List of Titles

Attitudes of Xhosa-speaking students at the University of Fort Hare towards the use of Xhosa as a language of learning and teaching (LOLT)

- Dalvit, Lorenzo, De Klerk, Vivian A

Authors: Dalvit, Lorenzo , De Klerk, Vivian A
Date: 2005
Language: English
Type: Article
Identifier: vital:6100 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1008664
Description: This article presents and discusses the results of a survey of a sample of Xhosa-speaking students at the University of Fort Hare regarding their attitudes towards the possible introduction of Xhosa as a medium of instruction at this institution. The research takes into account, among other things, the students' attitudes towards English and Xhosa and their opinions and beliefs about the introduction of dual-mediumship and its possible consequences. The survey was conducted with questionnaires and interviews and the results were first analysed as a whole, and then split into different categories according to gender, year of study, subject studied etc. This analysis indicates that while English is recognised as the dominant language in South Africa and, more specifically, in the domain of education, some categories of respondents acknowledge the usefulness of Xhosa as an additional medium of instruction. This survey clearly shows that it would make little sense to present Xhosa-speaking students at Fort Hare with a rigid choice between the existing English-medium and a dual-medium (English and Xhosa) policy and that more nuanced options would need to be offered. For example, respondents seem to consider the use of Xhosa as a medium of instruction more appropriate in the first years of study, for selected subjects and in some domains within the academic context rather than others. This study can be fruitfully compared with similar research carried out at other South African institutions. Moreover, the results of the present research can be used to inform future decisions regarding language policy at the University of Fort Hare.
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Date Issued: 2005

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Black South African English : where to from here?

- De Klerk, Vivian A

Authors: De Klerk, Vivian A
Date: 1999
Language: English
Type: Article
Identifier: vital:6135 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1011587
Description: Black South African English is generally regarded as the variety of English commonly used by mother-tongue speakers of South Africa's indigenous African languages in areas where English is not the language of the majority. This paper explores some of the problems involved in defining this variety, problems such as whether it is a `new' variety of English or a dialect, and problems relating to whose English it is: the English of those learners who have encountered only a smattering of English in informal contexts or the variety of English acquired during formal schooling. The second half of the paper focuses on the possible future of Black South African English (BSAE) against the backdrop of South Africa's new multilingual policy. Reasons for the continued appeal of English are examined, alongside the range of factors influencing the possible future growth of BSAE as a distinct variety. It is argued that South Africans are unlikely ever to be free not to learn English, owing to the huge economic, political and ideological constraints which make the `choice' of English inevitable. The success of current efforts to resist value judgements and recognise the worth of BSAE will depend not only on the goodwill of South Africans, and on the cooperation of all speakers of English, world-wide, but on the rate at which the variety drifts away from recognised standard forms of English.
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Date Issued: 1999

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Codeswitching, borrowing and mixing in a corpus of Xhosa English

- De Klerk, Vivian A

Authors: De Klerk, Vivian A
Date: 2006
Language: English
Type: Article
Identifier: vital:6130 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1011582
Description: The paper analyses selected aspects of the codeswitching behaviour in a spoken corpus of the English of 326 people, all of them mother-tongue speakers of Xhosa (a local African language in South Africa), and all of whom would see themselves as Xhosa/English bilinguals. The corpus comprises approximately 550,000 transcribed words of spontaneous, relaxed, oral discourse in English between pairs of Xhosaspeaking interlocutors, discussing a wide range of topics. While the usual pattern in bilingual speech is to use the L1 as matrix language and the L2 as embedded language, in this corpus the opposite is the case, as interlocutors were interviewed in English (the L2). The corpus therefore offers a ‘mirror image’, in a sense, of normal codeswitching behaviour. Using Wordsmith (a concordancer programme), all incidences of codeswitching into Xhosa during these conversations were identified and analysed in an effort to reveal underlying patterns. Examination of the amount and nature of codeswitching in the corpus promised to throw some light on the extent to which participants are genuinely bilingual, in terms of their ability to converse comfortably in English.
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Date Issued: 2006

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Determinants of student satisfaction with campus residence life at a South African university

- Botha, Ferdi, Snowball, Jeanette D, De Klerk, Vivian A, Radloff, Sarah E

Authors: Botha, Ferdi , Snowball, Jeanette D , De Klerk, Vivian A , Radloff, Sarah E
Date: 2015
Language: English
Type: text , book
Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/69277 , vital:29475 , https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-15904-1_2
Description: Factors outside the classroom can contribute to academic success as well as the achievement of important outcomes such as the appreciation of human diversity. Striving towards equality of residence life satisfaction is thus important for academic outcomes and for the development of well-functioning citizens. This study is based on the 2011 Quality of Residence Life (QoRL) Survey, conducted at a South African university, comprising roughly 2,000 respondents. The study investigates the association between satisfaction with QoRL and (i) residence milieu and characteristics, (ii) direct and indirect discrimination, (iii) perceptions of drug and alcohol issues in residence, (iv) safety, and (v) individual student characteristics. One main finding is that there are no significant differences in satisfaction with QoRL across racial and gender groups; suggesting significant progress in university transformation and equity goals. The general atmosphere and characteristics of residences are also important predictors of QoRL satisfaction.
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Date Issued: 2015

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Determinants of student satisfaction with campus residence life at a South African University

- Botha, Ferdi, Snowball, Jeanette D, De Klerk, Vivian A, Radloff, Sarah E

Authors: Botha, Ferdi , Snowball, Jeanette D , De Klerk, Vivian A , Radloff, Sarah E
Date: 2013
Language: English
Type: text , article
Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/68543 , vital:29281 , https://econrsa.org/publications/working-papers/determinants-student-satisfaction-campus-residence-life-south-african
Description: Publisher version , Although there are a number of studies on the determinants of general quality of life among university students, these occur mainly in developed countries and do not focus specifically on campus-based residence life. It has long been accepted that factors outside the classroom (“the other curriculum”) can contribute to academic success, as well as the achievement of other important outcomes such as the appreciation of human diversity. Striving towards equality of residence life satisfaction across different racial and gender groups, for example, is thus important for academic outcomes and for the development of well-functioning citizens. This study is based on the 2011 Quality of Residence Life (QoRL) Survey, conducted at a South African university, comprising roughly 2 000 respondents. Based on descriptive analyses and ordered probit regressions, the study investigates the association between satisfaction with QoRL and (i) residence milieu and characteristics, (ii) direct and indirect discrimination, (iii) perceptions of drug and alcohol issues in residence, (iv) safety, and (v) individual student characteristics. One of the main findings is that there are no significant differences in satisfaction with QoRL across racial and gender groups; a finding that suggests significant progress in university transformation and equity goals. The general atmosphere and characteristics of residences are also important predictors of QoRL satisfaction. , Economic Research Southern Africa (ERSA) is a research programme funded by the National Treasury of South Africa.
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Date Issued: 2013

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Discourse domination?: the role of gender in seminar interaction

- De Klerk, Vivian A, Hunt, Sally

Authors: De Klerk, Vivian A , Hunt, Sally
Date: 2004
Language: English
Type: text , article
Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/139160 , vital:37710 , https://www.ajol.info/index.php/salas/article/view/6501
Description: This paper focuses on the effect of the gender of participants on the discourse patterns of university seminars, and compares the interaction patterns in two undergraduate seminars with those in two post-graduate seminars at Rhodes University. In the undergraduate seminars, two different groups of students at first year level in different disciplines were videotaped. The major difference was in terms of composition: in one seminar, there were equal numbers of male and female students, while in the other, female students dominated numerically (75%). In addition, five of the six formed a close-knit group of friends, which proved to be an important factor in the analysis. At the postgraduate level, the student participants were identical and met in the same venue and at the same time on two successive days to discuss the same topic (affirmative action in the workplace). The important difference between the two classes was the fact that the first seminar was led by a female tutor and the second seminar by a male tutor, both under 40 years of age and white, both members of staff in the department, and both known to the students. The discourse patterns in these two sets of seminars were analysed in order to investigate the ways in which the gender of tutors and students influenced the floor-winning and floor-holding conventions of participants.
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Date Issued: 2004

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Educated mother-tongue South African English: A corpus approach

- Adendorff, Ralph D, De Klerk, Vivian A, De Vos, Mark A, Hunt, Sally, Simango, Silvester R, Todd, Louise, Niesler, Thomas

Authors: Adendorff, Ralph D , De Klerk, Vivian A , De Vos, Mark A , Hunt, Sally , Simango, Silvester R , Todd, Louise , Niesler, Thomas
Date: 2008
Language: English
Type: text , article
Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/124352 , vital:35597 , https://doi.org/10.1080/10228190608566261
Description: South Africa is anecdotally known for its complex system of speech varieties correlating with variables such as ethnicity, first language, class and education. These intuitions (e.g. Lass 1990) require further investigation, especially in the context of a changing South Africa where language variety plays a key role in identifying social, economic and ethnic group membership. Thus, in this research, the extent to which these variables play a role in variety is explored using a corpus approach (the nature of class and race in the corpus is discussed more fully later in the article). The corpus project, focusing primarily on accent, has been undertaken by members of the Department of English Language and Linguistics at Rhodes University in South Africa, collaborating with staff from the Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering from Stellenbosch University, South Africa. A corpus (the first of its kind) is being compiled, comprising the speech of educated, white, mother-tongue speakers of South African English (as distinct from Afrikaans English, Indian English, and the second language (L2) varieties of English used by speakers of indigenous African languages), and data collection is well under way. This short article aims to describe the aims of the project, and the methodological approach which underpins it, as well as to highlight some of the more problematic aspects of the research.
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Date Issued: 2008

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English in the prison services: a case of breaking the law?

- De Klerk, Vivian A, Barkhuizen, Gary P

Authors: De Klerk, Vivian A , Barkhuizen, Gary P
Date: 2002
Language: English
Type: Article
Identifier: vital:6133 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1011585
Description: In this paper we report on an investigation into the use of English in a prison in the Eastern Cape Province, run by the Department of Correctional Services (CS) five years after the declaration of an official multilingual policy. The investigation consisted of a range of interviews and observations in this institution, aimed at establishing the extent to which the national language policy is actually being implemented on the ground. Findings suggest that the use of English predominates in the high, official domains, that there is a marked avoidance of Afrikaans, and that Xhosa, the main language of the Eastern Cape Province, increasingly occupies the lower, unofficial domains. Tensions between policy and practice are discussed, and it is argued that the CS has shown that pragmatism is a much stronger force than ideology. While the roles of Xhosa and Afrikaans appear to be in the process of reversing in the Grahamstown prison, English has emerged as stronger there than it has ever been before. And because it will continue to be a necessary prerequisite for the mobility and promotion of staff in the country as a whole, and the lingua franca for an increasingly mobile criminal population (which means the prisons are likely to become increasingly linguistically diverse, rather than settling into regional patterns), everyone will have to have some proficiency in English, which, ironically, will promote and strengthen it even more.
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Date Issued: 2002

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How taboo are taboo words for girls?

- De Klerk, Vivian A

Authors: De Klerk, Vivian A
Date: 1992
Language: English
Type: Article
Identifier: vital:6143 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1011596
Description: In the past five years, there has been much interest in the question of whether women are really as concerned about politeness and status as they have been made out to be by such writers as Baroni and D'Urso (1984), Crosby and Nyquist (1977), Lakoff (1973), Spender (1980), and Trudgill (1972). Despite the commonly held perception that it is only males who bandy about derogatory and taboo words (Bailey 1985; Flexner 1975), Risch (1987) provided counterevidence based on data obtained in the United States. The results of the present study, based on data obtained in South Africa, strongly support her findings and challenge the assumption that women stick to standard speech, citing evidence that young females are familiar with, and use, a wide range of highly taboo/slang items themselves. In particular, attention is devoted to the question of pejorative words applicable to males and females, respectively, and the view that there are only a few pejorative terms commonly used to describe males (particularly by females) is challenged. (Women's language, politeness, linguistic taboo, stereotypes, slang, expletives, prestige forms).
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Date Issued: 1992

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Language shift in Grahamstown: A case study of selected Xhosa-speakers

- De Klerk, Vivian A

Authors: De Klerk, Vivian A
Date: 2009
Language: English
Type: text , article
Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/158106 , vital:40149 , https://0-doi.org.wam.seals.ac.za/10.1515/ijsl.2000.146.87
Description: A number of scholars (Fasold 1984; Aitchison 1991; Denison 1977; Dorian 1980; Gal 1979) have examined the issue of language maintenance and shift, trying to discover why certain languages (or language variants) sometimes replace each other among some Speakers, particularly in certain domains of linguistic behaviour under some conditions or intergroup contact. This article provides an overview of the main factors that have been identified as playing an important role in influencing language shift and then reports on the relative importance of these factors in a survey that examined the experiences and attitudes of Xhosa-speaking parents who have recently chosen to send their children to English-medium schools in Grahamstown (Eastern Cape, South Africa). The research was carried out during 1998, and the project was a multifaceted quantitative and qualitative longitudinal study involving responses to a postal questionnaire sent to all non-English parents at English-medium schools in the town, and follow-up Interviews with 26 parents.
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Date Issued: 2009

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Nicknames as sex-role stereotypes

- De Klerk, Vivian A, Bosch, A Barbara

Authors: De Klerk, Vivian A , Bosch, A Barbara
Date: 1996
Language: English
Type: Article
Identifier: vital:6134 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1011586
Description: Nicknames are powerful indicators of attitudes towards gender categories and because of their transient and optional nature, it has been argued that they are more likely to show a closer relationship to ongoing trends in the culture and society than other more fixed parts of the language E. B. Phillips (1990) ["Nicknames and Sex Role Stereotypes," Sex Roles, Vol. 23, pp. 281-289]. This study reports on a survey of nickname usage among a group of South African adolescents from mixed socioeconomic backgrounds (approximately 25% other than white) in an attempt to explicate gender-linked trends in frequency of occurrence, usage and attitudes to such special names. It reveals that conventions regarding nickname coinage and usage are intimately connected to the gender of bearers and users, and that more males have nicknames and coin them than females; it also shows significant sex-linked differences in the linguistic sources and users of nicknames, and reveals a greater tendency for female nicknames to function as indicators of affection rather than for humorous or critical effect. It could be argued that these trends could be linked to the nurturing and nurtured role of females in society, and to the differences in social power generally between males and females.
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Date Issued: 1996

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Procedural meanings of well in a corpus of Xhosa English

- De Klerk, Vivian A

Authors: De Klerk, Vivian A
Date: 2005
Language: English
Type: Article
Identifier: vital:6128 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1011579
Description: This article explores the use of the pragmatic marker well in a large corpus of the discourse of non-mother tongue speakers of Xhosa English, which is a sub-variety of Black South African English. A brief overview of discourse markers in general and of well in particular is provided, and the problems they pose to linguists in terms of difficulties in defining their syntactic, semantic and pragmatic properties are examined. After a brief description of the nature of the corpus of Xhosa English on which the study is based, and of the methodological approach which was followed, the rest of the article focuses on a fairly detailed exposition of the overall trends in contextualised uses and procedural meanings of well in the corpus, along with examples. Some (limited) parallels are drawn between the use of well in XE and other English corpora, in order to highlight the problems experienced by L2 learners in acquiring discourse markers.
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Date Issued: 2005

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The discourse of postgraduate seminars

- De Klerk, Vivian A

Authors: De Klerk, Vivian A
Date: 1995
Language: English
Type: Article
Identifier: vital:6132 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1011584
Description: Video recordings of a range of postgraduate seminars in the Arts Faculty at a South African university were made and analyzed, in order to define the current nature of this particular form of educational practice in South African tertiary institutions. Recent demographic changes in formerly White universities are having a significant effect on the nature of interaction in formal discussion groups. Despite a common perception that at a tertiary level tutors and students are equally entitled to speak and all contributions equally valued, this article reveals that postgraduate seminars are sites of competition for the floor and that there are significant imbalances in participation by different groups in this competitive speaking environment; it is further argued that these imbalances reflect different (culture- and gender-specific) assumptions about what constitutes appropriate participation and also, to some degree, previous learned discourse patterns associated with schooling experience.
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Date Issued: 1995

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The habitus of the dominant: addressing rape and sexual assault at Rhodes University

- De Klerk, Vivian A, Klazinga, Larissa, McNeill, Amy

Authors: De Klerk, Vivian A , Klazinga, Larissa , McNeill, Amy
Date: 2007
Subjects: To be catalogued
Language: English
Type: text , article
Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/453352 , vital:75247 , https://doi.org/10.1080/10130950.2007.9674885
Description: This article seeks to describe the changing ways in which Rhodes University has addressed rape and sexual assault. By highlighting the evolution of policies and methodologies, it aims to identify possible shortcomings of the past, and offer new strategies and principles which may be useful to fellow institutions grappling with sexual violence issues.
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Date Issued: 2007

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The language of truth and reconciliation: was it fair to all concerned?

- De Klerk, Vivian A

Authors: De Klerk, Vivian A
Date: 2003
Subjects: To be catalogued
Language: English
Type: text , article
Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/469503 , vital:77248 , https://doi.org/10.2989/16073610309486324
Description: Words count in law and legal language exerts a considerable influence because it is through language that the intentions of the law giver are made clear, judgments are pronounced and social behaviour is regulated. Using a corpus of over 455 000 words of the legal discourse recorded and transcribed during selected Amnesty Hearings of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa, this paper reports on analyses of the overall characteristics of selected lexical items during the hearings. In order to provide a benchmark for comparison with so-called 'natural' spoken discourse, the frequency of occurrence of these words is compared with the occurrence of the same words in the Wellington Corpus of Spoken New Zealand English (Holmes 1995; 1996). It is argued that overall the vocabulary of legal English differs very significantly from that of everyday language patterns in ways that are very likely to impede comprehension and give a particular advantage to those who use it.
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Date Issued: 2003

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The role of APPRAISAL in the NRF rating system: an analysis of Judgement and appreciation in peer reviewers' reports

- Marshall, Christine, Adendorff, Ralph D, De Klerk, Vivian A

Authors: Marshall, Christine , Adendorff, Ralph D , De Klerk, Vivian A
Date: 2010
Subjects: To be catalogued
Language: English
Type: text , article
Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/469348 , vital:77234 , https://doi.org/10.2989/SALALS.2009.27.4.3.1023
Description: This research is based on analyses of a corpus of reviewers' reports that were elicited for the purposes of assessing South African researchers who have applied for a rating from the National Research Foundation (NRF). Such ratings are highly sought-after by South African researchers as a form of official affirmation and recognition of research expertise, which brings with it scholarly accolades and the opportunity to access national research funds. The article is a pilot study which explores the use of evaluative language in the reports and tries to make explicit the kinds of linguistic resources exploited by reviewers when making evaluations, and the way in which their linguistic choices influence the intuitive judgments made by the panel of assessors when allocating ratings based on the reports. The ultimate aim in the larger research project is to explicate the relationship between the types of evaluative language used and the rating allocated, which will give some indication of the reliability and validity of the NRF Rating System. The interpretive framework used is the APPRAISAL system (Martin, 2000; Martin and Rose, 2003; Martin and White, 2005), with a specific focus on Judgement (evaluation of behaviour) and Appreciation (evaluation of things). The system lends itself to a rigorous analysis of linguistic data, and offers a way to strengthen the reliability of the rating assessments of the NRF.
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Date Issued: 2010

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