“Savage” hair and mothers’ hearts: a corpus-based critical discourse analysis of intersectional identities in two South African school setworks
- Authors: Hubbard, Beatrice Elizabeth Anne
- Date: 2020
- Subjects: Women in literature , Women, Black in literature , Critical discourse analysis , Magona, Sindiwe -- Mother to mother , Bulbring, Edyth -- The Mark
- Language: English
- Type: text , Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/141770 , vital:38003
- Description: This thesis reports on the discursive construal of intersectional physical identities, with particular reference to ‘black’ female characters, in two novels: Sindiwe Magona’s Mother to Mother, and Edyth Bulbring’s The Mark. These novels are prescribed for Grade 10 English Home Language learners in all South African public schools. Gendered identity construction in texts has been widely discussed in critical linguistics, with some research showing that the ways in which bodies are construed reveal the hegemonic and stereotypical gendering of men and women. However, these arguments have not adequately addressed the intersectional nature of identity construction. This thesis employs Corpus-based Critical Discourse Analysis to investigate the complex physical identities of, especially, ‘black’ female characters in these two novels. The inclusion of Corpus Linguistics is essential for uncovering hidden patterns of language choice, while the analytical techniques and theoretical notions from Critical Discourse Analysis provide the explanatory power that underpins the qualitative analysis. The uses to which nine key body parts are put reveal discourse prosodies showing different intersectional realisations for intimacy, power, violence, emotion, and racial marking. These discourse prosodies are most starkly realised in the two body parts, one from each novel, that are statistically most clearly linked to ‘black’ female characters. HAIR in The Mark is used variously as a racial marker, a target for racism, and a symbol for racial pride. HEART in Mother to Mother is used almost exclusively to symbolise the emotional pain of a mother’s love, and how empathy for another mother’s pain can bridge racial divides. Principal findings reveal that both novels provide very necessary lessons in cross-racial empathy, pride in ‘blackness,’ and interracial relationships. However, it is of concern that these novels also exhibit an over-valorisation of motherhood, largely stereotypical depictions of gender roles, and ableist language. In sum, both novels promote some of the transformative principles of the national curriculum, and are shown to have a bearing on nation building.
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Monolingualism and its meaning in two KwaZulu-Natal high schools
- Authors: Carlyle, Jacqui
- Date: 2017
- Subjects: Monolingualism -- South Africa , Monolingualism -- South Africa -- Case studies , Language awareness -- South Africa , Language and education -- South Africa , School children -- South Africa -- Attitudes , School children -- South Africa -- Attitudes -- Case studies , African languages -- Study and teaching -- South Africa -- Attitudes
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/6543 , vital:21135
- Description: This study reports on the identity and attitudes of monolingual English speakers (MES) at two high schools in Durban, South Africa, in relation particularly to the role and meaning of monolingualism. Two bodies of data are used to investigate the attitudes of MES and are oriented towards four variables: English, African languages (particularly Zulu), monolingualism and plurilingualism. The attitudes to these variables reveal the impact on identity of language usage in Durban, and negotiations of the participants in trying to mitigate or justify attitudes that are counter to the embracing of diversity encouraged in modern South Africa. First, an attitude questionnaire provides quantitative data that is subjected to analysis, including a chi-squared test. Second, a narrative elicitation interview provides qualitative narrative data that is analysed in relation to APPRAISAL theory. Both analysis types are used to ascertain the presence of a monolingual mindset in the scholars’ responses, as well as to capture the ideological forces to which they are subjected as monolingual English speakers in the unique multilingual setting of Durban. In essence, the data points to a discourse of compromise and unease on the part of the participants - as they juggle with the effects of an English-centric monolingual mindset, and a more pervasive pluralism that embraces the Rainbowism of ‘the new South Africa’. This discourse of compromise is characterized on one side by insecurity and dissatisfaction with the language in education policy, and well as the monolingual upbringing of MES in Durban, and a lack of Language other than English (LOTE), in particular, Zulu. This side of the compromise also portrays a pro- plurilingual orientation, a positive valuation of knowing a LOTE and of plurilingual people. Here, however, the manifestation of the ‘other side’ of the compromise appears as the MES characterize plurilingualism as exceptional and too difficult, and language learning at school as having a negative impact on academic success. Alongside this is a normalization of English and othering of African languages in practical situation. English is also promoted as the language of unity and economic and academic progress or success, while the material value of African languages is questioned.
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Appraising the appraisal framework: evidence from Grahamstown property advertisements
- Authors: Beangstrom, Tracy
- Date: 2015
- Language: English
- Type: text , Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/54744 , vital:26608
- Description: This thesis considers how interpersonal meaning choices in property advertisements are best reflected in a context of constraint in Grahamstown, South Africa, using and appraising Martin & White’s (2005) APPRAISAL Framework. The study is comparative in two senses since the data is analysed using Martin & White’s (2005) APPRAISAL Framework and a revision to it, and property advertisements from two competing estate agencies are analysed: Remax Frontier Properties and Pam Golding Properties. An initial strict application of Martin & White’s (2005) framework is followed by a second, based on analyst difficulties and framework limitations experienced in the first analysis, as well as those experienced by other researchers. Revisions to the original framework include added ‘local’, context-driven features and sub-categories: Exclusivity and Convenience in Attitude, a Scale of Intensity in Graduation, and a category ‘Invite’ in Engagement. These enable a richer, more detailed account of the alignment strategies and interpersonal micro-politics at play in the property advertisements than is possible using the original framework. Findings from the analyses reveal four facts of note. Firstly, that while the original Martin & White (2005) APPRAISAL Framework captures a general level of interpersonal meaning in the data, it does so more fully when it includes contextual and contextually-driven categories that are informed by local knowledge. Secondly, two levels of meaning are expressed in the data. One is aimed at an ‘external’ audience; the other, truer, fuller and more contentious, is aimed at what appears to be the intended audience only. Thirdly, and relatedly, specific contextual and cultural knowledge is needed by the intended audience to access the intended meaning. Fourthly, both estate agencies promote values of high prestige, exclusivity, elitism and wealth as their intended meaning to align a like-minded audience, although Remax Frontier Properties attribute these values to location and features of the home to a greater extent than Pam Golding Properties, who place greater emphasis on the size of the home. The thesis suggests further avenues for research into the discourse of property advertising, as well as into overcoming certain context-specific limitations of the APPRAISAL Framework.
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For the people : an appraisal comparison of imagined communities in letters to two South African newspapers
- Authors: Smith, Jade
- Date: 2013
- Subjects: Daily Sun (Johannesburg, South Africa) , Times (Johannesburg, South Africa) , Mass media and social integration -- South Africa , Language and languages -- Usage , Mass media and language -- South Africa , Mass media and culture -- South Africa , Belonging (Social psychology)
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: vital:2385 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1016264
- Description: This thesis reports on the bonds that unify imagined communities (Anderson 1983) that are created in 40 letters prominently displayed on the opinions pages of the Daily Sun, a popular tabloid, and The Times, a daily offshoot of the mainstream national Sunday Times. An APPRAISAL analysis of these letters reveals how the imagined communities attempt to align their audiences around distinctive couplings of interpersonal and ideational meaning. Such couplings represent the bonds around which community identities are co-constructed through affiliation and are evidence of the shared feelings that unite the communities of readership. Inferences drawn from this APPRAISAL information allow for a comparison of the natures of the two communities in terms of how they view their agency and group cohesion. Central to the analysis and interpretation of the data is the letters’ evaluative prosody, traced in order to determine the polarity of readers’ stances over four weeks. Asymmetrical prosodies are construed as pointing to the validity of ‘linguistic ventriloquism’, a term whose definition is refined and used as a diagnostic for whether the newspapers use their readers’ letters to promote their own stances on controversial matters. Principal findings show that both communities affiliate around the value of education, and dissatisfaction with the country’s political leaders, however The Times’ readers are more individualistic than the Daily Sun’s community members, who are concerned with the wellbeing of the group. The analysis highlights limitations to the application of the APPRAISAL framework, the value of subjectivity in the analytical process, and adds a new dimension to South African media studies, as it provides linguistic insights into the construction of imagined communities of newspaper readership.
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Literacy, orality and recontextualization in the parliament of the Republic of South Africa : an ethnographic study
- Authors: Siebörger, Ian
- Date: 2012
- Subjects: South Africa. Parliament (1994- ) -- Language , Bill drafting -- South Africa , South Africa -- Languages -- Political aspects , Sociolinguistics -- South Africa , Language and languages -- Variation , Linguistic analysis (Linguistics) , Functionalism (Linguistics) , Systemic grammar
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: vital:2384 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1016140
- Description: In parliaments, the tasks of drafting legislation and conducting oversight are accomplished by means of complex chains of spoken, written and multimodal texts. In these genre chains, information is recontextualized from one text to another before being debated in sittings of the houses of parliament. This study employs the point of view afforded by linguistic ethnography to investigate critically the ways in which meanings are recontextualized in one section of such a genre chain, namely the process by which committees of South Africa's National Assembly oversee the budgets of government departments and state-owned entities. It does this to identify possible sources of communication difficulties in this process and suggest ways in which these can be minimized. In so doing, it develops a theoretical model of the discursive effects of recontextualization informed by Latour's (1987) notion of black-boxing as well as Maton's (2011) Legitimation Code Theory. This model uses Interactional Sociolinguistics and elements of Systemic Functional Linguistics, including APPRAISAL and Transitivity as tools to describe the realization of these effects in language. This study finds that ideational and interpersonal meanings are condensed and decondensed at particular points in the genre chain in ways that lead to some MPs’ voices being recontextualized more accurately than others’. It also shows that common sources of communication difficulties in the committee process include differences in political background and understandings of committee procedure and participant roles. It recommends that representatives of departments and entities reporting to the committees should receive a fuller prebriefing on their roles; that MPs should receive training on asking clear, focused questions; and that the role of committee secretaries as procedural advisors should be strengthened.
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Ritualised discourse practices of feedback in a university foundation programme: a critical investigation
- Authors: Richardson, Amy
- Date: 2012
- Subjects: Uncatalogued
- Language: English
- Type: thesis , text , Masters , MA
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/164955 , vital:41187
- Description: In order for students to become true members of academic communities of practice they need epistemological access, including guidance on central institutional knowledge-producing processes and mastery of key academic literacy practices. A powerful source of guidance is marker feedback. Drawing on key insights from the New Literacy Studies and taking up the mandate of Critical Ethnography to improve the status quo, this thesis reports on the feedback practices in a university foundation programme. The findings are based on three micro-case studies compiled and analysed by means of methods drawn from Ethnography, Sociolinguistics and Critical Analysis in conjunction with an expanded, multimodal, APPRAISAL analysis, including adjusted categories and the author’s own feedback typologies. Two major arguments emerge: the feedback provided amounts to a set of ritualised discourse practices and its effects can be likened to the product of the children’s game of Head-body-tail. Consequently, feedback conventions are opaque and, potentially, impede epistemological access. They further entrench five sets of ideologies: (1) Students must master basic English literacy before they are coached in more complex issues such as argumentation; an assumption which leads to differential socialisation. (2) There is a single set of literacy practices that is rewarded. (3) Students have different levels of authorial authority depending on their language abilities. (4) ‘Middle students’ may benefit the most from feedback. (5) Specific comments are preferred over general ones. Analysis of feedback, furthermore, shows that markers’ frames of reference shape their pedagogy and that draft and final versions of work may be framed differently by markers. These findings require a response and, in order to facilitate epistemological access, suggestions are made for improved marker training based on the problematisation of the ritual involved in marking students’ work in this university foundation programme. , Thesis (MA)--Rhodes University, Faculty of Humanities, Linguistics, 2012
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The role of APPRAISAL in the National Research Foundation (NRF) rating system evaluation and instruction in peer reviewer reports
- Authors: Marshall, Christine Louise
- Date: 2010
- Subjects: Veterinary medicine -- Research -- Evaluation Discourse analysis Politeness (Linguistics) Accreditation (Education) -- South Africa Quality assurance -- South Africa
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: vital:2356 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1002638
- Description: This thesis reports on two aspects of interpersonal meaning in peer reviewer reports for eleven researchers in the Animal and Veterinary Sciences awarded NRF ratings in A1, B1, C1 and Y1 rating categories. These aspects are the evaluation of the researcher applying for a rating, and the instruction to the NRF as to the rating the researcher ought to receive. A full APPRAISAL Analysis (Martin & White 2005) complemented by an investigation of politeness strategies (Myers 1989) is used to analyse the reports and show how the various systems of interpersonal meaning co-function and to what effect. The analysis reveals that there are clear differences between the evaluative and instructive language used in the reports. Those for the A1 rated researchers are characterised by only positive evaluations of the applicant, frequently strengthened in terms of Graduation and contracted in terms of Engagement. Overall there is less Engagement and politeness in these reports rendering them more ‘factual’ than the reports for the other rating categories. The A1 rated researcher is therefore construed as being, incontestably, a leader in his/her field of research, worthy of a top rating. The reports for the B1 and C1 rated researchers are characterised by the increasing presence of negative evaluations. In addition, there are more instances of softened/downscaled Graduation, dialogic expansion and deference politeness, showing that there is more perceived contention about the evaluations made. The reports for the Y1 rated researchers (a category for young researchers) focus on the applicant’s demonstrated potential to become a leader in the field. In addition to a high incidence of negative evaluations, downscaled Graduation, dialogic expansion and deference politeness, the Y1 reports are also characterised by a high incidence of advice and suggestions from the reviewers concerning the applicant’s work and standing. At a broader level, the analysis reveals that the language used in the reports has a profound influence on the outcome of the rating process. The reports are crucial, not only for evaluating the applicant but, also, more subtly, in directing the NRF towards a specific rating category. It offers insights into what is valued in the scientific community, what is considered quality research, and what leads to international recognition. The research also adds uniquely to current thinking about the language of science and, more particularly, highlights the nuanced understanding of evaluative and instructive language in the reports that is possible if one draws on the full APPRAISAL framework, and insights into politeness behaviour.
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Clem Sunter's transformational leadership discourse: a linguistic analysis
- Authors: Eley, Georgina Jane
- Date: 2009
- Subjects: Linguistics
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/61994 , vital:28093
- Description: Since the 1970s, two distinct leadership styles have been recognised in the fields of business and organisational research - transactional and transformational leadership. Transactional leadership is seen to resemble managerial-type leadership where followers fulfil their duties in return for rewards that satisfy their self-interest, such as pay or promotion. Transformational leadership, as the label suggests, is leadership that is seen to transform followers from their everyday selves to their better selves (Yukl 1998). Transformational leaders motivate followers by appealing to their higher-order needs, offering incentives for compliance such as feelings of personal empowerment, a sense of moral self-actualisation and an emphasis on the individual's contribution to the community at large (Harvey 2004). These leaders have been observed to emerge and thrive within contexts fraught with socio-political and economic turbulence, where they maximise the uncertainty of the environment to instigate change. Transformational leaders are seen to be especially adept at using discourse to foster strong, persuasive interpersonal relations with their followers. This research reports on, particularly, the interpersonal dimension of Clem Sunter's transformational discourse; he being a prominent South African scenario planner and business leader. It is essentially a qualitative study that describes Sunter's discourse in three of his texts written in 1996. The end to Apartheid in 1994 and transition from White to Black governance meant that the socio-political climate of 1996 South Africa was conducive to the rise of a transformational leader like Sunter. Although the country was, ostensibly, a democracy in 1996, much social transformation was still needed at the time Sunter produced his texts. The analysis are grounded mainly in Systemic Functional Linguistics, specifically APPRAISAL theory and, to some extent, Critical Discourse Analysis theory. However, the analyses do not follow a classic CDA analysis approach, but draw rather from more recent CDA work (cf. Fairclough 2003), such as the analysis of value assumption types within the texts. This analysis clearly demonstrates that Sunter's discourse is congruent 11 with the principal insights of transformational leadership. More than this, it is argued that these findings suggest a close link between transformational leadership and the goals of the latest social order of new capitalism, a link not made in the relevant research to date. The analysis of modes of operation of ideology in the texts (cf. Thompson 1990), also deriving from CDA, reinforces this, indicating that Sunter's transformational discourse promotes and maintains the kinds of power inequalities that underpin new capitalism. The APPRAISAL analysis of Affect choices in the text reveals a high frequency of disquiet, i.e. Sunter's discourse is seen to generate feelings of insecurity and fear. This feature, interestingly, is completely inconsistent with current transformational leadership theory, but would have been an effective motivational technique given the instability of the South African socio-political context in 1996. In addition, the APPRAISAL analysis of Judgement reveals that Sunter evokes high levels of tenacity and appeals to readers' morality, ethics and feelings of group-efficacy - all higher-order needs. The argument here too is that the socio-political context enabled Sunter to stimulate disquiet and tenacity in an effective configuration to mobilise change in his reader and promote the goals of new capitalism. The thesis concludes with a reflection on the limitations of the study and makes various recommendations for future research.
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A critical analysis of oppositional discourses of the ideal female body in women's conversations
- Authors: Pienaar, Kiran Merle
- Date: 2007
- Subjects: Conversation analysis Women in mass media Self-perception in women Self-perception in adolescence Body image
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: vital:2358 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1002641
- Description: Socialisation agents such as the popular media and same age female peers construct and reproduce notions of what is physically ideal, feminine and beautiful in a woman (Hesse-Biber 1996). My interest lies in how a group of young women reproduce, contest and possibly transform such notions in conversations with their same age female friends. The study aims to answer the following question: What ideologies are reflected and perpetuated in the discourses associated with the ideal female body? Since notions of what is ideal and beautiful are indeterminate and in perpetual flux, I focus in particular on areas of contradiction and contestation in the body talk conversations. As such, the analysis examines three extracts in which the young women draw on oppositional discourses to construct notions of female beauty. I believe that these extracts represent discursive struggles in relation to the dominant Western ideal of the slim, toned female body, an ideal which more closely resembles a newly pubescent girl's body than the curvaceous, shapely body of an adult woman (Bartky 2003; Grogan 1998). My analysis is based on conversational data collected from sixteen, white adolescent English-speaking women between the ages of fourteen and eighteen who attend a boarding school in Grahamstown. I elicited the body talk data using three stimulus exercises designed to encourage discussion on topics such as the overweight female body, dieting and the ideal body. I selected three extracts from the recorded conversations and used the methodological framework of Critical Discourse Analysis to analyse the data. This framework proposes three interdependent stages of analysis: 1) the Description of the formal features of the text, 2) the Interpretation of the text in terms of the participants' background assumptions, the situational context and the intertextual context and 3) an Explanation of the text in light of the sociocultural context and the text's contribution to the reproduction or transformation of the status quo. Since I was present during the conversational recordings and contributed to the discussions, part of the interpretation stage of analysis critically evaluates how the asymmetrical power relations between myself and the participants influenced the conversations. In this regard, my findings attest to my coercive role in promoting conservative, reactionary discourses which sustain the dominance of traditional ideologies of female beauty and which stifle oppositional ideologies. My interpretation of the extracts also reveals that, in their discussions of topics such as excess weight, female ageing and cosmetic surgery, the young women negotiate alternative conceptions of what constitutes the ideal female body. However, the articulation of an alternative beauty ideal, one which values women of different body sizes and ages is not sustained in the extracts. By discussing the relationship between these alternative constructions and dominant norms of beauty, I show how the prevailing ideal of the youthful, slim, toned female body wins out in the conversations. The interpretation of the extracts also reveals the participants' preoccupation with the pursuit of health and well¬being. In this respect, the young women construct the ideal body as not only slim and youthful, but also healthy. In my explanation of the extracts, I explore the sociocultural factors which have contributed to the rise of the health ethic. In concluding, I argue that the valorisation of the healthy body in the conversations, far from challenging the imperative to be thin, actually reinforces it by constructing dieting as a necessary adjunct to the pursuit of health. From this perspective, the preoccupation with attaining the ideal thin, toned body can be justified in terms of a desire to be healthy.
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Ideology in editorials : a comparison of selected editorials in English-medium newspapers after September 11
- Authors: Lagonikos, Irene Theodosia
- Date: 2006
- Subjects: September 11 Terrorist Attacks, 2001 , Editorials , Terrorism in mass media
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: vital:2354 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1002636 , September 11 Terrorist Attacks, 2001 , Editorials , Terrorism in mass media
- Description: September 11, 2001 presented the world with events that challenged its conception of reality and called into question current ideologies. In order to make sense of the attacks, people turned to the media for information and interpretation. My interest lies in the media’s role in shaping ideologies as a result of the events of September 11, 2001. I focus on the newspaper editorial because it, in particular, functions not only to report the news but also to interpret the news for the reader. My analysis is centred on the first reaction to the events in five ‘core’ editorials drawn, respectively, from an American, British, South African, Zimbabwean and Kenyan newspaper. The specific focus, in each case, is the representation and evaluation of social actors, the events themselves and the schematic structure of the editorial. I adopt a critical perspective through the use of Critical Discourse Analysis, supported by Systemic Functional Grammar and APPRAISAL. This perspective involves three inter-connected stages of analysis: a Description of the formal discourse properties of each editorial; an Interpretation of the prevailing situational context; and an Explanation of the sociohistorical context in each case. Language, being a form of social practice, is a means by which power relations in society are reproduced or contested (Janks 1997). By analysing the editorials’ discourse I identify whose interests are being served and how each text positions a reader’s attitudes and opinions. My analysis reveals the fact that the editorials distinguish between “us” and “them” groups for the purposes of advancing and confirming in-group ideologies and agendas. This is achieved in each case through comparing the paper’s ideology with the opposing ideology, which is presented as deviant and unsupportive of the in-group. My analysis of the African editorials, in particular, further reveals the exploitation of this division for the purposes of promoting and interpreting local political and social issues. Examination of the processes and conditions surrounding the production of the editorials shows how they are significantly influenced and constrained by the ideologies of both the writer and newspaper owner as well as by the situational context within which they were written. My analysis of the schematic structure of the editorials, in line with Bolivar (1994), reveals consistent use of three-part structures by which editorial opinions are evaluated. In concluding I provide suggestions, based on my research, for how critical language awareness can inform media education at high school level in South Africa. I argue that students should be equipped with tools, such as those I employed, to critically analyse and uncover how language is used to promote ideologies in the editorial of newspapers.
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Equity in the South African legal system a critical ethnography
- Authors: Leiper, Jonathan
- Date: 2004
- Subjects: Court interpreting and translating -- South Africa , Language and languages -- Law and legislation -- South Africa , Translators -- Training of -- South Africa , Translators -- Legal status, laws, etc. -- South Africa , Law -- Translating -- South Africa , Law -- South Africa -- Language
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: vital:2355 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1002637 , Court interpreting and translating -- South Africa , Language and languages -- Law and legislation -- South Africa , Translators -- Training of -- South Africa , Translators -- Legal status, laws, etc. -- South Africa , Law -- Translating -- South Africa , Law -- South Africa -- Language
- Description: This thesis focuses on the process of interpreting and the difficulties faced by interpreters in the Magistrates' Court in Grahamstown, South Africa. More particularly, the thesis seeks to establish whether the constitutional guarantee of language equity can be applied to the courts - given the numerous problems with interpreting. Respondents from different spheres of the legal profession were interviewed in order to ascertain their perspectives on the state of interpreting, problems that are encountered by interpreters and attitudes displayed by other members of the legal profession towards interpreters. The methodology used in the thesis is that of a critical ethnography. As such, the research also has a critical focus, seeking to determine the ideologies and interests of different ):articipants in the legal process. On the basis of the data collected, a number of conclusions are drawn. The first is that interpreting in South Africa is in trouble. The system of interpreting is beset by a number of different problems. This study describes four different types of problems that are faced by interpreters: linguistic problems, environmental problems, training and administrative issues, and poor status in the eyes of the other participants in the legal process. Together the cumulative effect of these problems is the undermining of the principle of equity in the justice system. Finally, the thesis provides various practical and achievable solutions to the problems outlined above, specifically those faced by interpreters. The researcher also critically evaluates the efforts and motives of the Department of Justice and Constitutional Development.
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Exploring health literacy assessment : the relexicalisation of a health literacy test from the U.S. for application in a South African population
- Authors: La Rose, Christopher Michael
- Date: 2004
- Subjects: Rapid Estimate of Adult Literacy in Medicine , Educational tests and measurements , Literacy -- South Africa--Evaluation , Health education -- South Africa -- Evaluation
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: vital:2373 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1005708 , Rapid Estimate of Adult Literacy in Medicine , Educational tests and measurements , Literacy -- South Africa--Evaluation , Health education -- South Africa -- Evaluation
- Description: The Rapid Estimate of Adult Literacy in Medicine (REALM) is a standardised health literacy test developed in the United States that has been previously administered and researched in South Africa (Lecoko, 2000). It is an objective vocabulary test which uses item recognition of 66 health-related words where recognition is measured by pronunciation. It is designed as a screening instrument to identifY the health literacy levels of patients in clinics. Lecoko (2000) found the REALM to be largely inapplicable in a South African setting, in that only eight out of the 66 words could be deemed acceptable, in that they could be either both adequately pronounced and adequately comprehended or both inadequately pronounced and inadequately comprehended. This may have occurred for a number of reasons, including the administration of the test in a population for whom English is a second or other language, and inaccurate measurement of pronunciation and comprehension of words, with a key problem being that the choice of words in the original REALM may not accurately represent the range of conditions and issues in a South African healthcare setting. This thesis was therefore premised on the principled relexicalisation of the REALM, that replacement of the words used in the test, using a sample gathered from health information and promotion texts in local clinics, would improve its applicability. In this regard, an exhaustive sample was gathered and analysed and 66 new words were chosen. The test was also modified to include a more principled approach to pronunciation and comprehension issues, and to account for language proficiency differences in administering an English language test in an English second language population. This modified test, referred to as the REALM-M was administered to a group of respondents who were statistically similar to the group to whom the REALM had originally been administered, and the results were compared. It was found that relexicalisation increased the number of acceptable words on the test from eight to 38. However, researching the key discourses surrounding health literacy and comparing these with current discourses about literacy beyond the field of health care revealed that despite improved content validity over the REALM, the REALM-M lacked construct validity. This provided the opportunity to discuss the discourses of health literacy and to suggest the application of alternative paradigms in this field.
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