South African indigenous language teaching and learning materials do not provide sufficient information to help additional language learners learn the target languages effectively. While there are institutions that are tasked with developing and sharpening the skills of students in speaking South African indigenous languages, such students hardly, if at all master the art of speaking them eloquently. Students who study these languages in order to converse proficiently with their mother-tongue speakers experience insurmountable difficulties, in spite of various efforts made by the teachers who train them to read books on their own. Passing their examinations does not mean that the students’ ability to communicate with mother-tongue speakers will improve to the extent of eliminating the prevailing misunderstanding between the two groups. The persistence of this problem reveals a discrepancy between the studies of indigenous languages in South Africa and the way of speaking them, whereby important linguistic elements that make communication more authentic are excluded in language materials. This study analyses the use and significance of CIFWs in daily interactions by investigating the two Xhosa CIFWs words wethu and bethu. The overall aim of this study is to explore the use of a corpus in the examination of CIFWs in general, and wethu and bethu in particular. Both a quantitative approach based on the Gothenburg-Unisa spoken corpus and a qualitative approach based on Allwoods’ ACA theoretical framework were used in the analysis and description of the functions and significances of wethu and bethu as communicative and interactive function words. / Linguistics / MA ((Applied Linguistics)

Le procès civil est le cadre traditionnel de réalisation de la justice des particuliers, et les règles qui le gouvernent se trouvent synthétisées dans les 24 premiers articles du CPC qui en énoncent les principes directeurs. Ces derniers organisent la répartition des charges processuelles entre les différents acteurs du procès, et déterminent ainsi l’essentiel de l’office du juge qui est construit autour du modèle contentieux du procès civil, taillé pour le juge du fond. Cependant, ce modèle subit des atténuations pour des raisons principalement d’équité ou de diligence, alors même que l’affaire qui est soumise au juge relève de la matière contentieuse. Dans la procédure gracieuse et dans celle de cassation, c’est la nature de la mission confiée au juge qui justifie parfois les atténuations apportées à ces principes, et parfois même leur effacement. Par ailleurs, l’action du juge à l’égard de ces principes directeurs va aussi dans le sens de leur adaptation aux évolutions juridiques et socio-économiques. Elle se traduit essentiellement d’une part, par une recherche d’effectivité de ces principes que le juge civil français n’hésite plus à rattacher à des normes supérieures, et d’autre part, par une recherche de leur efficience par le biais des techniques d’interprétation. Si dans le premier cas les phénomènes d’internationalisation et de constitutionnalisation du droit permettent d’expliquer une telle action, dans le second, se pose la question de la légitimité de la démarche. Notre pensée est que le juge d’aujourd’hui est aussi un juge gestionnaire dans un contexte d’accroissement de la demande de justice et de raréfaction des ressources allouées à la justice / Civil trial is the traditional framework where justice of individuals is usually delivered, and the rules which govern it are synthesized in the first 24 articles of the code of civil procedure which set out the guiding principles. The latter organize the sharing of procedural responsibilities between the different actors of the lawsuit, and determine the main part of the office of the judge built around the contentious model of the civil proceedings, cut for the ruling on the judges of the affairs. This model undergoes legal mitigations, mainly for reasons of equity or diligence, even though the case which is submitted to the judge is a matter of the contentious material. In the submission for an out-of-court settlement and that of the appeal to the supreme court, it is the nature of the mission entrusted to the judge who sometimes justifies the mitigations brought to these guiding principles, and sometimes even their disappearance. The action of the judge towards these principles also goes to the direction of their adaptation to evolutions so legal as Socio-Economic. It is essentially translated on the one hand, by a research for effectiveness of these principles which the judge does not hesitate to connect with superior standards, and on the other hand, by a research for their efficiency by means of the technique of interpretation. If in the first case the internationalization and constitutionnalisation explain such an action, the second case raises itself the question of the legitimacy of such an approach. Today’s judge is also a manager, especially in an increasing context of justice request and rarefaction of the resources assigned to the judicial administration

South African indigenous language teaching and learning materials do not provide sufficient information to help additional language learners learn the target languages effectively. While there are institutions that are tasked with developing and sharpening the skills of students in speaking South African indigenous languages, such students hardly, if at all master the art of speaking them eloquently. Students who study these languages in order to converse proficiently with their mother-tongue speakers experience insurmountable difficulties, in spite of various efforts made by the teachers who train them to read books on their own. Passing their examinations does not mean that the students’ ability to communicate with mother-tongue speakers will improve to the extent of eliminating the prevailing misunderstanding between the two groups. The persistence of this problem reveals a discrepancy between the studies of indigenous languages in South Africa and the way of speaking them, whereby important linguistic elements that make communication more authentic are excluded in language materials. This study analyses the use and significance of CIFWs in daily interactions by investigating the two Xhosa CIFWs words wethu and bethu. The overall aim of this study is to explore the use of a corpus in the examination of CIFWs in general, and wethu and bethu in particular. Both a quantitative approach based on the Gothenburg-Unisa spoken corpus and a qualitative approach based on Allwoods’ ACA theoretical framework were used in the analysis and description of the functions and significances of wethu and bethu as communicative and interactive function words. / Linguistics and Modern Languages / M.A. (Applied Linguistics)