Linguistics

This article explores attitudes of isiZulu home-language tertiary students regarding the use of contemporary poetry in isiZulu to disseminate academic content in English. In South African education sector English remains, by default, the official medium of instruction despite constitutional directives stipulating that there be a parity of esteem between all eleven official languages of the country. The hegemony of English results in ambivalent attitudes among speakers of African languages towards the use of their own languages in education. In this article, we promote the value of isiZulu as a resource for academic learning – a means to reclaim indigenous languages and cultures. We assess students’ attitudes to explore whether contemporary poetry in isiZulu may serve as a tool to enhance access to academic content. The findings indicate positive yet diverse views on the use of contemporary poetry in isiZulu for the dissemination of academic content. The majority of the participants ...

The current research is motivated by the assumption that the “canonical” story grammar (Stein & Glenn 1979) which is widely held to reflect universal story organisation (e.g. Mandler et al. 1980) may not be fully suited to assess the narrative potential of children with primary languages of non-European origin (e.g. Souto-Manning 2013). It thus juxtaposes the supposedly universal “canonical” story grammar with the idea of an as yet under-researched Southern African story grammar, which may represent common macro-structural features in Southern African storytelling.

The paper outlines the need for meeting Quality Assurance benchmarks in education based on the contribution that Communication Skills can make in Teacher Training colleges in Zimbabwe. The importance of Communication Skills as part of quality control in education is examined through a study of nine Teacher Training colleges with data gathered through interviews of lecturers and students. The teaching of the course is optional, subject to availability of suitable personnel and there are no course outlines for the course in colleges the writers visited. The department of teacher education at the University of Zimbabwe has not approved course outlines for Communication Skills as they have done with other courses taught at teacher training colleges, an indicator of the department's lack of commitment to the course. Poor Communication Skills on the part of student teachers perpetuates mediocrity at the expense of quality education in schools. Academic and Professional Communication S...

Condoms can be highly successful in preventing transmission of many common Sexually Transmitted Infections (STI’s) and are integral to many safer-sex campaigns. University students are at a high risk of contracting HIV and other Sexually Transmitted Infections but their rate of condom use is low .The purpose of this study is to investigate the discourse of condom use and non-condom use among University of Zimbabwe ,Faculty of Arts students. The data for this qualitative study was collected from 84 students using questionnaires and interviews. The study shows that the cultural narratives, metaphors and discourse around condoms work to create the reality of condom use and non-condom use. Condoms are shown to be socially mediated, value laden objects that reflect diverse peer, family and societal norms. Data was analysed using the discourse analysis and interpretive analysis framework .The data from the study will be useful in designing and improving HIV/AIDS prevention programmes in Z...