Includes bibliographical references. / The title of this thesis, Country and City - Autobiographical tropes in Ncumisa Vapi's Litshona Liphume arises out of a complex understanding of the author's narrative and literary intentions. Country refers to the fact that the story is set in a specifically named rural area in the Eastern Cape in the late 1960s and early 1970s. City on the other hand does not refer to any particular city, but is rather a symbol of changed and challenge, of opportunity and wealth but also of a world view deficient in tradition and spiritual connection with the land and the ancestors.

S.E.K. Mqhayi has been declared the most successful of all the modern Xhosa writers. He has been proclaimed "The Shakespeare of the Xhosa language". The showering of such praises upon a man have prompted us to study some of his major views about life and the manner of expressing these. * The first chapter deals with the formative influences which played a prominent part in Mqhayi's literary creativity. These are: the home, the school and the church. The portrayal of the man is made more explicit by citing what literary critics in general, and Xhosa poets in particular, have said about Mqhayi. A list of Mqhayi's published works and various comments on these add dimension to his stature. The chapter ends with a brief outline of the development of thought in Mqhayi's works. It is pointed out that each principal thought or major theme constitutes a chapter of this thesis. The first chapter serves as a thread that knits the different chapters together. * The second chapter is a study of Mqhayi's views on the nature and operation of law in Xhosa traditional society. The various techniques employed by Mqhayi in articulating his views are pointed out. Mqhayi intimates in his works that law functions in a Xhosa traditional society in a manner similar to the operation of law in modern society. we have supported Mqhayi's contentions by drawing parallels with the western legal system. It is emphasized in this chapter that "the traditional Xhosa legal system is an integral part of the Xhosa religious order". The idea that Xhosas and other Black races had no laws governing them prior to contact with Whites is refuted by conclusive argument. * Chapter three is a discussion of Mqhayi's serious concern about disunity and a lack of socio-political advancement among the Blacks of South Africa and the breaking down of law and order among the Xhosa people in general and among the various Black races in particular. The reader's attention is drawn also to Mqhayi's concern about deteriorating relations between Blacks and Whites in South Africa. We show how the author offers solutions to these grave problems. Towards the end of the chapter, Mqhayi emerges as a patriot and a humanist. * The concept of patriotism receives attention in chapter four. Biographical sketches of various Black and White leaders whom Mqhayi regarded as patriots are given. These biographies help in interpreting the poems written by Mqhayi about the said patriots. Of great interest to the reader should be the various devices employed by the poet in revealing patriotic action. A consistent and comforting note in most of the poems is the assurance that the patriots who departed from this earth are alive and active in the spiritual world. * Throughout his works Mqhayi denigrates undesirable characters and deprecates evil actions or situations. This is brought out in sharper focus in chapter five. The various techniques he uses are mentioned and discussed. The reader's attention is drawn to the following: (a) virtue is extolled in Mqhayi's writings; (b) the author "preaches the gospel of hope and faith in human progress". Thus, brief notes on the transformation of the undesirable characters bring the chapter to an end. * Literary critics will always point out what they consider as merits or demerits in a man's creative work(s). Chapter six deals with a critical appraisal of criticisms levelled against Mqhayi as a literary artist. The validity or otherwise of the opinions expressed is discussed. * Chapter seven is a general conclusion. The main observations are summarised and suggestions for further studies are indicated. * It is hoped that the entire study will serve as a design or model for understanding the creative works of S.E.K.L.N. Mqhayi. For additional information on the possible value of this study, the literary critic is referred to chapter seven (pages 249-254).

Includes bibliographical references. / This dissertation analyses creative trends in Shona and Ndebele poetry published after the attainment of political independence in 1980. The research tries to establish the close link between poems in the two national languages and post-independence Zimbabwean history in order to examine the link between creative writing and nationalism, which is the context in which creativity takes place, an attempt is made to outline major trends in nationalist history vis-a-vis colonialism. Having set the background for analysis, the research focuses on texts that are published in the context of the apparent cultural renaissance that is ushered by the apparent victory of African nationalism over colonialism. The texts are analysed in the context of the dialectic of nationalism and colonialism.

Bibliography: [355]-364.

In this paper, the speech patterns of eleven individuals living in the Eastern half of Rhodesia are described and compared. Each individual was selected as being representative of a number of localities described in the map below. The first part of the paper is concerned with the abstraction of comparable linguistic units from the dialects. These units are abstracted at various levels of analysis and unit categories include phonemes, tonemes, morphophonemes, tonomorphemes and morphemes. Each unit category is described in relation to the general structural framework of the dialects established by a sentence analysis. The units so abstracted and described constitute the distinctive attributes of each dialect. In part two the dialects are compared and classified by computer according to their correspondence to approximately one thousand selected properties.

Humour represents an ideal site for understanding how everyday social dynamics influence ideology and the social structure (Sue & Golash-Boza, 2013:4). This research is an examination of how gender is expressed in Shona humour. Particular emphasis is paid to how women are presented in Shona humorous narratives. Though 'what a person does in a jest is usually not accorded the same weight of responsibility as what he does seriously, humour provides a means to test the openness, accessibility, and riskiness of sensitive issues' (Lang & Lee, 2010:47). This study examines how women in particular, are reflected in Shona humour. Humour provides a 'safe' climate for expressing 'system-justifying' beliefs, (Ford et al. 2013), and this study is an exploration of the Shona beliefs about women and the reinforcement of gender norms as expressed in Shona humour. The study derives impetus from the fact that while images of women have been studied in literary and lexicographic works in Shona in particular, aspects of humour and how it presents women remain largely under-studied, as humour studies as a discipline, despite its long history the world over, is still at its infancy in Zimbabwe. From a corpus of jokes that were circulated on the social media, particularly Facebook and WhatsApp, the study examines how women are presented in Shona humour. The research made use of the Superiority Theory of humour, Incongruity and Feminism to argue that Shona humour expresses oppressive and unjust gender relations. While the humorous Shona narratives demonstrate a complex portrayal of women, generally, Shona humour expresses, ratifies and reinforces repressive norms and restrictive stereotypes about women. Women are presented as immoral, malicious and intellectually, socially and emotionally inferior to men. The study therefore argues that humour facilitates the process of promoting gender stereotypes as well as fostering gender discrimination in Shona.

This thesis explores language expansion and change through metaphorical expressions that originate with urban youth varieties. It focuses on the impact of S'ncamtho, an Ndebele-based urban youth variety of Bulawayo in Zimbabwe along the variables of rural/urban, sex, age and level of education. The thesis uses Cognitive Metaphor Theory to build on research on metaphor in urban youth varieties to answer the overarching question; how is S'ncamtho impacting Ndebele? It confirms that sex and sexuality, music and partying, love and relationships are popular themes in S'ncamtho. The thesis identifies relexicalisation and replacement of metaphoric vehicles as the main metaphor derivational strategies in S'ncamtho and confirms the existence of clearly discernible genres of metaphor in S'ncamtho which are proverbs, sayings, aphorisms and euphemistic metaphors. While S'ncamtho and other youth varieties in Africa have been identified as urban varieties, the study brings in the dimension of measuring the spread of S'ncamtho to peri-urban and rural areas. Data from questionnaire tests, interviews and observations is analysed using the Idiom Familiarity and Comprehension Judgement Method to measure the impact and spread of S'ncamtho metaphors. The guiding theory in evaluating the spread of S'ncamtho metaphors is a Social Psychology framework- Social Impact Theory (SIT). The thesis argues that S'ncamtho metaphors spread outside Bulawayo’s high density male youth to female and older Ndebele speakers in and outside the city, it identifies male youth in the age cohort 15- 35 years as more familiar and using more S'ncamtho metaphors compared to females and older males in urban, peri-urban and rural areas. It also reveals that S'ncamtho metaphor familiarity declines with age and distance from Bulawayo, and that generally females use less S'ncamtho compared to males and the young are more familiar with S'ncamtho compared to adults. The research reveals that there is no significant difference between rural and urban professionals in S'ncamtho metaphor familiarity and this confirms that improved communication networks impact on the spread of S'ncamtho as professional people frequent Bulawayo for pay and other services. However, the study also noted that there are still more people who have negative attitudes towards S'ncamtho, compared to those who view its impact positively. The thesis argues that the popularity of S'ncamtho has seen S'ncamtho metaphors operating in professions including journalism, health professions, teaching and religious professions. Furthermore, attitudes are changing as some people have begun to view S'ncamtho positively outside the criminal prejudices.

Bibliography: leaves 211-225.

Includes abstract. / Includes bibliographical references. / Translation has been a practice that has assisted many languages the world over to develop to become languages of power. The purpose of this project was to elicit some translation challenges that translators face when translating from English into Xitsonga. It is not easy to translate a document in which the domain has not been explored because the translator has to juggle with terminology which does not exist in the indigenous language. In this project, I have made an attempt to use different theories that can guide us when we encounter a lemma which does not exist in the target language. The challenges that are faced by one indigenous language in South Africa in language development through translation are the same as for most other indigenous languages.

Bibliography: pages 133-141. / This study seeks to investigate Language variation in the Botswana speech community and its impact on children's education. The study is premised on the assumption that the learner's non-standard language from the home environment is not accommodated in the learning environment. The language used in the classroom is the standard language. This study deals with aspects such as language change, language contact, language interference as well as standardisation and the differences that exist in the spoken and written Setswana. Sociolinguistic factors such as language use are also dealt with. The problem of the use of non-standard varieties, as compared to the use of standard forms in the broad educational field is investigated.