Lexical change is a natural phenomenon for all of the world’s languages. This change can be viewed in terms of language contact, technological innovation and the adoption of new lifestyles. Whereas in the past isiXhosa, a Nguni language spoken in South Africa, borrowed words from both English and Afrikaans, contemporary speakers rely more on the English lexicon, with some previous adoptions from Afrikaans being replaced by those from English. This study focusses specifically on contemporary borrowed, or loanword nouns in isiXhosa which are brought into the noun class system of the language via a number of different noun class prefixes. The focus of this study is to understand whether there are any features or properties, whether morphological or semantic, that predispose loanword nouns to fall into a particular noun class. In this thesis I therefore analyse a corpus of new data from conversations and interviews I conducted with contemporary isiXhosa-speakers, as well as from written translation activities. After providing a general background to the semantic content of isiXhosa noun classes, I analyse the new data and try to make some conclusions as to which noun class prefix is the most productive for loanwords, as well as to argue the existence of a significant amount of variation in terms of prefixes used. The study concludes that most loanword nouns are assigned to Noun Class 9, but some speakers also use Noun Classes 1a, 5 and 7 as alternatives for Class 9 under certain morphological and semantic conditions. Even Noun Class 3 was found to contain a number of loanword nouns, suggesting that speakers are able to manipulate the grammar of isiXhosa, and particularly its noun class system, to accommodate words from other languages.

Bibliography: leaves 147-150.

\ / Advertisements in African languages are generally confined to radio, and in that medium are factual, dialogic and direct. When used in television advertising, however, South Africa’s indigenous languages play a less informative role, being employed rather to index a concretised African essence, African identity, urban style, or a particular reified postapartheid togetherness and cultural mobility. In this dissertation I analyse six television advertisements, all using African languages or language varieties, broadcast over the years starting 2010 through to 2014. I reflect on how and why the African language is used and to what extent African languages are no longer seen by television advertisers as carriers of information but as exploitable symbols of trustworthiness, multiculturalism, belonging and innovation. Methodology includes interviews with agencies, sociolinguistic analyses of the varieties used, detail on brands and products represented by the language and a small pilot study with viewers to ascertain their responses to the six selected advertisements.

Bibliography: leaves 181-195.

In this dissertation I critically analyse the lyrics of the top 10 songs (sung in an indigenous African language) aired on uMhlobo weNene (the national broadcast station for the Xhosa language) during 2016. Before the analysis of the songs I discuss various academic works on pop lyrics generally – ranging from a discussion of the production of aesthetic difference, lyrics in global and local settings, the changing lexicon of pop lyrics over the years, the purpose of lyrics to teenagers and the issue of translation and code switching in the lyrics of bilingual popular songs. In the main body of the thesis I apply a thematic and detailed linguistic analysis of the top 10 songs after which I provide an analysis of interviews conducted with Xhosa-speaking teenagers with regard to their linguistic preferences as applicable to contemporary lyrics. The conclusion includes a summary of the dominant themes of the lyrics studied and a focus on what the grammar of the songs (e.g. the predominance of the first person pronoun in all of the lyrics) can tell us about the increasingly individualistic nature of contemporary lyrics sung in African languages.

This research topic came about during my honours research project. The honours project studied strategies that are used by second language learners in acquiring vocabulary. One of the strategies that were used was direct translation. Upon further research into the subject, it was we discovered that no work has been done on the use of translation as a teaching method in isiXhosa. This study attempts to bridge the information gap in the area of second language learning and teaching in African languages. The current study followed two classes at University of Cape Town where isiXhosa literature is taught as a second language. Given that the students do not speak any isiXhosa at entry level, they rely heavily on their first language for making sense of the second language. In the case of literature, where terminology is not carefully selected to accommodate second language learners, students rely heavily on translation. This study therefore investigates the role and process of translation as a teaching method. The lack of research in this area made it very difficult to follow a particular theoretical framework, therefore the study followed a mixture of qualitative and quantitative approaches. Students were given activities that would require translation in order for the task to be completed. This forms part of their normal learning process. These activities were analysed. The second part consisted of a questionnaire that surveyed the student's views regarding the use of translation. Findings based on the qualitative data analysis revealed heavy relianace on translation as a learning strategy. Students also indicated that prior knowledge of vocabulary as well as an understanding of morphology were both very beneficial.

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The characters encountered in The wrath of the ancestors, The Marabi dance and Unojayiti wam bear on an African identity, and they reflect a purely African conception of life. The "Africanness" of their outlook can only be determined when measured against the real life African socio-cultural background. Therefore, as a starting point in this study, I has been essential to explore the various debates about African literature, in an attempt to reveal any common factors that can be used as the basis for a study of the portrayal of characters in this field.

This study compares the syntax of nineteenth-century Orange River Afrikaans with Dutch and synchronic Afrikaans varieties, with particular attention to Griqua Afrikaans. It provides an account of the differences that are found between the earliest attestations of an extraterritorial variety of the Dutch language on southern African soil (the so-called Cape Dutch Vernacular) with the present-day outcome. The data collected for this study originate chiefly from an hitherto undisclosed corpus of letters kept in the Namibian State Archives by the so-called Oorlam-Nama, people of mixed descent who lived on the periphery of the nineteenth- century Cape colonial society. This thesis argues that nineteenth-century Orange River Afrikaans is a representative continuation of the earliest developments in the linguistic contact situation that existed at the Cape. The thesis advances that literacy and social class are important factors in the assessment of the written record from the Dutch colony at the Cape. The thesis centers around the letters by one author, Jan Jonker Afrikaner, written over a period of nearly twenty years in the second half of the nineteenth century. This legacy is a unique contribution to the diachronic data concerning the development of Afrikaans. From the data it is shown that this author had the command over different registers, fluctuating between a near perfect metropolitan Dutch and a Hollands that is classified as basilectal Afrikaans. The comparison of the data is set in a framework inspired by the concepts put forward in Generative Grammar. This has precipitated an exciting linguistic comparison of contemporary Afrikaans grammar with the diachronic material. This dissertation challenges the idea that the Khoesan Languages were of no or little influence in the development of Afrikaans. The linguistic analysis of the nineteenth-century data reveal that the developments which took place cannot be attributed to one single origin. It is demonstrated that the innovations and change that can be identified run parallel to regular patterns that are found in other languages generally classified as creole languages. It is argued that the syntax of the Khoesan languages is a major reinforcing factor in the development of the syntactic idiosyncrasies that are identified as un-Germanic characteristics of Afrikaans. Limited to nonstandard varieties of Afrikaans, in the concluding sections the question is raised how these findings are to be addressed in the larger context of language change.

This study compares the syntax of nineteenth-century Orange River Afrikaans with Dutch and synchronic Afrikaans varieties, with particular attention to Griqua Afrikaans. It provides an account of the differences that are found between the earliest attestations of an extraterritorial variety of the Dutch language on southern African soil (the so-called Cape Dutch Vernacular) with the present-day outcome. The data collected for this study originate chiefly from an hitherto undisclosed corpus of letters kept in the Namibian State Archives by the so-called Oorlam-Nama, people of mixed descent who lived on the periphery of the nineteenth- century Cape colonial society. This thesis argues that nineteenth-century Orange River Afrikaans is a representative continuation of the earliest developments in the linguistic contact situation that existed at the Cape. The thesis advances that literacy and social class are important factors in the assessment of the written record from the Dutch colony at the Cape. The thesis centers around the letters by one author, Jan Jonker Afrikaner, written over a period of nearly twenty years in the second half of the nineteenth century. This legacy is a unique contribution to the diachronic data concerning the development of Afrikaans. From the data it is shown that this author had the command over different registers, fluctuating between a near perfect metropolitan Dutch and a Hollands that is classified as basilectal Afrikaans. The comparison of the data is set in a framework inspired by the concepts put forward in Generative Grammar. This has precipitated an exciting linguistic comparison of contemporary Afrikaans grammar with the diachronic material. This dissertation challenges the idea that the Khoesan Languages were of no or little influence in the development of Afrikaans. The linguistic analysis of the nineteenth-century data reveal that the developments which took place cannot be attributed to one single origin. It is demonstrated that the innovations and change that can be identified run parallel to regular patterns that are found in other languages generally classified as creole languages. It is argued that the syntax of the Khoesan languages is a major reinforcing factor in the development of the syntactic idiosyncrasies that are identified as un-Germanic characteristics of Afrikaans. Limited to nonstandard varieties of Afrikaans, in the concluding sections the question is raised how these findings are to be addressed in the larger context of language change.