Writing and signing to develop written genres : a study of Nigerian hearing-loss students' writing
- Milaham, Rahila Samuel, Lundgren, Berit
- Authors: Milaham, Rahila Samuel , Lundgren, Berit
- Date: 2020
- Subjects: Hearing impaired children -- Nigeria -- Writing
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10948/47314 , vital:39842
- Description: The competence in writing of students with hearing loss has continued to generate concern among educational administrators, school authorities, teachers and parents (Oyetunde, 2009). Acquisition of written and signed language is vital for effective functioning of students with hearing loss in school. Writing and signing helps students to interact socially, culturally and intellectually with one another and within their social environment. Therefore, this study explores the writing of specific genres by students with hearing loss using signing and the Language Experience Approach, LEA, among Junior Secondary School (JSS 3) in a Nigerian school for the deaf. The study is a qualitative research study which was underpinned by an interpretive paradigm and was theoretically framed by Vygotsky’s (1978) sociocultural theory, semiotic theory (Pierce, 1991) and socio-semiotic theory (Thibault, 2004: Kress, 1988 & Van Leeuwen, 2005). The ideological literacy perspective (Street 1984) and literacy as a social practice have provided a lens to analyse and explore the findings Class observations, students’ signed and written text samples as well as communication with teachers were used as the methods for data collection. The intervention study, which went on for 9 weeks, involved teaching and learning of three genres, namely retelling, narrative and descriptive writing. Twenty six students and two teachers were involved in the study. For the purpose of the analysis, six out of the 26 students’ written, and signed texts were purposively selected and analysed. The students’ signed and written texts were analysed according to the structure and special features of the genres. In the retelling genre, two concepts, breadth and depth vocabulary knowledge as special features, were used for the analysis of the texts. While in the narrative, students’ signed texts and written texts were analysed to know how the students use characters, settings and events in their texts. In the descriptive genre, students’ sign and written texts were analysed to see whether they gave concise descriptions, specifically using adjectives, of the object they identified in their signed text. The findings indicate that the students could retell the contextualized event with signs, using a vocabulary mostly from a breadth perspective. They also used the structure of retelling in a chronological order. In signing the narrative genre, the students were engaged in giving examples of the genre from which they derived the components of the story form such as character and events. Some could include aspects of character vi and events in their text, while others missed one structure or the other. In general, their narrative signed texts were better developed and showed a basic understanding of the storyline. In the descriptive genre, the students could describe some objects in their classroom and school environment. These descriptions were limited to adjectives like colours, as only colours were used in the teacher’s example. In general, their descriptive signed texts were short and seemed to follow a list structure. The students’ signing in descriptive genre showed an initial awareness of the genre. In this study, the teachers scaffolded and modelled the different genres with examples, stories and prompt pictures to a varying extent. The narrative writing had more scaffolding and modelling compared with the other genres. It also generated longer texts and an awareness of the structure. The teachers also supported the students with deeper exploration of examples in the narrative genre than in the retelling and descriptive genre. Data shows teacher’s interactions with the students while signing narratives indicates an understanding on how to develop a text in story form using narrative structures. LEA turned out to be a fruitful start in the retelling genre but was not as central in the teaching practice and meaningful in students’ writing.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2020
- Authors: Milaham, Rahila Samuel , Lundgren, Berit
- Date: 2020
- Subjects: Hearing impaired children -- Nigeria -- Writing
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10948/47314 , vital:39842
- Description: The competence in writing of students with hearing loss has continued to generate concern among educational administrators, school authorities, teachers and parents (Oyetunde, 2009). Acquisition of written and signed language is vital for effective functioning of students with hearing loss in school. Writing and signing helps students to interact socially, culturally and intellectually with one another and within their social environment. Therefore, this study explores the writing of specific genres by students with hearing loss using signing and the Language Experience Approach, LEA, among Junior Secondary School (JSS 3) in a Nigerian school for the deaf. The study is a qualitative research study which was underpinned by an interpretive paradigm and was theoretically framed by Vygotsky’s (1978) sociocultural theory, semiotic theory (Pierce, 1991) and socio-semiotic theory (Thibault, 2004: Kress, 1988 & Van Leeuwen, 2005). The ideological literacy perspective (Street 1984) and literacy as a social practice have provided a lens to analyse and explore the findings Class observations, students’ signed and written text samples as well as communication with teachers were used as the methods for data collection. The intervention study, which went on for 9 weeks, involved teaching and learning of three genres, namely retelling, narrative and descriptive writing. Twenty six students and two teachers were involved in the study. For the purpose of the analysis, six out of the 26 students’ written, and signed texts were purposively selected and analysed. The students’ signed and written texts were analysed according to the structure and special features of the genres. In the retelling genre, two concepts, breadth and depth vocabulary knowledge as special features, were used for the analysis of the texts. While in the narrative, students’ signed texts and written texts were analysed to know how the students use characters, settings and events in their texts. In the descriptive genre, students’ sign and written texts were analysed to see whether they gave concise descriptions, specifically using adjectives, of the object they identified in their signed text. The findings indicate that the students could retell the contextualized event with signs, using a vocabulary mostly from a breadth perspective. They also used the structure of retelling in a chronological order. In signing the narrative genre, the students were engaged in giving examples of the genre from which they derived the components of the story form such as character and events. Some could include aspects of character vi and events in their text, while others missed one structure or the other. In general, their narrative signed texts were better developed and showed a basic understanding of the storyline. In the descriptive genre, the students could describe some objects in their classroom and school environment. These descriptions were limited to adjectives like colours, as only colours were used in the teacher’s example. In general, their descriptive signed texts were short and seemed to follow a list structure. The students’ signing in descriptive genre showed an initial awareness of the genre. In this study, the teachers scaffolded and modelled the different genres with examples, stories and prompt pictures to a varying extent. The narrative writing had more scaffolding and modelling compared with the other genres. It also generated longer texts and an awareness of the structure. The teachers also supported the students with deeper exploration of examples in the narrative genre than in the retelling and descriptive genre. Data shows teacher’s interactions with the students while signing narratives indicates an understanding on how to develop a text in story form using narrative structures. LEA turned out to be a fruitful start in the retelling genre but was not as central in the teaching practice and meaningful in students’ writing.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2020
Zimbabwean women online: an investigation of how gendered identities are negotiated in Zimbabwean women’s online spaces
- Authors: Ndlovu, Nonhlanhla
- Date: 2020
- Subjects: Woman -- Zimbabwe -- Social life and customs Social media -- Social aspects -- Zimbabwe Facebook (Firm) Women -- Zimbabwe
- Language: English
- Type: text , Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/140452 , vital:37890
- Description: This study is concerned with the construction of Zimbabwean women’s identities in this contemporary internet age. Two Facebook groups are of particular interest here due to the vibrant conversations that take place on a daily basis, that is, Makhox Women’s League and Baking & Cooking: ZW Women’s Diaries. Conceiving these internet sites as discursive spaces, I unpack the contesting discourses and tensions in the different narratives offered by Zimbabwean women and identify and critique the competing sets of feminine subjectivities. I achieve this by drawing on poststructuralist and postcolonialist feminist theories in order to situate these groups as cultural sites that are particularly identity defining. I particularly draw on Foucauldian theories of discourse, power and the subject to conceptualise the formation of particular discursive gendered subjectivities. With an understanding that discourse is constitutive of power relations and contestations, and that discourse should be historically contextualised in order to take into account particular conditions of existence; I draw on Mamdani’s (1996) conceptualisation of how power is organised in Africa within a historical and institutional context, and identify the bifurcated nature of the postcolonial Zimbabwean state as a colonial residue as necessitating a particular kind of subjectivity. To this end, one can understand the different femininities on Makhox Women’s League and Baking & Cooking: ZW Women’s Diaries as constituted within, and complexly negotiating, a traditional/customary discourse and a rights-based modern one. This qualitative inquiry is informed by an eclectic approach that combines methods of textual analysis that complements both critical linguistics and media studies and attends to lexical structure as well as narrative and rhetorical analysis respectively. Combined with an online ethnographic approach I employ these tools to analyse these particular Facebook groups with the understanding that as women converse daily on these platforms, they ‘govern’ each other’s conduct and thought processes in interesting ways. I argue that these conversations discursively constitute the performances of different femininities on both sites that also take into account the diasporic condition of Zimbabwean women. I show how they negotiate and mediate feminine performance and in so doing propose and contest certain ‘truths’ that are frequently validated.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2020
- Authors: Ndlovu, Nonhlanhla
- Date: 2020
- Subjects: Woman -- Zimbabwe -- Social life and customs Social media -- Social aspects -- Zimbabwe Facebook (Firm) Women -- Zimbabwe
- Language: English
- Type: text , Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/140452 , vital:37890
- Description: This study is concerned with the construction of Zimbabwean women’s identities in this contemporary internet age. Two Facebook groups are of particular interest here due to the vibrant conversations that take place on a daily basis, that is, Makhox Women’s League and Baking & Cooking: ZW Women’s Diaries. Conceiving these internet sites as discursive spaces, I unpack the contesting discourses and tensions in the different narratives offered by Zimbabwean women and identify and critique the competing sets of feminine subjectivities. I achieve this by drawing on poststructuralist and postcolonialist feminist theories in order to situate these groups as cultural sites that are particularly identity defining. I particularly draw on Foucauldian theories of discourse, power and the subject to conceptualise the formation of particular discursive gendered subjectivities. With an understanding that discourse is constitutive of power relations and contestations, and that discourse should be historically contextualised in order to take into account particular conditions of existence; I draw on Mamdani’s (1996) conceptualisation of how power is organised in Africa within a historical and institutional context, and identify the bifurcated nature of the postcolonial Zimbabwean state as a colonial residue as necessitating a particular kind of subjectivity. To this end, one can understand the different femininities on Makhox Women’s League and Baking & Cooking: ZW Women’s Diaries as constituted within, and complexly negotiating, a traditional/customary discourse and a rights-based modern one. This qualitative inquiry is informed by an eclectic approach that combines methods of textual analysis that complements both critical linguistics and media studies and attends to lexical structure as well as narrative and rhetorical analysis respectively. Combined with an online ethnographic approach I employ these tools to analyse these particular Facebook groups with the understanding that as women converse daily on these platforms, they ‘govern’ each other’s conduct and thought processes in interesting ways. I argue that these conversations discursively constitute the performances of different femininities on both sites that also take into account the diasporic condition of Zimbabwean women. I show how they negotiate and mediate feminine performance and in so doing propose and contest certain ‘truths’ that are frequently validated.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2020
‘Being regional’: an analysis of the conceptualisation, operations and embeddedness of regional non-governmental organisations responding to HIV and AIDS in Southern Africa
- Authors: Mushonga, Allan
- Date: 2020
- Subjects: AIDS (Disease) -- South Africa -- Finance , Non-governmental organizations -- South Africa
- Language: English
- Type: text , Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/118733 , vital:34663
- Description: This thesis offers an original sociological analysis of regional Non-Governmental Organisations (RNGOs) responding to the HIV epidemic in the Southern African Development Community (SADC) in respect of their emergence, constitution, role, function, embeddedness, accountability and practice of being regional in the HIV response. In doing so, it offers propositions on the conceptualisation of RNGOs and the concept being regional in clarifying regional HIV programming in the context of regionalisation. It also highlights the nexus between regional HIV work, and country and global HIV governance and programming as components of the global architecture of development regime under the tutelage of the United Nations as influenced by the dominant powers. The analysis is based on a hybrid of social systems, actor systems dynamics, institutional and network theoretical analytical frameworks. A triangulation of these frameworks provides a comprehensive grounding on which it is possible to identify and analyse RNGOs as social systems, institutions, actors and nodes that constitute part of the global architecture of the HIV response. This also facilitates the conceptualisation of being regional as both a programmatic typology and state of existence of RNGOs, thus locating these regional actors in the framework of the global HIV governance and programming. It locates them in the resultant web of social relations connecting various development agents in hierarchical and institutionalised structures constructed around HIV governance and responses. Social embeddedness and hence accountability of RNGOs is thus presented as determined by this complex context. Based on an extensive use of organisational documents as well as key informant interviews, the thesis reveals the dominance of funding organisations in determining regional and national HIV programme design and content as well as structuring the organisational practices of RNGOs and other development agents in the HIV response. Because of the demands by donors for accountability on the part of RNGOs for funds received, upward accountability becomes a major preoccupation of RNGOs and becomes privileged compared to downward accountability to their programme beneficiaries. However, RNGOs still enact agency in seeking to manoeuvre their way through the worldwide development system in order to advance the HIV response while also ensuring their own organisational sustainability.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2020
- Authors: Mushonga, Allan
- Date: 2020
- Subjects: AIDS (Disease) -- South Africa -- Finance , Non-governmental organizations -- South Africa
- Language: English
- Type: text , Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/118733 , vital:34663
- Description: This thesis offers an original sociological analysis of regional Non-Governmental Organisations (RNGOs) responding to the HIV epidemic in the Southern African Development Community (SADC) in respect of their emergence, constitution, role, function, embeddedness, accountability and practice of being regional in the HIV response. In doing so, it offers propositions on the conceptualisation of RNGOs and the concept being regional in clarifying regional HIV programming in the context of regionalisation. It also highlights the nexus between regional HIV work, and country and global HIV governance and programming as components of the global architecture of development regime under the tutelage of the United Nations as influenced by the dominant powers. The analysis is based on a hybrid of social systems, actor systems dynamics, institutional and network theoretical analytical frameworks. A triangulation of these frameworks provides a comprehensive grounding on which it is possible to identify and analyse RNGOs as social systems, institutions, actors and nodes that constitute part of the global architecture of the HIV response. This also facilitates the conceptualisation of being regional as both a programmatic typology and state of existence of RNGOs, thus locating these regional actors in the framework of the global HIV governance and programming. It locates them in the resultant web of social relations connecting various development agents in hierarchical and institutionalised structures constructed around HIV governance and responses. Social embeddedness and hence accountability of RNGOs is thus presented as determined by this complex context. Based on an extensive use of organisational documents as well as key informant interviews, the thesis reveals the dominance of funding organisations in determining regional and national HIV programme design and content as well as structuring the organisational practices of RNGOs and other development agents in the HIV response. Because of the demands by donors for accountability on the part of RNGOs for funds received, upward accountability becomes a major preoccupation of RNGOs and becomes privileged compared to downward accountability to their programme beneficiaries. However, RNGOs still enact agency in seeking to manoeuvre their way through the worldwide development system in order to advance the HIV response while also ensuring their own organisational sustainability.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2020
“A position of great trust and responsibility”: a social history of the Grahamstown Asylum, 1875 – c. 1905
- Authors: Van Zyl, Kylie
- Date: 2020
- Subjects: Mental health services -- South Africa -- Cape of Good Hope , Psychiatric hospitals -- South Africa -- History , South Africa -- Race relations -- Social aspects , Mentally ill -- Commitment and detention -- South Africa , Mentally ill -- Abuse of -- South Africa , Mental health policy -- South Africa , Asylums -- South Africa -- Grahamstown , Discrimination in mental health services -- South Africa , Health and race -- South Africa -- History
- Language: English
- Type: text , Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/151031 , vital:39025
- Description: Much has been written about the inequalities inherent in the psychiatric care provided to mentally ill individuals in the Cape Colony, but to date few works have been produced that describe in detail the processes and care regimes at particular institutions. This thesis examines the history of care and custody provided by the Grahamstown Asylum in the Cape between the years of 1875 and 1905. The intention is to determine the means and methods by which the Asylum’s authorities developed, almost unchallenged, a system of unequal treatment and favouritism within that facility, and what this meant for the men and women committed to the Asylum’s custody. To this end, contemporaneous official reports from Asylum staff and Colonial authorities were consulted, in conjunction with the Asylum’s internal records such as registers and individual patient files. This thesis concludes that the evolution of the Colony’s psychiatric community’s beliefs around mental illness, philosophies of protective custody and moral treatment within the psychiatric community at the time, the region’s laws governing psychiatric institutionalisation, and the larger context of the Cape’s socio-political environment at the time converged to create an institution that practiced discrimination on both a macro- and micro-level. This discriminatory framework affected who was admitted, the diagnosis that each person received, the asylum facilities to which they had access, and further, to the odds against their recovery. The implications of this study are relevant in the present day, as the modern South African system of psychiatric institutionalisation, though embedded within a socio-political context of equality and non-discrimination nevertheless appears to suffer from a similarly undemocratic framework of operation.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2020
- Authors: Van Zyl, Kylie
- Date: 2020
- Subjects: Mental health services -- South Africa -- Cape of Good Hope , Psychiatric hospitals -- South Africa -- History , South Africa -- Race relations -- Social aspects , Mentally ill -- Commitment and detention -- South Africa , Mentally ill -- Abuse of -- South Africa , Mental health policy -- South Africa , Asylums -- South Africa -- Grahamstown , Discrimination in mental health services -- South Africa , Health and race -- South Africa -- History
- Language: English
- Type: text , Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/151031 , vital:39025
- Description: Much has been written about the inequalities inherent in the psychiatric care provided to mentally ill individuals in the Cape Colony, but to date few works have been produced that describe in detail the processes and care regimes at particular institutions. This thesis examines the history of care and custody provided by the Grahamstown Asylum in the Cape between the years of 1875 and 1905. The intention is to determine the means and methods by which the Asylum’s authorities developed, almost unchallenged, a system of unequal treatment and favouritism within that facility, and what this meant for the men and women committed to the Asylum’s custody. To this end, contemporaneous official reports from Asylum staff and Colonial authorities were consulted, in conjunction with the Asylum’s internal records such as registers and individual patient files. This thesis concludes that the evolution of the Colony’s psychiatric community’s beliefs around mental illness, philosophies of protective custody and moral treatment within the psychiatric community at the time, the region’s laws governing psychiatric institutionalisation, and the larger context of the Cape’s socio-political environment at the time converged to create an institution that practiced discrimination on both a macro- and micro-level. This discriminatory framework affected who was admitted, the diagnosis that each person received, the asylum facilities to which they had access, and further, to the odds against their recovery. The implications of this study are relevant in the present day, as the modern South African system of psychiatric institutionalisation, though embedded within a socio-political context of equality and non-discrimination nevertheless appears to suffer from a similarly undemocratic framework of operation.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2020
“Don’t be alarmed. It’s to do with sex.” Sherlock Holmes fanfiction and freedom of the imaginary domain
- Authors: van der Nest, Megan
- Date: 2020
- Subjects: Fan fiction , Fans (Persons) -- Fiction , Holmes, Sherlock , Literature and the internet , Sex in literature
- Language: English
- Type: text , Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/124208 , vital:35576
- Description: In this thesis I argue that, for the individual fan, reading and writing fanfiction texts, and engaging with the online fandom communities within which these texts are produced, is a potentially valuable experience. This is because the kind of social and creative spaces found in these communities allow for, and celebrate, the free imaginative play with romantic and sexual desires, identities, and relationships. To articulate the importance of these spaces, I draw on Drucilla Cornell’s concept of the imaginary domain, defined as the psychic space each individual uses to explore different sexual desires and personae, which exploration is necessary for the development of full personhood. I also argue that the growing visibility and influence of fandom in modern society means that it could serve as a mechanism for social change, particularly in the acceptance and support of multiple sexual identities and forms of love. Selected texts, drawn from the Sherlock fandom, are discussed as representative of the approach taken within fanfiction communities towards various aspects of sexuality and sexual ethics. This approach combines the enthusiastic exploration of sexual desires without shame or fear of judgment with an ongoing, critical interrogation of sexual ethics.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2020
- Authors: van der Nest, Megan
- Date: 2020
- Subjects: Fan fiction , Fans (Persons) -- Fiction , Holmes, Sherlock , Literature and the internet , Sex in literature
- Language: English
- Type: text , Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/124208 , vital:35576
- Description: In this thesis I argue that, for the individual fan, reading and writing fanfiction texts, and engaging with the online fandom communities within which these texts are produced, is a potentially valuable experience. This is because the kind of social and creative spaces found in these communities allow for, and celebrate, the free imaginative play with romantic and sexual desires, identities, and relationships. To articulate the importance of these spaces, I draw on Drucilla Cornell’s concept of the imaginary domain, defined as the psychic space each individual uses to explore different sexual desires and personae, which exploration is necessary for the development of full personhood. I also argue that the growing visibility and influence of fandom in modern society means that it could serve as a mechanism for social change, particularly in the acceptance and support of multiple sexual identities and forms of love. Selected texts, drawn from the Sherlock fandom, are discussed as representative of the approach taken within fanfiction communities towards various aspects of sexuality and sexual ethics. This approach combines the enthusiastic exploration of sexual desires without shame or fear of judgment with an ongoing, critical interrogation of sexual ethics.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2020