Bibliography: p. 288-290. / The characters and narratives depicted in the Greek mythology are all archetypal concepts. They are depictions of the primordial and the unconscious of the human being. Characters in a literary Work. can be interpreted within this primordial framework. Also, a text itself, or the form that a text is presented in, is able to show signs of the archetypal and mythological narrative. This comparative study investigates and tests the assumption that literature from different linguistic and regional backgrounds, can be brought back to the depiction of a corresponding archetypal and primordial being. A literary work of art, in the form of a novel or poem, enjoys the same universal appeal or value as a literary work from a completely different region, language or period, through its use of elements from the mythological archetype. I have chosen for the Greek mythology because of its influence in the Western art. The mythological figure of the adolescent and young man illustrates this hypothesis. The representation is split into different sub-characters, different ids: Ganymede, Apollo, Narcissus, Hermaphrodites and Cyparissus. All conform to different aspects of the archetypal young male character. The classical theme of the adolescent and young man is presented as a connection between literary works that initially seem heterogeneous. Each chapter highlights one specific mythological character, his original mythological context and his representation and influence in and on modern literature. To achieve the contrast between old and new, I have chosen pieces from the 20th century only. Within the framework of one study, a complete and exhaustive research is impossible. Still, to support my argument, I have tried to feature as many different sources as possible. Not only did l use Dutch and Afrikaans authors, but also South African, English, German and American authors and poets, as well as a French, Spanish, Czech and Japanese author. As a conclusion I can state that the archetypal concept of the adolescent and young man, clearly underlines the primordial nature of literature. The same motifs keep returning in art, also in ""new"" literary movements and types of discourse. Secondly, it appears that Cyparissus can be seen as not only a general symbol for the adolescent and young man, but also as a mystical symbol for the universal and primordial nature of art, and the ultimate ideal of the writer as an artist.

Includes abstract. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 188-198). / Similar to previous academic papers on the topic of relevance, this dissertation too responds to specific claims proposed by relevance theory. The relevance-theoretic account of the recovery of metaphorical interpretations is of particular interest and is considered relative to the assertions of Lakoff and Johnson (1980, 1999) and Lakoff and Turner (1989), proponents of the cognitive linguistic approach to metaphor. The study has three distinct parts. It firstly explores the treatment of metaphor within the framework of Relevance Theory. Secondly, it argues via the assertions of the Contemporary Theory of Metaphor that the relevance-theoretic treatment of metaphor is in violation of one of its fundamental claims about cognition, namely, that human cognition tends to be geared to the maximization of relevance. Thirdly the salience of the cognitive-linguistic view of metaphor is illustrated through the metaphorical characterisation of D.J. Opperman’s (1979) volume of poetry, Komas uit ‘n bamboesstok.

Bibliography: pages 190-199. / The study attempts to indicate how frames of reading which presuppose a definable subject and a hierarchy of real poet and poem are problematized and transgressed by the Breytenbach texts. How these texts confront the normative, predetermined and rigid definitions of the subject and subject positions is one of the challenges faced in this work. It is argued that the texts under scrutiny depict literature as a terrain where stereotypical social codes are destroyed and recreated and where the symbolic order is challenged.

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Bibliography: p. [274]-285. / This dissertation uses ethnographic material to critique South African adult literacy policy. Recent policy documents, I show identify people who lack six years of formal schooling, and particularly people in this position who are also classified as blacks, women and people in rural areas, as being in a deficit position. Not only are they regarded as illiterate and therefore having a technical deficit, but policy documents also describe their "illiteracy" as a marker of their social deficit as marginalised people. Policy makers argue that the deficit attributed to adult literacy target populations can be effectively redressed through formal literacy interventions. I indicate that policy makers' arguments are based on interpretations of statistics .that fail to reflect the complex forms of literacy and the multiple social identities of people in the "target population" and also on a theoretical approach to literacy and which dichotomizes the cognitive, social, cultural and linguistic attributes of "oral/illiterate" people and those of "literate" people.

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Includes bibliographical references (p. 401-416). / The vantage point of this thesis is that literature, as an art form directed at life, at a portrayal of life in all its complexity, is exactly for that reason most closely concerned with death. Being specifically not a study of literature about death, but rather literature and death, it is an inquiry into the manner in which literature treasures death as a condition of its existence. The subtitle expresses the central hypothesis explicitly: The possibilities of the text are largely dependent on the text's commitment to impossibility. The assumption that underpins this formulation is that death is the utmost possibility - the impossibility! - of any cognitive endeavour.

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Bibliography: pages 184-194. / This dissertation comprises a study of the postmodernist tendencies in Wilma stockenstrom's poetry text Die heengaanrefrein (1989). It is argued that the postmodernist text carries with it certain political implications, among which are an interrogation of the way in which history is represented, as well as an interrogation of the ways in which each literary text can be read as a rewriting of existing, or precursor texts. It is further argued that the interrogation of historical representations opens up links between the postmodern debate and postcolonial discourse. This is especially pertinent when reading literary texts from a former colony such as South Africa, and specifically a text which focuses on an event which forms part of the country's colonial history, that being the arrival at the Cape of the Huguenots in 1688-89. Finally it is argued that this postmodernist text, by way of intertextual references, not only implies a rewriting of colonial perspectives on history, but also a rewriting of a literary history, thereby contributing to the decolonisation of the Subject.

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