This thesis is an exploration of tabooed literary creations that it terms carnival literature. To achieve the objective of establishing the effectiveness of posting material on Facebook walls of the selected group and individual accounts to escape censorship, the thesis compared traditional graffiti, particularly latrinalia, to ‗cyber‘ graffiti (social media) with Facebook as a case study.
Lev Vygotsky‘s Activity Theory helped the study link graffiti, vulgarities, humour and Facebook to the Ndebele society‘s response to tabooing of carnival literature. The thesis argued that participating in traditional graffiti production and coming up with posts on a Facebook wall is a
deliberate effort with a target audience just as other genres of literature have. However, society tends to condemn carnival literature as a rebellious genre that deserves exclusion from ‗normal‘
interaction. Carnival literature is therefore censored through tabooing its themes and language.
The term carnival literature is derived from medieval performances that were named the ‗carnivalesque‘ by Bakhtin and have equivalents in Africa as a continent and in Zimbabwe as a nation. The characteristics of carnivality are found in both traditional graffiti and ‗cyber‘ graffiti.
These, among others, include sex and sexuality as themes, obscenities, vulgarities, and all language that is considered offensive. Interestingly, these elements of carnivality evoke laughter
of one kind or another. Latrinalia from selected public toilets from the city of Bulawayo was photographed and subjected to Critical Discourse Analysis with attention being paid to carnivality, Bakhtinian dialogism and humour and its impact on the interaction process. Posts on
walls of the selected Facebook group and individual accounts were subjected to the same treatment that was given traditional graffiti. The thesis argues that social media can perform a
similar function to that of traditional graffiti with added advantages. Social media has created world communities that are brought together by common interests and platforms where they meet and share ideas. The study also established that messages have layers of meaning, making it unreasonable to ban certain messages since they serve a particular purpose. Social media, particularly Facebook, provides pockets of privacy for candid and unfettered interaction that
service specific audiences among the Ndebele; hence can function as the escape route for carnival literature from cultural censorship in Zimbabwe. / African Languages / D. Phil. (African Languages)
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:unisa/oai:uir.unisa.ac.za:10500/27415 |
| Date | 11 1900 |
| Creators | Dube, Liketso |
| Contributors | Mutasa, D. E., Mheta, Gift |
| Source Sets | South African National ETD Portal |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
| Format | 1 online resource (xi, 180 leaves) : illustrations, color graphs, color photographs, application/pdf |
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