente Tesis Doctoral se encuadra dentro la línea de investigación del lenguaje mediante los métodos basados en corpus, es decir, mediante análisis computacional y cuantitativo. El esencial objetivo ha sido llevar a cabo una comparación y análisis cuantitativo estructural y del léxico de dos textos específicos del género dramático: la cuarta edición en el infolio de Hamlet (1685) de Shakespeare, y la traducción al inglés de Gamlet (1787) [1748], del dramaturgo ruso Aleksandr Sumarokov, traducida del ruso por Richard Fortune en 1970. El análisis, comparación e interpretación de los resultados de los patrones estructurales y temáticos se ha dispuesto por actos, tanto en aquello que se refiere a la intra-obra (en Hamlet y Gamlet, separado), como inter-obras (entre Hamlet y Gamlet) a lo largo de los Capítulos 3º, 4º, 5º y 6º. Para desvelar los propósitos reales de Shakespeare y Sumarokov, especialmente en lo referido a las configuraciones sociales y organizativas estructurales de Hamlet y Gamlet, se utilizaron diversas aplicaciones informáticas e estadísticas. Para ello se administró el análisis cuantitativo de la distribución de los patrones de la presencia, intervención e interacción de todos los personajes, tanto los principales, como los secundarios. Para analizar y comparar las alteraciones temáticas, es decir, las diferencias cualitativas, no simplemente cuantitativas, con respecto a la conceptualización sociopolítica, religiosa, moral, familiar, filosófica y artística, entre Shakespeare y Sumarokov, se aplicaron los métodos cuantitativos y analíticos basados en la lingüística del corpus. A tal fin, se implantó la investigación de los patrones de distribución de las palabras de contenido (open-class ítems), es decir, las palabras con significado léxico, tales como sustantivos, verbos, adjetivos y adverbios, más frecuentes entre ambas obras. Los principales resultados obtenidos revelan importantes disimilitudes entre las estructuras de las obras por actos, es decir, percepciones marcadamente distintas de todos los personajes, de su relevancia en las obras y de complejidad de las relaciones sociales entre ellos. Los resultados de los patrones temáticos señalan las divergencias significativas en los contenidos básicos de ambos textos en relación con los temas más prominentes. Así pues, los resultados confirman diferencias sustanciales en los patrones estructurales y temáticos entre versión original de Hamlet y Gamlet. Resumen: / The main area of research of this PhD dissertation is the study of language by means of corpus-based techniques -in other words, by means of a computational and quantitative analysis. The aim was to carry out quantitative and qualitative structural and lexical analysis and comparison of two specific texts in the genre of drama -The Fourth Folio Edition of The Tragedy of Hamlet Prince of Denmark (1685) by Shakespeare and the English translation of Gamlet (1787) [1748] by the Russian playwright Sumarokov, translated from Russian by Richard Fortune in 1970. The analysis, comparison and interpretation of data related to the structural and thematic patterns were carried out per act: intra-play (in each play, separately) and inter-plays (between Hamlet and Gamlet). Accordingly, various computational tools were applied to reveal the differences in the social and organisational structures of the plays through quantitative and qualitative analysis of the distribution patterns of the presence, intervention and interaction variables of all the characters, both main and secondary. Quantitative and analytical corpus-based methodologies were used to analyse and compare thematic alterations between the two plays -in other words, the (dis)similarities in the authors' religious, socio-political, family, moral, philosophical and artistic conceptions- identified on the basis of the most frequent content words (open-class items), particularly nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs. The key findings indicate important differences between the structures of the plays per acts, that is, significant divergences in the authors' perceptions of the characters and the complexity of their relationships. Another essential finding suggests obvious distinctions between both texts' basic contents per act: intra-play and inter-plays. In general, the findings uncover wide-ranging dissimilarities in the structural and thematic patterns in Hamlet versus Gamlet.