Philosophiae Doctor - PhD / This thesis is an exploration of the historical, socio-cultural, economic, and political settings in which identities are negotiated and performed among Cameroonian immigrants in Cape Town. Focusing on language as localized practices and different interaction regimes, the thesis investigates how Cameroonian immigrants maintain and reconfigure the Anglophone/Francophone identity options in novel and hybrid ways. In addition, the study examines how ideologies favouring different languages are reproduced and challenged in translocal and transnational discourses. Guided by the poststructuralist theories the thesis explores the stance that reality is socially constructed, based on symbolic and material structural limitations that are challenged and maintained in interaction. That is, whatever we do or believe in, is supported by some historical or cultural frames of meanings in our lived world, which often gives room to some manoeuvre to do things in a new way. The study adopts a multiplex interpretive approach to data collection. This entails a qualitative sociolinguistic approach where interviews, discussion and observations at different socio-economic places namely; meetings, workplaces, homes, restaurants, drinking spots and many sites from all over Cape Town, were explored. The study suggests that Cameroonians have a multiplicity of identity options, which are manifested and negotiated performatively through language, dress code, song, food, business, and other practices that comprise their lifestyles. These identities are translocal and transnational in nature, and tend to blend South African, Cameroonian, and even American traits. It is also suggests that the different identity options which they manifest are highly mobile, enabling Cameroonians to fit into South African social structures as well as the Cameroonian ways of doing things. Additionally, the multiplicity of identities that Cameroonians manifest, blur the fault-line between Anglophone/Francophone identities. It is evident from the study that hybridity and the reconstruction practices are not only confined to languages. Hybridity also extends to discourse orders especially in terms of how meetings are conducted. The Cameroonian meetings captured through the activities of Mifi Association and CANOWACAT are characterised by ‘disorder of discourse’ in which both formal and informal versions of English and French are used separately or as amalgams alongside CPE and their national languages, not only in side talks, but also when contributing to the meeting proceedings. Ultimately, the study concludes that Cameroonians are social actors making up an indispensable part of the social interaction in the Cape Town Diaspora. Just as they influence the languages, the entrepreneurial practices, and spaces in which they interact, the Cameroonian immigrants are also transformed. The major contribution of the study is that it adds to the recent debates about the nature of multilingualism and identities in late modern society. It emphasises that languages and identities are fluid, complex, and unstable. The distinction or boundaries between the various languages in multilingual practices are also not as clear-cut. This leads to a reframing of voice and actor hood as meaning is constructed across translocal and transnational contexts and domains in a networked world transformed by the mobility of endless flows of information, goods, ideas, and people. Thus, the study contributes to those arguing for a paradigm shift in sociolinguistic theory in which language is not a property of groups, nor is it an autonomous and bounded system fixed in time and space. Thus, identities, languages and the spaces of interaction are not fixed systems; identities, languages, and spaces are dynamic and in a state of flux. This in turn questions the notions of multilingualism and language itself, as well as the veracity of concepts such as code-switching, speech community, language variation, as the search for a sociolinguistic framework that can deal with phenomena predicated by motion, instability, and uncertainty, continues. / South Africa

Magister Artium - MA / This study explores the linguistic landscape of Metrorail in the Western Cape, South Africa. The Western Cape is a diverse, multicultural society with a history of colonialism and imperialism. For this reason, the language/s on signage was explored to reveal differences/similarities between the various groups and cultures within society.This kind of investigation entailed consideration of the signage displayed on trains,stations and other railway infrastructure. Thus, data was collected over a three-month period during 2010 which coincided with the FIFA Soccer World Cup, hosted by South Africa. A combined quantitative and qualitative approach for the analysis of data was supplemented with a multimodal, multi-semiotic approach. In addition, interviews were conducted of a cross-section of commuters as a way to give meaning to the analysis of the quantitative and qualitative data. The analysis explored the extent to which multilingualism and multiculturalism are reflected in the linguistic landscape of Metrorail.The focus of the study was on the degree of visibility of the official and non-official languages on signage, as faced by Metrorail commuters. The findings of the study reveal that the interplay between power relations, prestige, symbolic value, identity and vitality in the linguistic landscape of Metrorail results in a somewhat limited display of multilingualism. The findings also reflect the changed language attitudes and perceptions, the maintenance of power relations, the expression of identity, and the desire to be perceived in a certain way, in a broader South African context. Furthermore,the data reveals that the actual linguistic reality does not accurately reflect the aims of the Western Cape language policy in terms of promoting multilingualism. Moreover, it reveals that English is the preferred language of wider communication and it is also the dominant language on the official and non-official signage in the public space. Although the indigenous African languages, along with Afrikaans, are generally neglected in the public space, these languages are widely spoken by Metrorail commuters. The linguistic landscape of Metrorail therefore does not accurately reflect the linguistic reality of the various speech communities in the Western Cape. The linguistic landscape of Metrorail serves to index the broader social developments of the transformed sociolinguistic South African identity.

Philosophiae Doctor - PhD / The focus of the thesis is conceptually-based and problematizes the notion of a transformed society while addressing and evaluating its meaning in the multicultural post-apartheid neighbourhood of Observatory, Cape Town. Confluent concepts such as ‘multilingualism’, ‘hybridity’ and ‘community’ are discussed within the historical and contemporary context of a newly established democratic South Africa. Through a poststructuralist discourse analysis, the study endeavours to explore discourses of language and identity in the previously predominantly English-speaking community of Observatory. It is hoped that this research will build upon knowledge of inter alia social interaction, translocations and community membership, identity, language and integration in Observatory. Focus therefore rest on issues such as hybridity, identity options, translocal and transnational cultural flows, localization and globalization. All these issues fall under the broader theme of discourse of transformation and integration in multilingual spaces. The study strictly works within the framework of a qualitative approach with the focus resting on a discourse analysis of generated narratives supplied by informants during interviews and temporal and spatial descriptions of research sites. Arising from this study it is hoped that a deeper understanding of migration, transnational and transcultural flows, hybridity and identity will be reached. Critically, this study delves into two ‘new’ areas which subsume sociolinguistics, specifically semiotic landscape and place branding. Exploration into the appropriation of space by ‘newcomers’ and the subsequent reimaginings of space into place are of keen interest here. In this respect, this study aims at shedding light on recurrent, contesting and and new imaginings of diversity in post-apartheid living.

On 15 February 2007, the previous Minister of Education, Mrs Naledi Pandor reacted to a Democratic Alliance press release by stating that she strongly supported the use of Afrikaans and other native languages as media of instruction in schools. In the same speech she said that Section 29(2) of the Constitution does not see single-medium schools as a right, but as an educational alternative that, together with other alternatives, including double and parallel medium, should be explored in giving effect to the right to education in a language of choice, taking into account fairness, feasibility and the need to restore the injustices of the past (Pandor, 2007). If we look at four recent court cases, we are getting a totally different picture. In all four cases, the Department of Education tried to change single medium schools to double or parallel medium schools. These cases are: <ul> <li> Hoërskool Ermelo v Department van Onderwys;</li> <li> Seodin Primary School and Others v MEC of Education;</li> <li> Western Cape Minister of Education v Governing Body of Mikro Primary School;</li> <li> Laerskool Middelburg en 'n Ander v Departementshoof;</li> </ul> What happened to getting educated in a language of choice, and what about the right of the direct community, through the Governing Body’s decision on that language? Does a school policy, adopted by a School Governing Body, have legality? In line with these questions we may ask; do judges properly decide on rulings in these matters? The purpose of my study is to investigate how schools may establish a well written language policy that will be in line with legal requirements, ensuring that a school can exercise its language policy and medium of teaching in the school. With the ministry propagating one thing, but doing something else, certain duties, delegated to the Governing Body, but very easily taken away, and judges not always being consistent, feeling is that matters should be investigated. The Education Management, Law and Policy Studies provides us with a framework, in order to investigate the legitimacy of language policies in South Africa. This framework articulates that law forms the building blocks for educational management. This research takes its departing point in legal positivism, which holds that everything should be done as closely as prescribed by the law. Section 29(2) of the Constitution reads: “Everyone has the right to receive education in the official language or languages of their choice in public educational institutions where that education is reasonably practicable. In order to ensure the effective access to, and implementation of this right, the state must consider all reasonable educational alternatives, including single medium institutions, taking into account: <ul> <li> equity;</li> <li> practicability; and</li> <li> the need to redress the results of past racially discriminatory laws and practices.”</li> </ul> In this study an in depth investigation is conducted into the four recent court cases, where the situations of those schools were more or less similar. Two of the schools were allowed to continue as single medium Afrikaans schools, but the others were forced to change their language policy to either dual or parallel medium Afrikaans-English schools. The main aim of this study is to provide a better understanding as to why the judgements in the above mentioned court cases differ and to investigate the measures schools can take to prevent confrontation with similar situations. Copyright / Dissertation (MEd)--University of Pretoria, 2010. / Education Management and Policy Studies / unrestricted

Utveckling av det svenska språket hos nyanlända barn i förskolan är en empirisk studie om pedagogernas arbetssätt, metoder och strategier för att främja nyanlända barns språkutveckling samt betydelsen av modersmålet för språkutvecklingen. Sex kvalitativa intervjuer genomfördes med sex pedagoger verksamma vid fem förskolor i mångkulturella områden i en medelstor stad i Sverige. De teoretiska utgångspunkterna som ligger till grund för studien är Vygotskijs sociokulturella teori, Piagets teori av den kognitiva utvecklingen, samt Bruners teori om språkutveckling. I resultaten har framkommit att utvecklig av det svenska språket hos nyanlända barn upplevs som en utmaning men samtidigt som en spännande uppgift för pedagogerna. Det har visat sig att trygghet, barns samspel, pedagogers närvaro och stöd, tecken- och kroppsspråk, olika stödmateral samt modersmålet är avgörande för barns språkutveckling. / Development of the Swedish language of newly-arrived children in preschools is an empirical study about preschool-teachers’ work procedures, their methods and strategies for supporting newly-arrived children’s language development and about the importance of the children’s mother tongue for their language development. Six qualitative interviews were conducted with preschool teachers working in five different preschools in multicultural areas in a medium-sized town in Sweden. The theories that form the basis for the study are Vygotskij’s sociocultural theory, Piaget’s theory of the cognitive development, and Bruner’s theory of language development. The result of the study shows that preschool teachers have experienced the process of the Swedish language development of newly-arrived children as a challenging as well as an exciting task. It has been also revealed that feeling of safety, interaction among children, presence and support of preschool teachers, sign and body language, various support material and mother tongue are crucial for children´s language development.

Depuis le début des années 2000, de nombreux travaux se sont consacrés à l’analyse et l’évaluation de l'impact des curricula d'Éveil aux langues sur les acquisitions des élèves. Malgré un impact positif, ces recherches font état de la difficulté persistante rencontrée par les élèves pour transférer des compétences métalinguistiques acquises dans le cadre de l'Éveil vers des compétences en langue de l'école (ici le français). L'origine de la faiblesse de ces transferts et, en particulier, ceux relevant des domaines de la grammaire chez des élèves du primaire est encore méconnue. Notre thèse consiste à interroger la multiplicité des obstacles à ce type de "transfert". L'une des premières hypothèses se situe dans la différence d’approche didactique entre l’Éveil aux langues et le français, entre d’une part une didactique/pédagogie socio-constructiviste, inductive, favorisant une attitude de curiosité et des conflits sociocognitifs lors de situations-problèmes, et d’autre part une didactique traditionnelle magistro-centrée, déductive où l’application des règles et l’exercisation engendrent soumission et passivité tout en ne permettant pas l’émergence d’une posture métalinguistique. Notre deuxième hypothèse se situe dans les ressorts de l’agir professoral, des représentations de la discipline « français », liée à la différence de valeur symbolique ainsi qu’à sa socio-histoire. A terme, le poids des représentations enseignantes associées au français pourrait constituer l’hypothèse centrale dès lors qu'elles influencent en amont et /ou font écho aux « représentations culturelles obstacles » des élèves. / Since early 2000, many researches were dedicated to the influence of « awakening to languages » for language acquisition. On the basis of these works it is suggested that transfer of metalinguistic competences acquired by young french pupils during « awakening to languages » activities is not transfered in explicit french grammar. Thus the aim of this thesis is centered on the various problems encountered in this type of transfert phenomena.Our first hypothesis is that different approaches to teaching can explain these bad results and lack of awareness. On one hand, « awakening to languages » has a student-centered approach, including participation, based on inductive reasoning process with problem-solving techniques, and leading to increased curiosity. On the other hand, french grammar activities has a didactic approach (teacher-centered), based on deductive reasoning process, leading to dependent, anxious learners. Our second hypothesis suggests that social representations of the french curriculum, in particular grammar (including spelling), due to his symbolic value and history, influences approaches to teaching and therefore the pupil cultural and cognitive representations. It seems than that these social representations of teachers could be an important variable of transfer phenomena.

Syftet med denna studie är att beskriva vilka metoder och undervisningsstrategier lärare inom årskurs 1 använder för att flerspråkiga elever ska stödjas och förstå de matematiska begreppen som lärs ut. Den valda metoden är intervjuer. Resultatet visar flera olika metoder och undervisningsstrategier som lärare använder, laborativt material, bildstöd, digitala verktyg, kamratstöd och hjälp från annan pedagogisk personal. / The purpose of this study is to describe which methods and teaching strategies teachers in grade 1 use to support multilingual students and to understand the mathematical concepts that are being taught. The chosen method is interviews. The results show several different methods and teaching strategies that teachers use, practical materials, image support, digital tools, peer support and help from other educational staff.

We want to investigate what language norms prevail in leisure centers and how these affect current multilingualism and mother tongue. We will touch on the translanguaging method and consider whether it can be implemented in the leisure center business. The language norm differs between different leisure activities, where some teachers encourage students to speak their own languages with other students with the same language, while other activities are against this.  In order to have a positive development, it is important to have a secure identity. What is meant by identity? Identity is a concept that has different interpretations. In general, it can be said that identity isabout how a person sees themselves and memories from one's life experience, thoughts and feelings (Gudrun Svensson, National Agency for Education, 2018 article 1). There are two different definitions of multilingualism - simultaneous and successive, where simultaneous multilingualism means that the individual learns several languages at the same time and successive multilingualism means that the individual already has knowledge of a language when theystart learning a new one. In this study, the theoretical review of current research and text analysis will be deepened by interviews.The purpose of the interviews is to supplement the knowledge that a review of existing research in the field provides. Based on the research we have used as a theoretical framework, it becomes clear that an activity that rests on a monolingual norm and also bans languages other than Swedish, contributes to insecurity for those students who have a mother tongue other than the majority language.

Philosophiae Doctor - PhD / In highly mobile societies, the voice and agency of speakers will differ across contexts depending on the linking of forms and functions. This thesis is thus about the complexities introduced to the notion of (form-function linkages) multilingualism in late-modern globalizing and mobile Cape Town in transition. Essentially, it takes its point of departure in the idea that multilingualism is a 'spatial concept', i.e. the form that interacting languages take, how they are practiced by speakers and how multilingualism is perceived, is determined to a large extent by the affordanees of particular 'places'. In order to research this, I postulate that a major parameter in the organization and differentiation of places is that of scale. The thesis studies two research sites that can be considered as diametrical opposites on a scale from local (descaled) to translocal (upscaled), namely Hip-Hop performances at Stones, Kuilsriver, and Mzoli's Meat at Gugulethu. Although both sites are found in local townships, they differ in terms of their basic semiotics. That is to say, to what extent the interactions, physical spaces, and activities, are infused with local meaning and local values (downscaled in the case of Hip-Hop) - granted this may be a problematic concept - and to what extent the semiotics of place areoriented towards upscaling or transnational values and practices (upscaled in the case of Mzoli's Meat). Each of these sites is characterized in terms of the assemblage of trans modal semiotics that contribute to defining it as a place of descaling and upscaling (buildings, linguistic landscapes, patterns of interaction and movement and posture, stylizations of selves, artifactual identities (car makes, et cetera). We find that the Hip-Hop site is 'predominantly' local in branding, in who participates, and in the linguistic landscape and the aesthetics of photographic embroidery. Mzoli's Meat, on the other hand, with its ATMs, sit-down-for-tourist-spaces, and international website, is very much more upscaled. A discussion of 'normative orders of multilingualism' pertinent or dominant in each site is also provided. Thus in the local or descaled site of Hip-Hop, a core ordering of multiple languages is in terms of economic value (consumption) with respect to what each language, or variety of language, contributes to 'keeping it real', that is, creating 'extreme locality'. Repertoires are 'ordered' - discussed - and seen to evolve and gain value in terms of a particular social trajectory of speakers, namely their trajectory and history - as temporally narrated - towards becoming a Hip-Hop head and a key actor in 'keeping it rear. In the context of Mzoli's Meat, the semiotics of the upscaled market generate talk about and perceptions of multilingualism in terms of the translocal encounter -linguistic/multilingual repertoires are seen as relevant to, or organized along the lines, of the temporary encounter, and in respect to the value of the languages in facilitating translocal engagements (Dutch, English). Thus, we note how the notion of repertoire is a fluid concept that can be organized and talked about in relation to different standards, trajectories, determined by normative orders of different scaled spaces. Returning to the key question addressed of how these spaces are semiotically constituted and how they constrain or 'prototypically' facilitate particular kinds of voice and agency in more detail, the thesis introduces key concepts of performance, stylization, entextualization and enregisterment. A key feature of doing or constituting places from spaces is the kind of interactions, participants and linguistic eonstruals/productions that take place there. In a highly multilingual society, places/spaces are often normatively contested or contestable. The theoretical concepts provide the framework for charting how different personae are voiced through, that is, entextualized and stylized in the interaction of different languages (in relation to the normative order or in how the combination of languages in voices and their competition more or less successfully enacted or perform the personae/voice), and how these voices/personae are enreqistered, thatis, the competitive processes in the linguistic conventionalization of the voices, and in the simultaneous construction of the downscaled and upscaled spaces. Thus, in the Hip-Hop context, the multilingual voices are designed to produce local personae, whereas in Mzoli's Meat, the performed personae on linguistic display are various and normatively transgressing, emphasizing polycentric normativities as against the mono centric normativity of the downscaled and extreme local context. Enregisterment is shown in the Hip-Hop context to be driven by the construction of extreme locality, whereas in Mzoli's Meat, the performance by the comedian of translocal and mobile voices serve to enregister a translanguaged variety of multilingualism. Thus, we see here how different normative orders of multilingualism (that is different values, forms and combinations oflanguages) that are afforded by the scaled nature of particular places, are layered into and through different social personae or voices. In fact, it is the (semiotic) work in stylizing and entextualizing these voices, and in enregistering them that help produce these differently scaled places (in conjunction with other semiotic means as noted above). How then do these findings inform the issue of linguistically mediated agency in mobile societies? Much politics takes place outside of the formal spheres and institutions of society. Popular spaces are central political sites where a variety of everyday micro and macro-sociopolitical issues are dealt with. In this thesis, we find among other issues dealt with is that 'authenticity' within the Hip-Hop context is a predominant issue, and in Mzoli's Meat, the social political issues of the day are racialized encounters and their implications. In each of these sites, language and multilingualism is paramount in (a) positioning political interests (through personae and voices) and (b) in contesting and working through the normativities of the place in question. Thus, agency emanates from the ability of the speaker to appropriately position the (linguistically mediated) voice/personae in a contested and scaled space in a way that this voice becomes enregistered, and thus legitimated and 'heard'. This is a process of possible transgression - or at least competition - on the one hand, as well as creative 'conformity' or repetition of registers and repertoires according to fluid, constructed normativities. What this then reveals is the value of a concept of linguistic or multilingual citizenship, which is here taken to refer to the agency constituted through non-institutional means where language negotiations are transgressive and central to the creation of a normative order of (local) voices. Therefore, this thesis provides an insight into the complexities of agency (en registered, scaled voice) in mobile, multilingual and scaled Cape Town.

In South Africa, the medium-of-instruction (MOI) debate has continued to demand the attention of educators and academics, particularly after the promulgation of the 1997 multilingual language-in-education (LIE) policy and the introduction of the OBE-NCS curriculum in the schools. Using a survey questionnaire, classroom observations and focused interviews, this study aims at establishing how teachers in selected urban and rural high schools in the Mthatha District understand, interpret and implement MOI policies within their practice. It also seeks to establish reasons for implementing the MOI policies in the ways they do. The study utilizes Phillipson’s English Linguistic Imperialism Theory, Brock-Utne’s Qualification Analysis, and Vygotsky’s Social Constructivism to explain the findings. The main findings of the study are that MOI policies are not implemented uniformly in urban and rural contexts or within each context. Learner linguistic profiles, mismatch between a teacher’s home language (HL) and that of his/her learners, the subject being offered, the need to promote understanding of content, teachers’ understandings, misconceptions and beliefs about the role of language in education: all these were found to be factors which may influence a teacher’s language choice during lesson delivery. Generally, teachers endorse the use of English as a language of learning and teaching (LOLT) at high school, together with the learners’ HL. Although some teachers believe that they use English mainly for teaching, indigenous languages are also used extensively, especially in rural and township schools; code-switching, code-mixing, translation, repetition, and township lingo all make the curriculum more accessible to learners. The anomaly is that assessments are conducted only in English, even in contexts in which teaching has been mainly in code-switching mode. An English-only policy was employed in the following situations: in a desegregated urban school; in a rural high school where there was a mismatch between the teacher’s HL and that of his learners; and also in a rural high school where English was offered as a subject. The most cited reasons for using English only as an LOLT were: school language policy, teachers seeing themselves as language role models, the use of English as a LOLT at tertiary level, and past teacher training experiences. The study concludes that the major factors influencing school language policies in a multilingual country such as South Africa are the school context and the teacher and learner profiles. In addition, teaching and assessing learners in languages with which they are familiar, as well as using interactive teaching strategies, would develop learner proficiency, adaptability and creative qualifications, resulting in an improved quality of education. / Thesis (PhD)--University of Pretoria, 2011. / Education Management and Policy Studies / unrestricted