Bibliography: leaves 89-95. / The study explores the usefulness of literacy narratives as a tool in academic writing for revealing the perceptions and values EAL students' place on their academic writing identities. The literacy narratives highlight the multiple identities that students bring with them to the act of writing and are shaped by the questions, Who am I? Where am I going? Where do I come from? These questions probe the writers' perceptions of past, present and future academic writer identities and shifts of identity over a period of time and differences between first and third year students. In my analytical approach, I recognise the fact that writing is a social act whereby we say something about ourselves, and use it actively to affirm those values, beliefs and practices which we want to sustain, and to resist those values, beliefs and practices which we do not value (Clark and Ivanic1997).

Includes bibliographical references. / This dissertation seeks to answer the question: What are the language contexts, preferences and behaviours of EAL students and staff in the Faculty of Humanities at UCT? The language contexts EAL students and staff find themselves in are either formal or informal. The former refers to domains such as the classroom and administration offices, while the latter alludes to student residences and generally out-of-class social interaction. Language preferences refer to attitudes of both EAL students and of staff towards language(s) that are used in their linguistic context. The language behaviours of EAL students and of staff are their language practices in the various social contexts within which they find themselves. The following research instruments were used to collect data in order to answer the research question: questionnaires, interviews and observations. I opted for self-administered questionnaires and conducted semi-structured interviews to validate questionnaire responses. Both the questionnaires and interviews had closed-ended and open-ended questions to accommodate a variety of responses. I observed a group of respondents, who were part of purposive samples of convenience (snowball samples), for three months and subsequently processed data qualitatively through thematic analysis. The first finding of this study is that EAL students find the UCT language context to be different to their home language context. In the home context they use their PLs more while on UCT campus the institutional culture forces them to use mainly English. The second finding is with regard to their language preferences. EAL students show an ambivalent attitude towards English and their own primary languages in teaching and learning programmes. This attitude of EAL students towards English at UCT is also documented in research by Bangeni (2001), Bangeni & Kapp (2005), and Thesen & van Pletzen (eds.) (2006). This attitude is in tandem with their language behaviour. EAL students shuttle between their PLs and English. The data show that EAL students code-switch in conversations outside class and in their residences. They mainly use English for instrumental reasons (see also De Klerk & Barkhuizen 1998: 159-160). As for staff members they use English inside and outside class. ix The language contexts, preferences and practices of EAL students constitute part of the UCT institutional culture. This institutional culture is the social context within which institutional policy documents such as the UCT Language Plan (2003) are to be implemented. Implications for the implementation of the UCT Language Policy and Plan could be drawn from the language preferences and behaviours discussed above. The study concludes by making recommendations for the implementation of the UCT Language Policy and Plan. The study recommends that the Multilingualism Education Project (MEP) collaborate with language departments so as to explore possibilities of designing programmes that target EAL students and staff for postgraduate certificate courses. Such courses could focus on workplace-oriented communicative skills. Renewed marketability of African languages, as well as reviewing how they are taught and used within the UCT speech community, should be considered. Though the small sample sizes underpinning this study do not justify generalisation on the UCT community, its findings could nonetheless serve as preliminary evidence of significant language contexts, preferences and behaviours of EAL students and of staff in the Faculty of Humanities at UCT. The outcome of this research could be invaluable for language planning at UCT and similar institutions.

The South African constitution recognises 11 official languages, of which isiXhosa is one. IsiXhosa belongs to the Nguni language family which also comprises of isiZulu, isiNdebele, and siSwati. IsiXhosa is mostly spoken in the Eastern and Western Cape Provinces. Those that regard isiXhosa as their home language (HL) are referred to as amaXhosa. However, as a teacher of isiXhosa HL, I have observed that there is often a mismatch between the isiXhosa used by the students and the one used in the schooling context. Thus, this study explores and investigates the written language varieties Grade 6 isiXhosa HL students use in their formally assessed and informal writing. The theoretical framework used in this study reviews literature on discourse/language and literacy as social practice, language ideologies and identity, heteroglossic and translingual practices, as well as primary school children's writing in South Africa to understand the complexities of students' language varieties. Moreover, this study explores the way in which the isiXhosa HL students represent their varied language resources through use of a language body portrait. Further, issues of language standardisation in relation to children's literacy are also reviewed. This study takes the form of qualitative case study in design. Students' Formal Assessment Task (FATs), language body portrait and informal paragraph writing about their linguistic repertoire were collected and analysed. Data analysis revealed the following themes: language ideologies, linguistic repertoires, use of urban and everyday language varieties, Standard Written isiXhosa (orthography), language borrowings, as well as unconventional spellings. Themes and categories are intensively analysed in Chapters four and five of this study. This study displays evidence of hybridity and fluidity of named languages, as well as heteroglossic practices that the students employ. Analysing the students' writing was effective in helping understand how bi/multilinguals engage in writing and that, while the adopted curriculum approach to language and FAT is monoglossic, children's writing is heteroglossic (see also Bakhtin, 1981; Krause and Prinsloo, 2016). The implications of teaching languages as bounded, fixed and separate entities are explored and problematized. Chapter six of this study concludes the study and offers recommendations that are important for deliberation when teaching writing in isiXhosa/African language contexts.

Includes bibliographical references (leaves 94-99). / This mini-dissertation explores the effects of the growth of English as an international and an intranational lingua franca with a focus on the South African debate about language and socio-economic empowerment. This exploration is carried out through an extended review of some of the theories that have challenged the notion that the spread of English is empowering for the majority of the world's population. I refer to these theories as the "critical discourse" about the power of English and argue that within this discourse there is a tendency to be exceedingly dismissive of the idea that the spread of English can in any way empower native speakers of other languages. I refer to this tendency as the "critical model" for looking at the power of English and analyze three metaphors that are often used as tropes to exclude from the "critical discourse" arguments that can be made for using English as a weapon of empowerment. These metaphors characterize English as a "linguistic poacher" that threatens endangered language species with extinction, as a "gatekeeper" that excludes the masses from socio-economic mobility, and as a "colonizer of the mind," or a mechanism that imposes Western-centric values. I argue that while it is important to be aware of these negative effects, the critics of English should not rely too heavily on negative constructions of this language, lest they create theories that are marred by epistemological fallacies that have negative pedagogical and political consequences. Epistemologically, sealing the border of a discourse can lead to tautological arguments that rely excessively on determinism and essentialism. Pedagogically, being exceedingly critical of the power of English can create obstacles in finding ways to teach this language effectively.

In this qualitative research, I hoped to get some impression of ways teachers and learners in five Cape Town schools deal with the process of making sense of a violent past. I offered five teachers material on the Trojan Horse Incident, partly generated by the TRC, and pondered the questions what for them and their learners is politically sensitive and how they position the people involved in the incident and how they position themselves. I understand by 'politically sensitive issues', issues centering on political and social divisions of the past and their ramifications in the present in this country. Applying a 'Foucaultian' approach to discourse analysis, I used the concepts 'indescribable' and 'undiscussable' as structuring categories, next to a differentiation between the discourse of classroom talk, and informal discourses outside the classroom situation. I also differentiated between the sense making processes of teachers, being part of a generation that lived through Apartheid, and of learners, the 'new' generation who didn't have that experience. The results of this research are: Firstly, teachers and learners in the five schools positioned themselves, the people involved in the incident and the researcher through dynamic practices of in- and excluding (shifting between 'us' and 'them') and of past and present framing (shifting between past and present tenses). Both groups seem to prefer to position themselves as 'observers'. In most classes, most of the time was spent on how exactly the Trojan Horse Incident took place (when, where, which tactics the policemen used, consequences,). Moral questions ('why' questions) were left for the end of the period or left implicit. Secondly, there was not a lot of space during classroom interactions for emotions and personal stories. The power/knowledge structure of the discourse of schooling seemed to be very strong, although it was also a matter of personal choices by teachers and learners. An 'official' image of Apartheid, with clear differentiations between victims and perpetrators prevailed. Personal stories were only situated in formal discourses of schooling before or after the actual lesson (learners speaking with the teacher about their personal experiences of or reactions to violence) or when 'others' were present, be it learners from 'another' community than the majority of learners and the teacher, or be it the researcher. Thirdly, a discourse of reconstructing personal histories and identities had more space in informal discourses (for example learners talking to one another during breaks) and during interviews with me. South African youth might have (similar to German and Irish youth) a 'fatigue' towards 'official', 'consensus' knowledge of the past and they might not to be able or not want to make sense of the 'wall' of silenced personal stories of those who have experienced the conflicts in the past. Fourthly, 'sensitive issues' were mostly expressed outside the classroom interactions. These were violence in past and present; moral stances towards violence and responsibility; schooling (teaching but also disciplining); and stereotypes people have of 'other' South Africans and the separate lives they have.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 78-82). / The investigation seeks to establish whether vital information is lost or not communicated properly due to differences in language between medical practitioners and patients. In particular the thesis is concerned with English-speaking doctors and their Xhosa-speaking patients in Cape Town. This thesis studies interactions between ten Xhosa patients and five English-speaking doctors at the Red Cross hospital in Cape Town. It examines terminological issues, especially the names for illness as understood by doctors and patients. It also examines communication difficulties pertaining to a lack of complete fluency in the respective second languages. Culture-bound assumptions about illness and communication of important information are also studied. The thesis contends that vital information does tend to be minimised or even lost and examines the consequences of this loss, and makes recommendations in order to minimise miscommunication and enhance communication.

Home renovation workers have historically belonged to the blue-collar workforce. Their jobs are often stereotyped as less cognitively complex than those belonging to their white-collar counterparts. While prior research has revealed the cognitive complexity of such work, there is still a gap in research investigating the literacy practices of “blue-collar” workplaces. Through the lenses of New Literacy Studies and activity theory, this case study examines the texts used in a room remodel, the literacy practices surrounding the texts, and the sociocultural implications of these practices. Through document-based and retrospective interviews, the primary participant is given a voice in identifying and describing the practices and values associated with the texts in his workplace. Literacies identified during interviews are examined in context through observations. The findings indicate the importance of texts not just for facilitating the renovation work, but for developing the social relationships necessary for working together. Influenced by the work of Brandt and Clinton, this study looks beyond the limits of the local to examine how the literacy practices of home renovation workers shape and are shaped by globalizing forces. By situating home renovation work within the larger network of the Information Age, this study questions the extent to which new workplace literacies are blurring the line between knowledge work and manual labor.

Syftet med föreliggande studie är att synliggöra bilden av skriftsamhället i läromedel i svenska som andraspråk genom att undersöka vilka skriftpraktiker som representeras. Materi-alet består av fyra böcker för studieväg 1 på sfi. Det teoretiska ramverket och analysverktygen är hämtade från New Literacy Studies. Metoden är en kvalitativ textanalys där innehållet ka-tegoriseras efter skrifthändelser som i sin tur bildar skriftpraktiker. Resultatet visar att det finns fyra dominerande skriftpraktiker i böckerna. I två av dem fungerar skrift som ett red-skap. Skrift används för att informera, i synnerhet utanför hemmets domän. Det används, med eller utan kontakt med en yrkesverksam, för att utnyttja olika tjänster och resurser. Det finns även två praktiker där skriften har en mer central roll. Det är skriftpraktiker som syftar till skolrelaterad inlärning eller till avkoppling. En slutsats är att framställningen av skriftbruket ger en bild av ett samhälle där information sprids med skrift, där skrift inte sällan har en kommersiell anknytning och där det fria skrivandet och skriftbruk i umgänget är underrepresenterat.

The purpose of this study was to investigate museum learning by describing the experiences of selected museum visitors who viewed a specified exhibit. The research question is: How does a museum exhibit function as a literacy event for viewers? The responses to interview questions described what viewing was like for two subjects. The paradigm for this research is New Literacy Studies (NLS). NLS considers the cultural issues surrounding literacy experiences. NLS assumes that language arts reflect cultural differences and literacy involves the process of constructing meaning (Barton, Hamilton, & Ivanic, 2000; Gee, 2000; Street, 1995). This model of literacy considers three factors of literacy: the literacy practice, the literacy event and the text (Barton & Hamilton, 2000). The literacy practice for this dissertation was museum visiting. The literacy event was viewing one museum exhibit. Through research in multiliteracies (Cope & Kalantzis, 2000), objects and written discourse constituted the text. Two high school subjects spent 15 minutes viewing a specified exhibit on separate occasions. They were asked seven questions designed to aid their recall. The Contextual Model of Learning (Falk & Dierking, 2000) was used for describing the phenomenon and for the analyses of the data. The Contextual Model of Learning describes museum learning as the interaction of three spheres: the Physical Context, the Personal Context, and the Socio-cultural Context. The Physical Context was analyzed through narrative description, the Personal Context through micro-analysis (Corbin, 1998; Miles & Huberman, 1994), and the Socio-cultural Context through Critical Discourse Analysis (Fairclough, 1995; Meyer, 2001; van Dijk, 2001; Wodak, 2001). The results show the Physical Context of a museum exhibit facilitates viewers in accessing their Personal and Socio-cultural Contexts to make meaning. The data indicated the subjects of this study formed global concepts, supported main ideas with specific details, constructed cause and effect relationships, formed comparisons, and engaged in other types of cognitive behaviors as they interacted with the text. The results also indicated that the Contextual Model of Learning would best describe the literacy event if the model showed the dominance of the Personal and Socio-cultural Contexts over the Physical Contents.

No abstract available. / Thesis (Ph.D.)-University of Natal, Durban, 1996.