Sindiso Zhou

Background: The influx of migrants from neighbouring countries has contributed to diversity in South Africa. This has caused on-going clashes between local residents and migrants. This article explores the role of discourse towards enabling a cohesive society. There has been much focus on migrants working in South Africa over the 2020 December festive season as many faced challenges in travelling to their respective countries because of the COVID-19 pandemic. This limelight exposed the underlying discrimination towards migrants in South Africa remain regardless of the South African progressive Constitution that values and respects individuals as well as protecting them from discrimination.Aim: This article adopts threat theory and uses critical discourse analysis to highlight the existing and continued discrimination towards migrant workers. The article exposes the causes of social inequalities, which can assist the government in decision-making towards reducing the inequality gap i...

This article critiques the disease, pain and trauma paradigm in Zimbabwean women’s writing in English. In discussing Virginia Phiri’s Desparate, Lutanga Shaba’s Secrets of a woman’s soul, and Valerie Tagwira’s The uncertainty of hope, the article becomes a project of analysing the traumatic legacies of the female experience in Zimbabwe. By locating the analysis of the sample female-authored texts in the context of significant political, social and economic experiences in the postcolony, the article reflects on the ramifications of experiencing pain and trauma in a culture where no one is supposed to remember what they saw or experienced. The authors posit in this article that by creating narratives of disease, pain and trauma, Zimbabwean women have crafted a cultural speaking position from which to testify about cultural and social unspeakable. The argument in this article is that in placing the woman at the centre of the drama of pain and trauma, Zimbabwean women writers ...

The commitment of this study is towards understanding the manner in which heteronormative sexualities are performed in Pentecostalism through language use in sermons, announcements and altar calls. It challenges prescriptive discourses and exclusionary practices of rigid heteronormativity in the church that entrench prejudice and discrimination related to sexualities. The significance of this chapter lies in its exposition of the problematic discourses that inhibit full participation by different sexualities through prejudice in Zambabwean Pentecostalism. The findings discussed in the chapter highlight the need for integrating what we call emergent-divergent heteronormative sexualities rather than isolating them. Indications are that emergent-divergent heteronormativity will proliferate given advances in education and technology as well as the inevitable vicissitudes in the political economy that impact on fundamental sexuality decisions such as marriage and childbearing.

The endeavour to impart sustainable knowledge in a postcolonial state is significantly hindered by legacies and cultures of subjectivity that are perpetuated long after declarations of independence. In the absence of the urban advantage, learners in educational institutions located in the margins tend to experience the heightened challenges of acquiring a sustainable education amid rurality. Learning English as a second language in former colonial spaces poses complex challenges for both the teacher and, especially, the learner due to the hegemony of English that thwarts epistemic access in various ways. This paper interrogates the possibilities of decolonizing the educational experience in the language classroom to maximize epistemic access through indigenizing English using translanguaging. The study engaged in a participatory observation of a purposively sampled first year class of university students doing an English for Specific Purposes course at the University of Fort Hare. W...

Access to information and resources are critical factors in ensuring that young girls are empowered to handle reproductive health issues. This is especially significant in the context of teenage Landa mothers’ phenomenon, which has a generic relationship with the problem of HIV infection in rural Zimbabwe. The UN Population Fund (2013) indicates that 92% of sexually active women between the ages of 15 and 19 in largely rural Zimbabwe are in a relationship or engage in sexual intercourse regardless of being uninformed about their reproductive rights. It is this paper’s position that uninformed girls and women pose a risk unto themselves and their children, which impacts on the fight against new HIV infections. We argue that reproductive health information is central to the prevention of HIV infection and AIDS related deaths. This paper critically appraises existing communication strategies in the dissemination of reproductive health information in rural, marginalised areas; discussin...

The paper explores the teaching methods, approaches and techniques that are employed by the Ndebele English Second Language (ESL) teachers. The study has been necessitated by the important roles that are played by the English language and its position on the linguistic landscape of Zimbabwe, Africa and beyond. The study was qualitative in nature. Two teachers from each of the selected four schools were selected purposefully and interviewed on the teaching methods, approaches and techniques that they used in the teaching of ESL. The results of the paper revealed that the teachers were using a wide range of teaching strategies that were in line with the communicative approach. However, the results further indicated that teachers in the rural areas were using traditional strategies that were not appropriate to facilitate learning. The paper recommended that ESL teachers be trained on how to use teaching strategies that can facilitate learning and are in line with the communicative appr...

800x600 This article discusses the complexities arising from the inevitable contact between English and African oral traditions. African oral traditions are grounded in the principles of kindness, support, and reciprocity. Contact between English and African orature is a complex phenomenon that was set in motion by the educational and religious systems imposed on the African through colonialism. As oral traditions were translated from African indigenous languages to English, a hybrid arose; this was something familiar but new. Using Bakhtin’s (1981) dialogic theory which perceives all discourse as having a dialogic orientation, and that works of art are not complete in themselves but are responses to other works and traditions situated within a current of intersecting dialogues, this article argues that the contact between English and African oral traditions is an act of entering into dialogue with warring cultures, ideologies and traditions. The article demonstrates how the contact...

The conception of woman as a victim of pain and disease resonates in Zimbabwean and African societies. While HIV and AIDS trauma have affected a multitude of Zimbabweans across the gender divide, women are the most anguished. Evidence from semi-autobiographical/life narratives by women authors who have experienced the harrowing pain and consequent trauma of HIV and AIDS indicates that successful resilience and coping with HIV and AIDS begins with the woman. In this paper, the researchers examine HIV and AIDS trauma and women's responses. The inevitable feminization of the HIV and AIDS story has predominantly exposed the woman involved to a host of hardships namely poverty, stigma and discrimination as well as emotional and spiritual turmoil. While some women resort to unorthodox means of survival in the face of stressors; others have become resourceful and resolute, crafting empowering survival strategies to cope with their situations. Tendai Westerhorf, author of Unlucky in Love and Lutanga Shaba, author of Secrets of a Woman's Soul tell their stories of love, deception, disease, heartbreak and resilience. Their stories of feminized pain and trauma are representative of the Zimbabwean woman's experience. In this paper we explore the coping strategies they employ as documented in their narratives and critique the alternatives of escape from suffering available for the woman through analysis of several