UWCScholar :: Browsing by Author "Stroud, Christopher"

Browsing by Author "Stroud, Christopher"

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Battling the race: Stylizing language and coproducing whiteness and colouredness in a freestyle rap performance
(American Antrhopological Association, 2015) Williams, Quentin; Stroud, Christopher
In the last 19 years of post-apartheid South African democracy, race remains an enduring and familiar trope, a point of certainty amid the messy ambiguities of transformation. In the present article, we explore the malleable, permeable, and unstable racializations of contemporary South Arica, specifically the way in which coloured and white racializations are negotiated and interactionally accomplished in the context of Capetonian hip-hop. The analysis reveals the complex ways in which racialized bodies are figured semiotically through reference to historical time and contemporary (translocal) social space. But also the way iconic features of blackness are reindexicalized to stand for a transnational whiteness.
Beyond the glass ceiling: Towards a multi-sensory definition of functional literacy
(University of the Western Cape, 2017) Odendal, Matthys Johannes; Stroud, Christopher
The world is becoming increasingly visual (Kress, 2009:1).The visually literate viewer should be able to gather data, place it in context, and determine its validity. A huge visual world opened up for the users of new technology. It is therefore no surprise that definitions of literacy have placed a huge premium on the reader to be able to interpret visual cues. Even in its simplest definition, the ability to read and write, the understanding of the concept of literacy is based on the visual. Although new literacies and recent orthographies also emphasise the role of context and the interaction of different modalities and learning history, like the social practice approach, it also focus on literacy events in which the written word is still the fundamental focus. In other words, (visual) texts remain the point of departure rather than seeing the written word as one part of a larger 'material ecology' of signs and meanings. This means that the majority of studies in the field of literacy focus on the individual's ability to interpret the visual and neglects how other senses permute in literacy events.
The Centre for Multilingualism and Diversities Research at the University of the Western Cape, South Africa
(University of the Western Cape, 2014) Stroud, Christopher
There is an urgency in theorising how diversity is negotiated, communicated, and disputed as a matter of everyday ordinariness that is compounded by the clear linkages between diversity, transformation, voice, agency, poverty and health. The way in which difference is categorised, semiotised and reconfigured in multiple languages across quotidian encounters and in public and media forums is a central dynamic in how poverty and disadvantage are distributed and reproduced across social and racial categorisations. In the South African context, finding ways of productively harnessing diversity in the building of a better society must be a priority.
The centre for multilingualism and diversities research at the University of the Western Cape, South Africa
(University of the Western Cape, 2014) Stroud, Christopher
There is an urgency in theorising how diversity is negotiated, communicated, and disputed as a matter of everyday ordinariness that is compounded by the clear linkages between diversity, transformation, voice, agency, poverty and health. The way in which difference is categorised, semiotised and reconfigured in multiple languages across quotidian encounters and in public and media forums is a central dynamic in how poverty and disadvantage are distributed and reproduced across social and racial categorisations. In the South African context, finding ways of productively harnessing diversity in the building of a better society must be a priority. The South African context with its history of apartheid and on-going contemporary post-apartheid transformation is a veritable laboratory for the study of forms of conflict and conviviality in diversity. South Africa is a society characterised by historical displacements and contemporary mobilities, both social and demographic, where a large part of people�s daily life involves negotiating diversity, dislocation, relocation and anomie, while at the same time attempting to pursue aspirations of mobility in a context of continuing inequity.
Choice of language for learning and assessment: the role of learner identity and perceptions in informing these choices
(2009) Jantjies, Nomxolisi; Stroud, Christopher
South Africa, like many ex-colonial contexts finds itself confronting difficult decisions about multilingualism. The South Africa constitution recognizes eleven official languages and provides for education in these languages. At present, few parents opt to put their children in African language classrooms.This study explores the case of an inner-city school in Cape Town which offered limited provisions in learning in Afrikaans and isiXhosa besides the main language English. The study elicited learners� ideas and attitudes about the viability of these languages as languages of teaching and learning through the primary use of interviews. Learners� perceptions of language are discussed within a language ideological framework that distinguishes between modernist and post modernist ideas of language in a transforming postmodern context.Among the findings are ideologically loaded discourses of how these learners undermine the use of Afrikaans and isiXhosa as languages of education in order to create or enact a certain learner identity which they deem appropriate for this context. Furthermore, downgrading of their languages is largely embedded in the need to separate languages of the home and education as some languages are more than others believed to offer social and economic flexibility.
Choice of language for learning and assessment: the role of learner identity and perceptions in informing these choices.
(University of the Western Cape, 2009) Jantjies, Nomxolisi; Stroud, Christopher
South Africa, like many ex-colonial contexts finds itself confronting difficult decisions about multilingualism. The South Africa constitution recognizes eleven official languages and provides for education in these languages. At present, few parents opt to put their children in African language classrooms. This study explores the case of an inner-city school in Cape Town which offered limited provisions in learning in Afrikaans and isiXhosa besides the main language English. The study elicited learners' ideas and attitudes about the viability of these languages as languages of teaching and learning through the primary use of interviews. Learners' perceptions of language are discussed within a language ideological framework that distinguishes between modernist and post modernist ideas of language in a transforming postmodern context. Among the findings are ideologically loaded discourses of how these learners undermine the use of Afrikaans and isiXhosa as languages of education in order to create or enact a certain learner identity which they deem appropriate for this context. Furthermore, downgrading of their languages is largely embedded in the need to separate languages of the home and education as some languages are more than others believed to offer social and economic flexibility.
A critical analysis of colonial and postcolonial discourses and representations of the people of Mozambique in the Portuguese newspaper �O S�culo de Joanesburgo� from 1970-1980
(University of the Western Cape, 2014) Da Costa, Dinis Fernando; Dyers, Charlyn; Stroud, Christopher
The aim of this thesis is to probe how Mozambican people were represented or constructed in the colonial and post-colonial periods through the columns of the Portuguese newspaper, �O S�culo de Joanesburgo�. The study examines a corpus of 58, 070 tokens (consisting of 100 articles, 50 for colonial and 50 for postcolonial periods), which were systematically selected from the political, sport, letters to the reader and editorial domains published from 1970 to 1980. The analytical framework for this study is threefold. It is informed by corpus linguistics (CL) as described by, amongst others, McEnery and Wilson (1996/2001) and Bennett (2010); critical discourse analysis (CDA), in particular the work of Van Dijk (1996; 2003), Wodak (1995; 2011) and Wodak and Meyer (2009) and multimodal discourse analysis (MDA) as used by Kress and van Leeuwen (1996; 1998; 2006), Kress (2010) and Machin and Mayr (2012)
Diversities, affinities and diasporas: a southern lens and methodology for understanding multilingualisms
(Taylor & Francis, 2018) Heugh, Kathleen; Stroud, Christopher
We frame multilingualisms through a growing interest in a linguistics and sociology of the �south� and acknowledge earlier contributions of linguists in Africa, the Am�ricas and Asia who have engaged with human mobility, linguistic contact and consequential ecologies that alter over time and space. Recently, conversations of multilingualism have drifted in two directions. Southern conversations have become intertwined with �decolonial theory�, and with �southern� theory, thinking and epistemologies. In these, �southern� is regarded as a metaphor for marginality, coloniality and entanglements of the geopolitical north and south. Northern debates that receive traction appear to focus on recent �re-awakenings� in Europe and North America that mis-remember southern experiences of linguistic diversity. We provide a contextual backdrop for articles in this issue that illustrate intelligences of multilingualisms and the linguistic citizenship of southern people. In these, southern multilingualisms are revealed as phenomena, rather than as a phenomenon defined usually in English. The intention is to suggest a third direction of mutual advantage in rethinking the social imaginary in relation to communality, entanglements and interconnectivities of both South and North.
Drag kings in Cape Town: space and the performance of gendered subjectivities
(University of the Western Cape, 2014) Shaikjee, Mooniq; Stroud, Christopher; Milani, Tommaso
The last few decades have seen the development of a large body of scholarly work on drag queens and performances of femininity by men (see Barrett 1995, 1999). However, performances of masculinity by women have largely been overlooked. Research by scholars like Judith Halberstam (see Halberstam 1997, 1998) on female masculinity and the drag king performer has attempted to address this imbalance, but the phenomenon has yet to receive any attention from sociolinguists. This study aims to bring attention to performances of masculinity by women in the South African context through a multi-sited ethnography of the country�s first known drag king troupe, Bros B4 Ho's. The study will examine not only the group's stage performances, but also their activity on the online social networking platform of Facebook, using multimodal critical discourse analysis. The internet has revolutionised the way we communicate and share information, and has provided interesting new arenas for individuals to explore identity performance. In extending the investigation to include the group's online activity, the study will give a more complete picture of the negotiation of drag king subjectivities across different spaces.
Exercising linguistic citizenship through Coloured narratives
(University of the Western Cape, 2022) Van Niekerk, Lauren; Bock, Zannie; Stroud, Christopher
This project explores the negotiation of shifting racial identities within a transforming post-Apartheid context, in particular, the negotiation of what it means to be �coloured�. Twenty-seven years into South Africa�s democracy, the power and influence that race and language hold over many South Africans� are still prominent within this country. Because race is historically intersected with language and social class, language is used as an instrument of racialization. Therefore, this project seeks to understand how coloured racial and linguistic identities, which are steeped in complexity and ambiguity, are navigated by participants. It will focus, in particular, on how participants engage with Afrikaans and Kaaps to navigate these complexities and signal alignments and ambivalences. Additionally, this research aims to explore the potential of multilingualism to be a dynamic factor in the inclusive transformation of historical positions. Its central aim is to contribute to the notion of Linguistic Citizenship (Stroud, 2001, 2015, 2018, 2021) by capturing how linguistic encounters and interactions can go beyond the defined subjectivities of race and ethnicity, and how people use language to challenge and subvert historical and more contemporary identities. The data draws on focus group discussions with UWC students and the narratives produced within these spaces. It will draw on contemporary scholarship in Sociolinguistics, Discourse and Narrative Analysis and Linguistic Citizenship to explore how participants perform acts of Linguistic Citizenship to showcase their agency and voice as language and narratives become a site where identity juxtapositions are laid bare, and participants and their (racial and linguistic) identities are reimagined.
Exploring the micro-social dynamics of intergenerational language transmission: a critical analysis of parents's attitudes and language use patterns among Ndamba speakers in Tanzania
(University of the Western Cape, 2010) Lipembe, Pembe Peter Agustini; Stroud, Christopher; Dept. of Linguistics, Language and Communication; Faculty of Arts
The study has several implications; for general theoretical traditions it highlights the point that ambivalent attitudes and incomplete language use are responsible for gradual language decline. Previous studies while acknowledging the role of community based, intuitive conditions on language maintenance and shift, did not show how the process occurred. For policy the study aims toward sensitizing policy makers and raise their awareness about the dire situation in which minority languages currently are in. This would ensure that politicians, bureaucrats, and other state authorities could implement policy decisions that guarantee protection of minority languages and enhance their vitality. One policy strategy that could ensure revitalization of minority languages would be to include them in the school curriculum as supplementary approach to the effort of the home and the community, as McCarty (2002, quoted in Recento, 2006) observes that schools; [�] �can be constructed as a place where children can be free to be indigenous in the indigenous language - in all of its multiple and everchanging meanings and forms� (p. 51).
Fanon in drag: Decoloniality in sociolinguistics?
(Wiley, 2017) Shaikjee, Mooniq; Stroud, Christopher
In focus in this paper is the genre of drag, and the uses to which it is put by its proponents in subverting conventional and repressive (Western) models of gender, sexuality and race. We raise the question of to what extent performances of drag, while arguably disrupting gender stereotypes, nevertheless continue to reproduce colonialities of race and sexuality. Framing an analysis of a drag king performance in a sociolinguistics of subjectification inspired by the work of Frantz Fanon, we offer an account that recognizes how, rather than subverting or challenging conventional images of gender, the performance is one part of a complex circulation of textual and corporeal semiotics that enregisters racialized categories of male and female cut to the cloth of coloniality/modernity. On the other hand, the analysis also reveals that there are moments of interruption and slippage in the reproduction of colonial constructs of race, gender and sexuality that may offer more complex and multifarious understandings of what may comprise the exercises of decoloniality. We conclude with a discussion of what a decolonial Fanonian approach to subjectification might offer sociolinguistics.
From carnival to cancelling: a dramaturgical analysis of the uncrowning of Unathi Nkayi on Twitter/X.
(University of the Western Cape, 2024) Kirby, America; Stroud, Christopher
This study presents results from an incident that stemmed from famous South African singer, actress and radio personality Unathi Nkayi’s personal opinion on the 2015 Luister documentary (which sheds light on racism at Stellenbosch University). The overarching interest was to explore how Goffman’s (1959) dramaturgical approach could be used, in conjunction with Bakhtin’s (1968) notion of carnival, to analyse the interaction between Nkayi and @ThisIsPalo, as well as Twitter/X’s audience responses to their interaction. The study draws on a virtual linguistic ethnography, computer-mediated discourse analysis and multimodal discourse analysis in order to analyse the multimodal content found on Twitter/X, taking a particular interest in how this adapted language use is utilized as a tool for negative and toxic interaction; for online harassment. Goffman’s ritual interchange is used to break down the interaction in order to determine how and when interaction escalates from playful to harassment, while Bakhtin’s notion of carnival was invoked as analytical tools to analyse how the Twitter/X audience brought Nkayi from a king (celebrity) down to a clown (peasant); uncrowning her through the use of memes.
Introduction and decolonial pedagogies, multilingualism and literacies
(University of the Western Cape, 2019) Bock, Zannie; Stroud, Christopher
This Special Issue of Multilingual Margins brings together a number of creative, reflective and academic writings and artefacts that emerged from a new interinstitutional postgraduate module, Re-imagining Multilingualisms, hosted by the Centre for Multilingualism and Diversities Research (CMDR) at the University of the Western Cape (UWC), and the Department of Linguistics at Stellenbosch University (SU) in 2018. The module has as its central focus the notion of �multilingualism� and how this can be �re-imagined� as a �transformative tool� within a higher education context. It emerged out of a Mellon-funded research project which seeks to respond to the current calls for broadened epistemic access, decolonised curricula and transformed institutions. The module engages with this challenge by exploring how pedagogic approaches, which centre multilingualism and diversity, and which use a variety of creative writing and arts-based pedagogies, can facilitate access to knowledge, and deepen our understanding of how higher education can become more inclusive and democratic. By encouraging student participants to imagine and engage with their linguistic resources and histories in different ways, it aimed to help students re-think their notions of language and multilingualism, and the historical power relations which legitimate and amplify, or silence and mute, particular voices, identities and �ways of seeing�. In this introduction, we first discuss why we need to re-think (or re-conceptualise) multilingualism, and then reflect on the module as a way to understand more deeply how language and multilingualism can become a transformative tool in both teaching and learning, and in building a more integrated, just society.
Investigating Kiswahili academic literacy: the case of two primary and two secondary schools in Morogoro region, Tanzania
(University of the Western Cape, 2009) Shumbusho, George N.; Stroud, Christopher; Dept. of Linguistics, Language and Communication; Faculty of Arts
The purpose of the current study was to examine whether pupils/students master academic literacy and if various genres are taught appropriately. In other words whether pupils/students master academic literacy in a way that would allow them to benefit from a transition into Kiswahili as a language of instruction at secondary school level and probably beyond. The study was carried out in two primary and two secondary schools in Morogoro and Mvomero Districts of Morogoro region in Tanzania. The study is essentially qualitative, and employed ethnographic design. In this regard, three methods of data collection were used namely: interviews, classroom observations and texts analysis. The study is located within the New Literacy Studies (NLS) perspective as a general interpretative theoretical framework. The analysis of data was done using Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL), Genre analysis and Christie's Curriculum genres and macrogenres.
Language in education policy and literacy acquisition in multilingual Uganda: a case study of the urban district of Kampala
(University of the Western Cape, 2014) Nankindu, Prosperous; Stroud, Christopher
This thesis is concerned with Language in Education Policy (LiEP) and literacy acquisition in multilingual Uganda with the urban district of Kampala as the case study. Specifically, the study investigates the implementation of a monoglot LiEP for early literacy acquisition in a multilingual situation. The thesis analyses three LiEP instruments for Uganda, namely; (i) The 1992 Government White Paper on Education, (ii) The 1995 Constitution of the Republic of Uganda and (iii) The Uganda Education Sector Strategic Plan 2004-2015. After that analysis the study presents views and perceptions of LiEP Stakeholders in Uganda; Policy makers, Curriculum developers, Literacy researchers, NGO Officials, Head teachers, Literacy teachers and Parents/Guardians. The study is mainly prompted by the LiEP which recommends English as the Medium of Instruction (MoI) but not the common language to be used throughout the Primary School cycle. The thesis trys to shed light on the following aspects; principles of a LiEP in a multilingual setting, a relevant LiEP model for multilingual situations, multilingualism as a resource for literacy acquisition, appropriateness of a bilingual LiEP in Kampala with a local language, classroom and home literacy practices and lastly, literacy acquisition. The research question is to find out the extent to which the current LiEP in Uganda provides for literacy acquisition in multilingual settings.
Linguistic citizenship as Utopia
(University of the Westen Cape, 2015) Stroud, Christopher
A major challenge of our time is to build a life of equity in a fragmented world of globalized ethical, economic and ecological meltdown. In this context, language takes on singular importance as the foremost means whereby we may engage ethically with others across encounters of difference. Howevever, there is an important sense in which the crisis of humanity we are experiencing as a crisis of diversity and voice is deeply entwined with a subterranean crisis of language itself. As Giorgio Agamben has pointed out, although language is the foremost realization of our humanity, our current understanding of language distorts rather than elucidates this humanity.
The literacy orientation of preschool children in a multilingual environment: the case of post-apartheid Manenberg
(University of the Western Cape, 2011) Jegels, Dmitri Garcia Aloysius; Stroud, Christopher; Dept. of Linguistics, Language and Communication
This thesis is the result of an ethnographic study of the multilingual literacy practices of a group of families in their particular spaces within the urban context of the community of Manenberg, with the specific view of investigating the links between spatial and urban capital and the literacy practices to be encountered amongst these families. The following questions form the core of the study: 1. What are the parental ethnotheories about literacy and schooling? 2. Are there family literacy practices that may enhance preschool children�s ability to make meaning within the school system? The results of the thesis show a range of beliefs resulting in parents adopting a range of strategies in terms of language choice and literacy socialisation of their children. The thesis also shows that the vast majority of parents view acquisition of English as important, that there is a definite concern about access to libraries and about safe places for children to engage in extramural activity. Parental ethnotheories have a direct bearing on how the preschool child is oriented towards literacy. This includes implications for what languages the preschool child is exposed to, what medium of instruction parents prefer for their children (which is often not the language of highest competence of the child), whether or not various supposedly accessible resources for the promotion of children�s literacy are tapped into, and whether or not parents become actively involved in the literacy acquisition of their children. However, these findings need to be seen in the larger context of the research participants� perceptions and discourses about space, multilingualism, and literacy. Some unexpected findings are shown as a result of listening to people�s voices on the ground. The respondents� ethnotheories of multilingualism, space, and literacy produce narratives of local patriotism, pride in Cape Afrikaans, and of emplacement rather than displacement. Urban planning structures, whether envisaged under apartheid or by successive regimes in the post apartheid era, are shown to have become less rigid, fluid, and porous. The local moral economy works to legitimise poverty, so that living in a shack is not stigmatised, and gang members are seen to be full members of the local community, ignoring normative structures that would treat such agents in a punitive manner beyond the borders of Manenberg. Residents, though mostly impoverished and lacking in high levels of education, are shown to remain marginalised through a lack of material resources, with many in need of a strategic orientation to resources, including those which would enable them to orient their children to literacy in such a way as to enable them to make a successful transition to the school system.
Multilingual Landscapes : The Politics of Language and Self in a South African Township in Transformation
(University of the Western Cape, 2009) Mpendukana, Sibonile; Stroud, Christopher; Dept. of Linguistics, Language and Communication; Faculty of Arts
Much language planning and policy in recent years in South Africa tends to overlook linguistic situations and practices, and focuses on notions of top-down language policy and implementation. This does not fit easily with the current multilingualism dynamics of late post-modern societies, which are increasingly characterized by a culture of consumerism and politics of aspiration. Taking its point of departure from a critical analysis of linguistic practices, in the form of visual literacies (billboards) in a township in South Africa, this thesis aims to draw forth alternative approaches that focus on the notion of sociolinguistic consumption, politics of aspiration and stylization of self, as a means of addressing the linguistic situation, and highlighting implications for language planning and multilingualism.
Multilingualism as racialization
(University of Western Cape, 2021) Richardson, Jason; Stroud, Christopher
South African today remains a nation torn by violence and racial inequity. One of major challenges for its people is to create new futures across historically constituted racial divides, by finding ways to engage with each other across difference. In this regard, multilingualism holds out the promise of offering a way of bridging difference and opening spaces for engagement and empathy with Others. Today contemporary constructs of multilingualism, both in policy and everyday practice, continue to reinforce racialized divisions inherited from historical uses of language as a tool of colonialism, and a mechanism of governmentality in apartheid, the system of exploitation and state sanctioned institutional racism. In this paper we seek to demonstrate how multilingualism has always been, and remains today, an �epistemic� site for managing constructed racialized diversity. In order to do so we trace periods of South Africa�s history. By way of conclusion, we suggest that alternative linguistic orders require a decolonial rethinking of the role of language(s) in epistemic, social and political life.

Browsing by Author "Stroud, Christopher"

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