This dissertation explores the sociolinguistic dynamics and challenges facing African learners in some multiracial schools in KwaZulu-Natal in terms of their linguistic and cultural identities. It seeks to investigate the impact of schooling in multiracial schools on the identities of young Zulu speakers living in Sundumbili Township in Northern KwaZulu-Natal. Three formerly HOD schools in Stanger were identified as research sites, and 100 Grade 11 learners selected as respondents. Data was collected by a multi-method approach, through a written questionnaire, and through interviews with a sub-group of the respondents. Data analysis involved both qualitative and quantitative processes. The findings indicate that the learners investigated have responded to the challenges posed by their schooling in a multiracial environment by developing into bilingual speakers who are aware of the need to select their language according to the communicative needs of their context. They seem well able to shift from school to the township and vice versa. However it is clear that some are no longer fully proficient in isiZulu. At the same time, these learners still identify themselves as amaZulu, primarily on the basis of participating in Zulu cultural activities. The role of language in constituting Zulu identity appears to be receding: many respondents feel that speaking isiZulu is no longer essential to being amaZulu. These attitudes raise some concerns about the long-term maintenance of isiZulu. The thesis concludes with some recommendations aimed at enhancing the continued use of isiZulu. The Department of Education must ensure that all schools promote an additive form of bilingualism which will enable a child to develop in his/her mother tongue while getting exposure to an additional language. Furthermore economic value must be given to these African languages to enable learners to find meaning in studying and using them. Multiracial schools should celebrate diversity in both linguistic and cultural terms, and parents should come to accept the important roles that they need to play in this regard. / Thesis (M.A.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, 2005.

This study examines the attitudes of learners, teachers, governing body members, principals and parents towards the implementation of isiZulu as a subject in selected Durban High Schools and its implications for language planning and policy in South Africa. The learners selected for the purposes of this study were in grade 8, 9, 10 and 11. Combinations of quantitative (interviews) and qualitative (questionnaires) research methods are used to research the topic. Questionnaires were administered to learners, teachers and parents. Interviews were used to complement data obtained from the questionnaires. Interviews were conducted with learners, teachers, governing body members, principals and parents. An important finding of this study is that the majority of learners, teachers, principals, governing body members, and principals have expressed positive attitudes towards isiZulu and view it as an important language in KwaZulu-Natal. Most isiZulu language learners, parents and teaches view isiZulu as important for their culture and identity. The majority of non-isiZulu speakers perceive isiZulu as a language for wider communication in KwaZulu-Natal. The study found that there is a need for more support from the Department of Education to be more actively involved in the promotion of isiZulu in schools. There is also a shortage of trained teachers and teaching material in isiZulu. This study also established that some governing body members have limited knowledge of language policies at their schools. Most learners, teachers, principals, governing body members and parents expressed that it would be better for learners if they started learning isiZulu from primary school instead of high school. Some schools articulated that there appear to be different standards of isiZulu expected from schools and the Department of Education. The findings led to the following recommendations which are aimed at enhancing and promoting the status of isiZulu in KwaZulu-Natal and South Africa as a whole. • The Department of Education needs to be more involved in the promotion of isiZulu in KwaZulu-Natal • More educators have to be trained in the teaching of isiZulu • More educational material in isiZulu needs to be created and provided • IsiZulu needs to be invested with more intensively • The status of isiZulu in primary schools needs to be investigated • The role of governing body members needs to be evaluated • A common standard for isiZulu needs to be established / Thesis (M.A.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, 2008.

"A syntactic Analysis of Kinyarwanda applicatives" is a study of the syntax of Kinyarwanda which focuses on applicatives. Applicatives are constructions in which the object of a preposition becomes the direct object of the verb through a grammatical function changing process. In such constructions, the verb bears a morpheme referred to as the applicative morpheme which turns an intransitive verb into a transitive verb and a transitive verb into a ditransitive verb. The derived object may perform various thematic functions, including those of instrument, beneficiary, goal, manner, reason, purpose and motive. The study provides a thorough description of different types of ditransitive applicatives in Kinyarwanda by examining the syntactic properties exhibited by both objects. In general Kinyarwanda may be classified as a 'symmetrical' language in which more than one object can exhibit direct object properties. This is true for instrumental, benefactive and manner applicatives. However, some applicatives in Kinyarwanda such as the locative applicatives are 'asymmetrical' in that only one object exhibits all the direct object properties. In my research I analyse Kinyarwanda applicatives within the framework of Principles-and-Parameters (Chomsky 1981, 1986a, b and subsequent work), more specifically the Government and Binding theory (Chomsky 1981). I base the discussion on three analyses that have been proposed in the literature of applicatives: Baker's (1988) preposition incorporation theory, Larson's (1988) double object construction analysis and Nakamura's (1997) account of object extraction in applicative constructions, which is based on Chomsky's (1995) Minimalist Program. The study shows that the above analyses account for some aspects of applicatives, but that there are certain facts that are not accounted for, which require a different analysis. / Thesis (M.A.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, 2005.

Abstract not available. / Thesis (M.A.) - University of KwaZulu-Natal, 2005.

This dissertation describes a microethnographic study of the induction of preschool children into the practices of schooled literacy at an ex-Natal Education Department, Anglican-affiliated preschool. The sources of data are participant observation and audio-recordings of planning time interaction; interviews with key informants; and site documentation. The principal finding of the study is that planning time, a seemingly inconsequential preschool event, differentially inducts children into literacy practices that anticipate expository reporting. Such literacy practices carry high prestige in Western capitalist society, being the recognised convention for presenting and contesting information. Planning time was originally designed as an intervention program to facilitate nonmainstream literacy acquisition by making the conventions explicit, thus minimising cultural and linguistic discontinuities between home and school-based literacy practices. However at Church Preschool, an essentially closed environment with access controlled by mechanisms such as waiting lists, this event has been co-opted to further maximise mainstream advantage. The data reveals that, despite a rhetoric of openness in making the norms explicit, planning time only inducts nonrnainstream children into elementary literacy practices. Beyond that point, the conventions become increasingly implicit and depend on shared knowledge of mainstream norms. Planning time functions as a covert gatekeeping event that effectively maintains the status quo by guarding access to powerful literacy practices. The tension between the rhetoric of openness and the reality of who gains mastery of the literacy practices suggests that planning time restricts access not on the level of entry, but at the point of acquisition. / Thesis (M.A.-Linguistics) - UnIversity of Natal, 1996.

This dissertation presents a critical examination of men's and women's discourse practices in directive-response speech sequences (DRSS), on the basis of data obtained from teacher-student interactions during groupwork in two secondary schools in Kwa-Zulu Natal. Following West (1990), the broad purpose of this study is to explore the similarities and the differences in the DRSS between educators of different gender and their students. Drawing on critical discourse analysis, particularly the work of Fairclough (1989,1992,1995), this study then critically examines the social relations of power implicit in these instances of discourse. The findings of this study indicate that both similarities and differences exist in male and female educators' linguistic choices for issuing directives. There is some evidence that female educators made more attempts than male educators to reduce asymmetrical relations of power in their directive choices. However, the critical discourse analysis revealed that the linguistic choices of all educators in my study were mostly informed by the language functions they wished to perform at a particular stage of their lesson. I conclude that it is crucial that educators, both male and female, make more effort to employ discourse practices (especially during groupwork) that are more democratic rather than those that emphasise asymmetrical relations. / Thesis (M.A.)-University of Natal, Durban, 2003.

This thesis provides and discusses a comprehensive collection of empirical data that show that many languages of the world manifest long A-movement of the subjects of embedded finite clauses to the subject position (Hyperraising) or object position (Hyper-ECM) of the main clause. The main theoretical claim of the thesis is that all these instances of long A-movement leave behind resumptive pronouns and should therefore be analysed on a par with related Copy Raising and Copy ECM constructions. My thesis therefore demonstrates that resumption is not restricted to Abar movement contexts, but is also attested in A-movement constructions. Instead of the various language-particular analyses previously proposed in the literature, the thesis focuses on those aspects of long A-movement that all respective constructions in the different languages have in common and therefore provides a unified crosslinguisic analysis of long A-movement constructions. An important empirical generalisation, first noted by Ura (1994), which is empirically supported by the data discussed in this thesis, is that if a language has Hyperraising or Hyper-ECM, it is also a pro-drop language. On the basis of this generalisation, it is argued that Hyperraising and Hyper-ECM constructions involve the use of resumptive pro in the embedded subject position, while languages with Copy Raising and Copy ECM use overt pronouns. Apart from this difference, it is argued that these Amovement constructions are identical in all crucial respects. Furthermore, it is claimed that agreement inside the embedded finite clauses from which long A-movement takes place is indicative of the ability of embedded T to license nominative case on the embedded subject. Hence, no deviation from standard Minimalist assumptions is required. It is suggested that the role of the resumptive subject pronoun is to receive the case assigned by the probing T-head inside the embedded clause. It is also argued that it is the existence of a resumptive pronoun which causes the coreferential subject DP to be without case, which in turn creates a context in which long A-movement of this DP becomes both necessary and possible. This analysis is based on the idea that at first merge, the raised subject is merged with the null/overt resumptive pronoun in the embedded subject position to form one vii complex constituent (which is known in the literature as a „big? DP). While the pronoun remains in the embedded subject position to absorb the case in the embedded finite clause, the raised subject is attracted into the matrix subject position to absorb the case in the matrix clause. / Thesis (Ph.D.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, 2011

This dissertation explores how written discourses of Drum editors' and readers' letters linguistically construct social identities of the Drum audience, and how this identity construction is intimately linked with socio-historical, socio-cultural and socio-political contexts in which Drum appears in 1951 and 2001. Basically, this study is a contrastive analysis of the audience construction at two significant dates in the life of a South African publication, Drum magazine: March 1951, when the magazine was first published, and 7 June 2001, fifty years later when the magazine is read in a vastly changed socio-politico-cultural context. Data collection was based on the "Readers' Page" in two copies of Drum, one published in March 1951 and the other in 7 June 2001. In each copy of the magazine, the focus is on the editor's letter which asks for the readers' contributions and gives recommendations on the types of letters he is hoping to attract, and one reader's letter from each of the same chosen copies of Drum which the editor publishes. The cover pages of both copies of Drum are used to investigate whether they foreground or reinforce the images of Drum readers. Another set of data comes from an unstructured interview of the current Drum magazine editor. Findings in this study indicate that the ideal Drum audience in 1951 is the African middle class scholar who is a good writer, whereas in 2001, good quality writing is compromised for an advertising community of consumers. In addition, the black educated, urban Drum audience in 1951 see themselves as having power to resist the education system which is characterised by racial segregation. In 2001, the young people regard the attainment of higher education in institutions of higher learning as valuable for black economic empowerment. Educators/therefore, need to teach learners the skills of reading a text critically, so that the learners are able to identify ways in which language choices channel their interpretation, and also the ways in which texts are linked to their socio-historical contexts. / Thesis (M.A.)-University of Natal, Durban, 2002.

In this study I investigate gender representations in a South African magazine directed at a teenage female readership. It begins with a survey of sociolinguistic understandings of the relationship between language and gender, and of critical linguistic insights into how gender and gender relations are constructed through discourse. This is followed by the Critical Discourse Analysis of selected texts from the magazine. These analyses reveal that the writers draw on conventional representations of women and conventional social relations between men and women to perpetuate subordinate roles for woman in a male-dominated society. On the basis of this evidence I suggest that such magazines serve as instruments of social control in a patriarchal society by positioning women as being overwhelmingly concerned with their personal appearance and with developing and sustaining relationships with the opposite sex. I also point to the ways in which the writers have drawn on representations of femininity to position the readership as consumers, thereby serving the interests of the capitalist modes of production. This study concludes with suggestions on how the findings can be used to implement Critical Language Awareness in the classroom. / Theses (M.A.)-University of Natal, Durban, 2002.

Abstract not available. / Thesis (M.A.) - University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, 2009.