An ethnographic investigation of the implementation of the bilingual-bicultural approach for educating deaf learners focusing on South African sign language teaching at FET level
- Authors: Tunzelana, Nomava Mercy
- Date: 2021-10-29
- Subjects: South African Sign Language Study and teaching (Higher) , Sign language acquisition South Africa , Education, Bilingual South Africa , Biculturalism South Africa , Ethnology South Africa , Culturally relevant pedagogy South Africa , Deaf students South Africa , South Africa. Department of Basic Education , Curriculum-based assessment South Africa , South African Curriculum Assessment and Policy Statement (CAPS)
- Language: English
- Type: Master's theses , text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/192353 , vital:45218
- Description: This half-thesis reports on an ethnographic investigation of the implementation of the Bilingual-Bicultural Approach for educating Deaf learners, focusing on South African Sign Language (SASL) teaching at the Further Education and Training (FET) level in a South African School for the Deaf in the Eastern Cape. The investigation occurs within the context of the introduction, in 2015, of the SASL Curriculum and Assessment Policy Statement (CAPS) by the Department of Basic Education (DBE). The SASL CAPS introduces an approach to teaching the Deaf known as the Bilingual-Bicultural Approach. This is an approach in which natural sign language (such as SASL) is taught first and used to learn a spoken language such as English for reading and writing. Previous research on a contrastive analysis of South African English and SASL reveals that SASL is a Topic-Comment language. It is sometimes Object-Subject-Verb (OSV) or Subject-Object-Verb (SOV) while the word order of South African English is Subject-Verb-Object (SVO). Semi-structured interviews of hearing and Deaf participants reveal serious tensions between the staff and the hearing staff because Deaf culture is not adhered to by some of the hearing staff. These tensions have a negative impact on the culture of learning and teaching at the school. Observations of four lessons at an FET class taught by an SASL FET teacher show that in her teaching, SASL syntax is used in keeping with the principles of the Bilingual-Bicultural Approach. However, her signing is accompanied by unvoiced spoken language due to the influence of a previously used approach called Total Communication (TC). One of the learners, Lulu, who contributes considerably more often than other learners in the lesson, also shows the same influence of TC. Other learners are either withdrawn or copy signs from Lulu. The study concludes with the recommendation that SASL be used for initiating newcomers to school as opposed to Signed English because research in bilingualism suggests that second language learners need one natural language established first before attempting to learn a second language. Teachers are recommended to immerse themselves into Deaf culture to acquire fluency. Comments from some participants suggest that teachers require vigorous training in the Bilingual-Bicultural Approach on a continuous basis. , Thesis (MA) -- Faculty of Humanities, Linguistics and Applied Languages Studies, 2021
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2021-10-29
- Authors: Tunzelana, Nomava Mercy
- Date: 2021-10-29
- Subjects: South African Sign Language Study and teaching (Higher) , Sign language acquisition South Africa , Education, Bilingual South Africa , Biculturalism South Africa , Ethnology South Africa , Culturally relevant pedagogy South Africa , Deaf students South Africa , South Africa. Department of Basic Education , Curriculum-based assessment South Africa , South African Curriculum Assessment and Policy Statement (CAPS)
- Language: English
- Type: Master's theses , text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/192353 , vital:45218
- Description: This half-thesis reports on an ethnographic investigation of the implementation of the Bilingual-Bicultural Approach for educating Deaf learners, focusing on South African Sign Language (SASL) teaching at the Further Education and Training (FET) level in a South African School for the Deaf in the Eastern Cape. The investigation occurs within the context of the introduction, in 2015, of the SASL Curriculum and Assessment Policy Statement (CAPS) by the Department of Basic Education (DBE). The SASL CAPS introduces an approach to teaching the Deaf known as the Bilingual-Bicultural Approach. This is an approach in which natural sign language (such as SASL) is taught first and used to learn a spoken language such as English for reading and writing. Previous research on a contrastive analysis of South African English and SASL reveals that SASL is a Topic-Comment language. It is sometimes Object-Subject-Verb (OSV) or Subject-Object-Verb (SOV) while the word order of South African English is Subject-Verb-Object (SVO). Semi-structured interviews of hearing and Deaf participants reveal serious tensions between the staff and the hearing staff because Deaf culture is not adhered to by some of the hearing staff. These tensions have a negative impact on the culture of learning and teaching at the school. Observations of four lessons at an FET class taught by an SASL FET teacher show that in her teaching, SASL syntax is used in keeping with the principles of the Bilingual-Bicultural Approach. However, her signing is accompanied by unvoiced spoken language due to the influence of a previously used approach called Total Communication (TC). One of the learners, Lulu, who contributes considerably more often than other learners in the lesson, also shows the same influence of TC. Other learners are either withdrawn or copy signs from Lulu. The study concludes with the recommendation that SASL be used for initiating newcomers to school as opposed to Signed English because research in bilingualism suggests that second language learners need one natural language established first before attempting to learn a second language. Teachers are recommended to immerse themselves into Deaf culture to acquire fluency. Comments from some participants suggest that teachers require vigorous training in the Bilingual-Bicultural Approach on a continuous basis. , Thesis (MA) -- Faculty of Humanities, Linguistics and Applied Languages Studies, 2021
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- Date Issued: 2021-10-29
Tense and aspect in Xhosa
- Authors: Savić, Stefan
- Date: 2021-10-29
- Subjects: Xhosa language , Xhosa language Grammar , Xhosa language Semantics , Xhosa language Tense , Xhosa language Aspect , Xhosa language Syntax , Xhosa language Morphology , Xhosa language Grammar, Comparative , Information structure
- Language: English
- Type: Doctoral theses , text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/192897 , vital:45277 , 10.21504/10962/192897
- Description: This dissertation investigates the semantics of each tense and aspect in Xhosa. Since tense and aspect perform important pragmatic functions, the analysis takes into account the correlation between the verb and the wider discourse in which it is embedded. Tense reflects the temporal relation between the time of the utterance (speech time) and an interval the speaker makes the assertion about (reference time). The Remote Past and the Remote Future tenses differ from their Recent/Immediate counterparts in that they denote events which occurred in a significantly different situation than the speech time and/or events in the surrounding discourse. Aspect does not only indicate the relation between the time occupied by the real world event and the reference time chosen by the speaker. The Perfective aspect represents an event as a unique change-of-state that pertains to a single point on the timeline which at the same time functions as the reference time. By contrast, for the Imperfective aspect temporally links the event to a contextually provided reference time, e.g. the utterance time, a time adverbial, a period of time previously introduced in the preceding discourse, or the interlocutors’ shared experience. At the pragmatic level, the Perfective aspect tends to introduce an event’s resulting state into the discourse, whereas the Imperfective aspect tends to rule it out. Like the Imperfective aspect, the Anterior and the Prospective aspects assert an event’s occurrence from a contextually defined reference time. They refer to the consequent and the preparatory states of an event, respectively. On the pragmatic level, the Anterior aspect may also indicate that the truth-conditionality of the event’s resulting state is contradicted in the immediate discourse. This study shows that tense and aspect temporally represent different means of temporally assigning an event to a particular portion of the timeline. I further argue that aspect indicates whether the reference time is provided in the context (Imperfective, Anterior, Prospective) or whether it is introduced by the verb itself (Perfective). Furthermore, this study shows that aspect exhibits a pragmatic function by laying focus on different parts of the event that are relevant in the upcoming discourse. , Thesis (PhD) -- Faculty of Humanities, Linguistics and Applied Languages Studies, 2021
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2021-10-29
- Authors: Savić, Stefan
- Date: 2021-10-29
- Subjects: Xhosa language , Xhosa language Grammar , Xhosa language Semantics , Xhosa language Tense , Xhosa language Aspect , Xhosa language Syntax , Xhosa language Morphology , Xhosa language Grammar, Comparative , Information structure
- Language: English
- Type: Doctoral theses , text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/192897 , vital:45277 , 10.21504/10962/192897
- Description: This dissertation investigates the semantics of each tense and aspect in Xhosa. Since tense and aspect perform important pragmatic functions, the analysis takes into account the correlation between the verb and the wider discourse in which it is embedded. Tense reflects the temporal relation between the time of the utterance (speech time) and an interval the speaker makes the assertion about (reference time). The Remote Past and the Remote Future tenses differ from their Recent/Immediate counterparts in that they denote events which occurred in a significantly different situation than the speech time and/or events in the surrounding discourse. Aspect does not only indicate the relation between the time occupied by the real world event and the reference time chosen by the speaker. The Perfective aspect represents an event as a unique change-of-state that pertains to a single point on the timeline which at the same time functions as the reference time. By contrast, for the Imperfective aspect temporally links the event to a contextually provided reference time, e.g. the utterance time, a time adverbial, a period of time previously introduced in the preceding discourse, or the interlocutors’ shared experience. At the pragmatic level, the Perfective aspect tends to introduce an event’s resulting state into the discourse, whereas the Imperfective aspect tends to rule it out. Like the Imperfective aspect, the Anterior and the Prospective aspects assert an event’s occurrence from a contextually defined reference time. They refer to the consequent and the preparatory states of an event, respectively. On the pragmatic level, the Anterior aspect may also indicate that the truth-conditionality of the event’s resulting state is contradicted in the immediate discourse. This study shows that tense and aspect temporally represent different means of temporally assigning an event to a particular portion of the timeline. I further argue that aspect indicates whether the reference time is provided in the context (Imperfective, Anterior, Prospective) or whether it is introduced by the verb itself (Perfective). Furthermore, this study shows that aspect exhibits a pragmatic function by laying focus on different parts of the event that are relevant in the upcoming discourse. , Thesis (PhD) -- Faculty of Humanities, Linguistics and Applied Languages Studies, 2021
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2021-10-29
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