M.A. (African Languages) / Please refer to full text to view abstract

Thesis (MA)--Stellenbosch University, 2004. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: This study focuses on the communicative processes of advice in isiZulu through which people aid each other with problems and stresses of daily life, including ways in which support is communicated. When friends or family members attempt to help one another with stress and problems, they frequently give advice. Within the field of pragmatics, advice is a common but potentially face-threatening response to a friend or a loved one who is upset about a problem. Consequently it is useful to identify ways a speaker may show regard for face in this kind of episode. Advice can threaten the hearer's autonomy by imposing the speaker's authority and solutions on the hearer and it can also imply criticism of the hearer's emotional reaction or handling of the problem. In this study, twenty-one advice topics, by Goldsmith (2000) that can be used in various troubles talk episodes in isiZulu have been examined. It has been found that some advice situations have more topics than others. The situation with more advice topics is the one referred to as personal. This is because people are always very keen to give more advice to people with personal problems than to people with other problems. The situations with the least number of topics are abuse and teachers, because they are very sensitive in nature. The study found that the sensitivity comes from the fact that third parties are involved. People tend to be reluctant to give advice which might lead to confrontation between the parties that are involved. In this research, the parties that are involved are learners on the one side and the parents/teachers on the other side. The other factor is that people do not want to see a parent who is abusing his/her child going to jailor a teacher who does not like a particular child losing his/her job because of the advice they gave to the learners. / AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Hierdie studie fokus op die kommunikatiewe prosesse van advies in isiZulu waardeur mense mekaar help met die probleme van die alledaagse lewe, insluitende die wyses waarop steun gekommunikeer word. Wanneer vriende en familielede poog om mekaar te help met probleme, gee hulle dikwels advies. Binne die veld van die pragmatiek, is advies 'n algemene, maar potensiële gesigsbedreigende ('face-threatening') respons teenoor 'n vriend of geliefde wat 'n probleem het. Gevolglik is dit nuttig om wyses te identifiseer waarop 'n spreker ontsag mag toon vir gesig ('face') in hierdie soort episode. Advies kan die spreker se outonomiteit bedreig deur die spreker se outoriteit en oplossings neer te druk op die hoorder en dit kan ook kritiek impliseer van die hoorder se emosionele reaksie op hantering van die probleem. In hierdie studie word een-en-twintig advies episodes van Goldsmith (2000) wat gebruik kan word in verskillende moeilikheidsgesprekke ('trouble talk') in isiZulu ondersoek. Daar is bevind dat sommige advies situasies meer onderwerpe as ander het. Die situasie met meer advies onderwerpe, is die persoonlike situasie. Die rede hiervoor is dat mense altyd meer gretig is om advies te gee aan ander mense met persoonlike probleme as aan mense met ander tipes probleme. Die situasies met die minste getalonderwerpe is 'mishandeling' en 'onderwysers' omdat dit baie sensitiewe onderwerpe is. Die studie bevind dat sensitiwiteit spruit uit die teenwoordigheid van 'n derde party se betrokkenheid. Mense blyk onwillig te wees om advies te gee wat mag lei tot konfrontasie tussen die partye betrokke. In hierdie navorsing, is die betrokke partye leerders, enersyds, en ouers of onderwysers, andersyds. 'n Verdere faktor is dat mense nie wil sien dat 'n ouer wat 'n kind mishandel na die gevangenis gaan nie, of dat 'n onderwyser wat nie van 'n spesifieke kind hou sy/haar werk verloor, weens die advies wat hulle aan die leerders gee nie.

Thesis (MA (African Languages))--University of Stellenbosch, 2005. / This study examines data from communication-theoretic refusal in isiZulu, relating to pragmatic theorists’ argument that every human interaction to a large extent carries with it an element of threatening one or both participants’ face. The speech act of refusal has been identified as one of the most effective speech acts to be employed for this phenomenon in this study. Every speech act is influenced by contextual, cultural and many other background factors associated to age, gender and rank, to mention a few, which contribute towards the composition of speech act. The issues relating to the theory of politeness prompted this study in the extent to which politeness plays a role in refusals in educational contexts of Zulu speaking students. The study has evaluated Brown and Levinson’s (1987) theory of politeness as a universal phenomenon against the findings of my data, in that the universality advanced by these theorists does not quite fit with this study. The variable percentages in this data, especially in refusals, indicate that politeness does not always exist in terms of positive and negative face in the participants’ mind but other considerations related to the goal of the speech act are the main source of the speech act. In this study, refusal in the Zulu context has demonstrated that politeness has been employed as a strategy for encoding distance between speaker and solicitor.

This study is set to explore the theory of speech acts with special reference to Zulu. This is done with the motive of discovering the applicability of this theory to the utterances that are issued by the speakers of this language. Particular attention is given to the performatives as a special kind of speech act. Their examination reveals that in Zulu, there are acts, which could be performed by saying something. We distinguish between explicit and inexplicit performatives. Explicit performatives contain a verb in their main clause which names the act that is performed when a performative is issued. The inexplicit performative on the other hand does not contain this verb. Acts that are restrained as far as the explicit performative is concerned, would rather be expressed by means of the inexplicit performative. Utterances such as those that express commands, customarily make use of the imperative, which is an inexplicit performative. A closer examination of how performatives are realised in Zulu, reveals that in order for the performatives to be understood as intended by the speaker, the illocutionary force, of what the speaker intends or means by the issuance of the utterance in question, comes to the surface. It is the illocutionary force which connote that an utterance is a request, a command, a warning, etc. Performatives can also be double-natured in function. One performative could be a request which is intended as an order. In this case it is the responsibility of the addressee to use contextual information in order to determine that which is the speaker's intention. In this investigation, what has surfaced as well, is that one speech act could be expressed in various different ways. For instance, a request, could be expressed by the use of a performative, an imperative, a question and a statement. Another factor which we came across in this study, and which has a significant bearing on the performative, is that they should comply with the conditions of felicity, if they are to be successful and understood as intended by the addressee. / African Languages / M.A. (African Languages)

Thesis (MA (African Languages))--University of Stellenbosch, 2005. / This study aims to investigate the speech act of complimenting in Zulu. It is divided into five chapters, which are arranged as follows: Chapter one provides special details regarding the aim of this study, the method that has been followed, and the organizational structure of the study. Chapter two focuses on both speech act and politeness theories. The central notion relates to (a) the acts of locution, (b) illocution and (c) perlocution. These elements of speech acts entail the notion that utterances that are produced by participants in a conversation comprises of (a) the actual sounds and words uttered, and those words and sounds (b) are intended towards the fulfillment of the force or intention behind them and (c) the effect of that force is intended to the hearer. Although there are other related elements, this notion is prominent in this chapter. Chapter three examines the speech acts of complimenting in Zulu along with their responses. This examination is informed by various ideas from the respective researchers. For an effective and successful investigation of speech acts, a guideline which serves as a base follows a method of ethnography of communication. Almost all these researchers are putting emphasis on this view. The elements of the responses, the principles, their nature, structure and appearance in general conversations with specific reference to complimenting, are other key properties examined in this chapter. Chapter four focuses on the functions of compliments. For example, almost all the researchers in the field are in agreement that compliments serve to revitalize, establish or create or encourage solidarity. Although there are other functions relating to this speech act, such as replacing other conversational formulas, e.g. greetings, softening criticism, the function of solidarity is perceived to be central. Another area which receives attention is the structural qualities of the compliment, along with syntactic and lexical features. This analysis explores the syntactic categories that relate to this work, together with the formulaic nature of this speech act. Chapter five is the last chapter of this study. It represents the conclusion in which the main findings in the study are summarized.