Thesis (M.A. (African Languages)) -- University of Limpopo, 2004 / Refer to the document / Department of Sports, Arts and Culture

Thesis (M.A. (African Languages)) -- University of Limpopo, 2002 / Refer to document

Thesis (M.A. (African Languages)) --University of the North, 2003 / Refer to the document

Thesis (Ph. D. (Tshivenda)) -- University of Limpopo, 2010 / Refer to document

Thesis (M. A. (Tshivenda)) --University of Limpopo, 2011 / The mini-dissertation shows that language and culture go hand in hand. For instance, in Tshivenḓa taboos are largely reflected through language. This study highlights social taboos that exist in Tshivenḓa and how they impact on Tshivenḓa as a language. If someone does not understand the language that is used to express taboos, he or she is likely to violate these taboos. The study deals with social taboos pertaining to marriage, death, birth, relations between relatives and strangers and so on. Nowadays these taboos are becoming unfamiliar and as such this negatively impacts on the use of Tshivenḓa as well as relations among people.

Thesis (M. A. (English Studies)) -- University of Limpopo, 2015 / Whereas research has exponentially increased on the understanding of new varieties of English worldwide, there is a paucity of studies that have assessed the degree to which Black South African English is shared and understood across a wider spectrum of the Bantu language speaking communities in South Africa. Because of this, research has been inconclusive on causes and frequencies of identified linguistic properties of the variety. This study investigated the tense and aspect usages in English among mother tongue speakers of Tshivenda learners to develop a taxonomy of characteristic features, sources of production and frequency of occurrence in an educational context. The study focused more attention on the role of mother tongue substrate system which transfers its features to the target language. After a contrastive analysis of the collected data, learners’ essays and storytelling, the findings of the study indicate that the occurrence of tense and aspect properties among grade 11 learners is first language (L1) induced and rule-governed. Secondly, the results show that the features occur with high frequency, suggesting that they are institutionalised. In particular, the study denotes that expressions of temporal reasoning follow the L1 grammatical structure that favours external formation to the verb phrase; i.e., verbal arguments are preferred to morphological conjugations. Based on these findings, it is concluded that the logic of temporal reasoning, described as Bantu language logic as developed by Makalela (2004, 2007, and 2013), rather than grammatical forms, is transferred in the production of BSAE tense and aspect properties. When seen in this light, it is evident that BSAE cuts across different Bantu languages of South Africa, it has evolved towards being an endonormative variety, relying on its own internal logic (substrate forms) to be a new and distinct variety of English. In the end, recommendations for more robust and large scale studies in high prestige domains such as the media and institutions of higher learning are made for augmentation of these findings.

Thesis (Ph.D. (Media Studies)) -- University of Limpopo, 2019 / This study focuses on the impact of social media towards conserving African languages, particularly Sepedi, Tshivenda and Xitsonga. Social media are given attention to explore their impact in conserving African languages amongst youth. Youth is a suitable group to focus on as they are the future and are thus expected to carry their African languages and pass them on to succeeding generations. This exercise should be done to ensure that African languages should not face extinction in the future. Generally, youth are constant users of social media platforms, hence it is cardinal to investigate their language-usage patterns on social media platforms. The majority of the African youth in South Africa use either one or more of the nine (9) indigenous African languages that are official, namely, isiNdebele, isiXhosa, isiZulu, Sepedi, Sesotho, Setswana, siSwati, Tshivenda, and Xitsonga. Therefore, one would expect speakers of these indigenous African languages to effectively use them on social media, particularly, Facebook, Twitter, and WhatsApp. African language heritage is undoubtedly a valuable resource, however, it needs state resources to develop it further and establish it as a core economic driver on various media platforms. The study employs exploratory and descriptive designs. These designs are appropriate for this study because it permits data to be collected through observations, focus group interviews and questionnaires. Focus group interviews, observations, and questionnaires were used to collect data. Focus group is a data-collection tool for understanding people’s behaviour and attitudes. The researcher moderated three focus groups. One hundred (100) questionnaires were distributed to the participants in this study. These tools are apt for the data-collection process in this study because they assist to discover factors that influence opinions, attitudes, and behaviours. Social media have great potential to conserve the African languages but the speakers of these languages should play a cardinal role in this process. Majority of the youth do not prefer to use the African languages on social media. Conversations on both Facebook and Twitter are dominated by English as youth prefer it ahead of Sepedi, Tshivenda, and Xitsonga. In contrast, youth prefer to use the African languages on WhatsApp because they know their contacts. However, code-switching is used a lot by youth on social media. Despite the fact that Sepedi, Tshivenda, and Xitsonga are not mostly used on Facebook and Twitter they remain relevant and useful amongst their speakers on a daily basis. Nevertheless, there is a need to develop the African languages based social media sites to stimulate their usage on these platforms. Additionally, these languages should be developed to fit the needs of social media. / National Institute for the Humanities and Social Sciences (NIHSS)

In this study an attempt is made to describe the morphological apects of Tshiguvhu. In chapter 1, it is indicated that historically, there was extensive early contact between Vhaguvhu and Balobedu and Tlokwa. In ,chapters 2 and 3, nouns and pronouns are analysed morphologically. Some similarities and differences between Tshiguvhu and Tshivenda are highlighted. These differences are ascribed to influences from Lobedu and Tlokwa. In chapters 4 and 5, the form of the verb and the use of verb forms in various tenses, where applicable, are described morphologically. Some verb roots and extensions have been influenced by Northern Sotho dialects whereas some have not. In chapter 6, the morphology of adverbs, interrogatives, conjunctions, ideophones and interjections are briefly described. In conclusion, it is indicated that Tshiguvhu is a dialect of Venda because of its cultural and historical bonds with Venda, although linguistically it shares some features with certain Northern Sotho dialects. / African Languages / M.A. (African Languages)

MA (Tshivenda) / Senthara ya M.E.R.Mathivha ya Nyambo dza Afrika, Vhutsila na Mvelele / Code switching is a factor that is affecting many languages in our communities. There are so many factors that have led people to code switch. People seem to think that it is a good thing to code switch overlooking the impacts of code switching. The aim of this research is to reveal the causes of code switching and its impact on Tshivenḓa language which is regarded as one of the minority languages in Zimbabwe. This study will reveal the causes of code switching Tshivenḓa language in Beitbridge town and the impacts of doing so which include among others language death and language shift. The study will also show how shortage of books, publishing companies, presence of private schools and the uninvolvement of government has contributed to code switching of Tshivenḓa language in Beitbridge town in Zimbabwe. The study will also put forth some recommendations that can be used in order to solve this problem of code switching languages.

In this study an attempt is made to describe the morphological apects of Tshiguvhu. In chapter 1, it is indicated that historically, there was extensive early contact between Vhaguvhu and Balobedu and Tlokwa. In ,chapters 2 and 3, nouns and pronouns are analysed morphologically. Some similarities and differences between Tshiguvhu and Tshivenda are highlighted. These differences are ascribed to influences from Lobedu and Tlokwa. In chapters 4 and 5, the form of the verb and the use of verb forms in various tenses, where applicable, are described morphologically. Some verb roots and extensions have been influenced by Northern Sotho dialects whereas some have not. In chapter 6, the morphology of adverbs, interrogatives, conjunctions, ideophones and interjections are briefly described. In conclusion, it is indicated that Tshiguvhu is a dialect of Venda because of its cultural and historical bonds with Venda, although linguistically it shares some features with certain Northern Sotho dialects. / African Languages / M.A. (African Languages)