Browsing Faculty of Arts by Title
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Bock, Zannie (Academia Press, 2009)[more][less]
Abstract: In this paper, I analyse the testimony of Colin de Souza given before South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) in the mid-1990s.1 My aim is to explore how De Souza projects an identity of himself as 'agentive', as an innovative and flexible individual who is capable of outwitting and outmaneuvering his opponents despite the fact that within the TRC context, he is positioned as a 'victim' of human rights abuse. To substantiate this argument, I use a number of Systemic Functional Linguistic (SFL) tools to analyse the way in which this agency is encoded in the language of the testimony. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10566/281 Files in this item: 1
Bock_Construals2009.pdf (577.8Kb) -
Sithole, Jabulani (Univ. of KwaZulu-Natal) (Published by History Dept, University of the Western Cape, 2009)[more][less]
Abstract: The key characteristic of the vast amount of literature on the South African workers ʼ movement in the post-1973 period is the denial that the class and national struggles were closely intertwined. This denial is underpinned by a strong ʻantinationalist currentʼ which dismisses the national liberation struggle as ʻpopulist and nationalistʼ and therefore antithetical to socialism. This article cautions against uncritical endorsement of these views. It argues that they are the work of partisan and intolerant commentators who have dominated the South African academy since the 1970s and who have a tendency to suppress all versions of labour history which highlight these linkages in favour of those which portray national liberation and socialism as antinomies. The article also points out that these commentators use history to mobilise support for their rigidly held ideological positions and to wage current political struggles under the pretext of advancing objective academic arguments. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10566/104 Files in this item: 1
SitholeContestations2009.pdf (184.4Kb) -
Bock, Zannie; Dadlana, Phakamani (University of Stellenbosch, 2002)[more][less]
Abstract: This article aims to characterize typical linguistic and discourse features of academic writing in Xhosa and English among prospective Xhosa-speaking students at the University of the Western Cape so as to account for strengths and weaknesses in the writing and provide possible ‘points’ for pedagogic intervention. It presents an analysis of a sample of entrance essays written by these students in English and Xhosa. The analysis is in terms of a framework which considers aspects of argument, register and syntax. It aims to highlight strengths and weaknesses in student writing and to ascertain the extent to which these characteristics are language-specific or cross-linguistic. The results of the analysis suggest that the ability to argue coherently in an appropriate register is the defining mark of good writing in any language, and that control over the syntax of the language is particularly important for these students when writing in English. The ability to write well, like certain aspects of style, seems to be a generic ability and affects students’ performance in both languages. URI: http://dx.doi.org /10.5785/18-1-8 Files in this item: 1
Bock_cross-linguistic2002.pdf (243.5Kb) -
van Ryneveld, Hannelore; Mentzner, Martina (Association of German Studies (SAGV), 2010)[more][less]
Abstract: The current challenges facing the teaching of German as a foreign language at the University of the Western Cape are outlined. The article includes a brief historical overview and proposes research perspectives for the future. Description: eDUSA is the electronic journal of Deutschunterricht in Südafrika. More information is available from the Assoc. of German Studies website at http://www.sagv.org.za URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10566/191 Files in this item: 1
vanRyneveldFachDeutsch2010.pdf (57.60Kb) -
Worden, Nigel (Univ. of Cape Town) (Published by History Department, University of the Western Cape, 2009)[more][less]
Abstract: This article analyses two separate cases of public violence which took place in Cape Town in the summer of 1772/3. At surface level they appear to be very different in character. One was a scrap among low-ranking soldiers who were playing cards at a shoreline outpost. The other was a formalised challenge between two captains of the VOC return fleet as they were lunching with the Governor, which resulted in a death and the flight of the murderer. Yet closer analysis suggests common ritualised codes of behaviour that intriguingly reveal how violence, masculinity and notions of honour operated at all social levels within the town. Both cases were complex and coded social conflicts, rooted in northern European early modern social beliefs and practices as transferred to a colonial context. However, none of these perpetrators of violence was viewed sympathetically by the VOC authorities at the Cape. By contrast, the assailant Captain who had escaped back to Europe was able to successfully appeal to the VOC directors in the Netherlands. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10566/100 Files in this item: 1
WordenViolence2009.pdf (167.1Kb) -
Pirie, Gordon (Elsevier, 2009)[more][less]
Abstract: The English language has long acknowledged and required some preconception of distance, but it has only been considered explicitly as a key element of human geography for half a century. The distances of greatest consequence in human geography are those between public places on the earth’s surface. Measures of physical distance have become increasingly standardized, but anomalous practices persist. Straight-line distance in nature has less applicability to human geography than route distance on a transport network. Even circuitous distance measures may be less useful measures of the separation of places than the time, expense and effort of traversing distances. Cognitive and compound distance also measure relative distance. In human geography distance is treated mainly as an organizing principle in location decision making and travel behavior, as a deterrent to spatial interaction and diffusion, and as a differentiator. Advances in rapid, long-range transport and communication have mediated sheer physical distance and rendered it less significant. Yet even while the world shrinks metaphorically, distances measured in relative terms are being reconfigured unevenly and imaginatively. Even where distance has ceased to be a material concern, the idea and discourse of distance survives. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10566/44 Files in this item: 1
PirieDistance.pdf (347.4Kb) -
Hart, Genevieve (International Association of School Librarianship, 2006)[more][less]
Abstract: The paper comes out of a month-long case study of information literacy education in two public libraries in a small South African town in the rural province of Mpumalanga, undertaken in October 2004. The participant observation study is the second phase of a two-phase mixed methods study, which explores the capacity of public libraries in South Africa for information literacy education – in the context of the dire shortage of school libraries. The focus in the second phase is on the connections between public libraries and schools. However, the relations between the two libraries and their staff members are found to impact on these relations with the study finding that historical context and the conflicts arising from unequal positions of power impact significantly on information literacy education in the town. The paper concentrates, however, on just two threads of enquiry: the views of teachers and principals in the seven schools of the town on the educational role of libraries as revealed in interviews; and pupils’ use of the two public libraries in seeking information for their school assignments. The study reveals a lack of cognizance of the high level demands of information-seeking in libraries among the teachers. They tend to see the library as a warehouse from which things are “fetched”. The study finds a paradox – a gulf certainly exists between the public libraries and schools but the gulf comes from shared limited conceptions of the educational role of public libraries and of information literacy. The intense gaze of the participant observation contributes a nuanced understanding of the challenges for information literacy education in South Africa. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10566/471 Files in this item: 1
HartIASL2006.pdf (266.4Kb) -
Groenewald, Gerald (Univ. of Johannesburg) (Published by History Department, University of the Western Cape, 2009)[more][less]
Abstract: This article uses the career of Hendrik Oostwald Eksteen at the Cape between 1702 and 1741 to illustrate the mechanisms free burghers could use to create wealth in an economically restrictive environment. By making use of the concept of entrepreneurship and its attendant issues, the article describes Eksteenʼs rise to fortune and prestige through his exploitation of a combination of economic opportunities afforded by Cape Townʼs position as a port servicing passing ships. Crucial to Eksteenʼs later success was his successful use of the opportunities provided by the monopolistic alcohol retail market at the Cape. Eksteenʼs initial success in this arena provided him with a capital base to pursue other opportunities in agriculture, fishing and meat provision, making him the wealthiest man at the Cape by the 1730s. The article also illustrates how Eksteenʼs upward mobility was linked to his use of social capital and the cultivation of large social networks through kinship. It demonstrates, furthermore, that economic success was wound up with social power and prestige. In using the biography of Eksteen, the article argues for the importance of economic history in the study of the early modern Cape, but calls also for a study which links economic developments with social and cultural ones through a focus on individual entrepreneurs. Shown, too, is the fact that the existing conception of the rise of a Cape gentry in the eighteenth century needs to be revised to take into account the role of entrepreneurship, the urban foundations of wealth creation, as well as the role of the free black community in this process. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10566/99 Files in this item: 1
GroenewaldEntrepreneur2009.pdf (260.7Kb) -
Conradie, Ernst (Stellenbosch University, 2008)[more][less]
Abstract: This essay is an abbreviated version of an inaugural lecture, read on 24 October 2007 at the University of the Western Cape. It investigates the role of cosmological narratives that help people to understand where they come from, who they are, how they can cope with the demands of life and with evil, and where they are going to. It focuses on one such a narrative, namely the Christian story of God’s work of creation, evolution, the emergence of human beings and human culture, the distortions resulting from human sin, God’s providence, redemption, the formation of the church, its ministries and missions and the consummation of all things. These themes have traditionally been captured under the notion of ‘God’s economy’. This term is derived from the Greek word oikos which is understood in the Christian tradition as ‘the whole household of God’. In contemporary ecumenical theology this term provides a clue as to how the moral of this story may be understood to address ecological degradation, economic injustices and ecumenical fellowship. The argument of the essay is that a retrieval of the underlying narrative structure of the story of God’s work can help to avoid the ways in which one ‘chapter’ of the story tends to be subsumed under another. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10566/362 Files in this item: 1
ConradieGodsWork2008.pdf (194.6Kb) -
Zinn, Sandy; Langdown, Natasha (Library & Information Association of South Africa, 2011)[more][less]
Abstract: The purpose of this study completed in 2010 was to investigate the use of e-books amongst academic librarians; in particular which e-books are available to academic librarians, why they choose this format, what impact e-books have on librarians’ professional practice and what the usage patterns of e-books are amongst academic librarians. A web-based questionnaire was distributed on the LIASA mailing list. The results reflect a more gradual trend towards e-book adoption. There is still a preference for print or a “bit of both” – print and electronic. This is because of the high costs of e-books using the subscription model as the predominant e-book acquisition model and the lack of sufficient e-books in all subject fields. E-books are used for “browsing for information” and are selected for functionalities such as having the ability to search the document, anytime access and automatic citation. Major problems identified with e-books are: the cost of the equipment to read e-book formats; the cost of the e-books, especially if the subscription purchasing model is used; the lack of reliability of the Internet; and the lack of training in the use of e-books. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10566/527 Files in this item: 1
ZinnEbooks2011.pdf (398.3Kb) -
Hart, Genevieve (University of KwaZulu-Natal, 2006)[more][less]
Abstract: The article details a study which examined the capacity of public libraries to offer information literacy education in South Africa. It investigates the perceptions of public library staff on their role in information literacy education. It provides a background on public libraries and literacy programs in the country. Findings of the research are discussed. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10566/438 Files in this item: 1
HartInformationLiteracy2006.pdf (120.5Kb) -
Conradie, Ernst (University of Kwazulu-Natal School of Theology, 2000)[more][less]
Abstract: On the background of the current sense of despair concerning the environmental crisis, this article follows the basic intuition that a Christian environmental praxis can only be empowered on the basis of an adequate understanding of Christian hope. Christian eschatology has traditionally responded to three distinct aspects of the human predicament - human self-enclosure, and finitude in both time and space; instigated by an unacceptable present reality, it articulates the conviction of an upcoming transformation into what it ought to be. Investigating the theme of hope in some major ecclesial documents and literature that explicitly addresses the topic written during the struggle, it is argued that the strength of the eschatology developed during that period consists in its return to the prophetic roots of Christian hope. Its concentration on the anthropological aspect of the liberation from the predicament from human sin makes it necessary to rediscover the impact of eschatology on the salvation of creation and the theocentric aspect of hope. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10566/409 Files in this item: 1
ConradieEschatology2000.pdf (1.633Mb) -
Malherbe, Vertrees C.(University of Cape Town) (Published by History Department, University of the Western Cape, 2010)[more][less]
Abstract: In the wake of the mineral revolution, and the Cape Colony’s attainment of responsible government, Cape Town’s population doubled in the nineteenth century’s latter years. Its largely British ruling class, seeing opportunities for wealth and a greater significance in empire and world, sought to construct a social order conducive to those goals. Faced with increasing ethnic heterogeneity, gender imbalance due to the numbers of male immigrants, and frustration in combating the endemic poverty and slums, city fathers and their closest colleagues – doctors, clergy – perceived the way forward in terms not of extending rights but of moral reform. This article carries the ongoing investigation of family life and law in Cape Town through the Victorian period. It examines legal enactments and social developments where they impacted on marriage, divorce, concubinage and related matters, with particular reference to the welfare of children and those born out of wedlock. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10566/205 Files in this item: 1
MalherbeFamilyLaw2010.pdf (257.8Kb) -
Nasson, Bill (Stellenbosch University) (Published by History Department, University of the Western Cape, 2009)[more][less]
Abstract: This article, an expanded version of a 2008 public lecture, explores the life and times of Adolph Gysbert ʻSailorʼ Malan, a South African who rose to prominence as a combatant in the 1940 Battle of Britain and who, after his post-war return to the Union, became a notable personality in liberal reform politics. A classic Anglo-Afrikaner empire loyalist or ʻKingʼs Afrikanerʼ, Malan became ʻSailorʼ through his interwar merchant marine service, joining the Royal Air Force in the later 1930s. An exceptional fighter pilot, his wartime role as an RAF ace in defending Britain turned him into a national hero, a migrating loyal Springbok who had sprung selflessly to the defence of Great Britain. Subsequently, as an ex-serviceman, Malan drew on his wartime sensibilities and beliefs to return to political battle in his home country, in opposition to post-1948 Afrikaner nationalism and its apartheid policies. The mini-biography of Sailor Malan analyses several key life-story elements, including his seafaring apprenticeship, British wartime identity and combat experience, and troubled relationship with post- 1945 South Africa as a gradualist liberal. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10566/101 Files in this item: 1
NassonSailor2009.pdf (3.678Mb) -
Conradie, Ernst (Stellenbosch University, 2008)[more][less]
Abstract: This essay reconstructs the way in which Douglas John Hall tells the story of God's work. The argument of this essay is that Hall's entire theology could be described as an exposition of the famous formula in John 3:16, "for God so loved the world". His emphasis on a theology of the cross is explored with reference to the doctrines of creation, humanity, providence, redemption, the church and the eschatological consummation. It is argued that Hall's strength (his Christological focus on a theology of the cross) is also his weakness, given his underdeveloped pneumatology. It would therefore be important to further investigate Hall's understanding of the filioque problem. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10566/513 Files in this item: 1
ConradieDouglasJohnHall2008.pdf (146.5Kb) -
van Ryneveld, Hannelore (Peter Lang, 2008)[more][less]
Abstract: José Oliver is a multilingual poet of Andalusian descent who writes poetry in German. His first poetry was published in the mid-eighties and his writings were seen as part of migrant literature (also referred to in the seventies as guestworker literature). He has however moved beyond those boundaries and has written himself into („eingeschrieben”) the German language and his poetry is characterised by a breaking- up („auf-brechen”) of the language and thereby creating sound and word structures which strip away the common usage in an attempt to regain the original meanings of words.The interview with José Oliver was conducted in February 2005 in Hausach in the Black Forest. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10566/207 Files in this item: 1
VanRyneveldImGesprach2008.pdf (538.8Kb) -
Witbooi, Sally (University of Free State, 2004)[more][less]
Abstract: The South African government and proffessions are taking stock of the transforamtion of the last decade. Manucipalities still face serious problems such as urbun populattion growth, poverty, housing shortages environmental and health problems. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10566/609 Files in this item: 1
WitbooiInformationLandscape2004.pdf (6.625Mb) -
Hart, Genevieve (Walter de Gruyter, 2006)[more][less]
Abstract: This study examines if public libraries in a province in South Africa are ready to assume an enhanced responsibility for information literacy education, specifically that of students, and, if so, what inhibiting and facilitating factors might exist. The public libraries in the rural province of Mpumalanga provide the case site. “Readiness”, at one level, refers to physical capacity and, on a second level, to more subjective attributes such as staff attitudes and beliefs. The paper reports on the first phase of the study – in which both quantitative and qualitative data were gathered by means of a questionnaire/interview survey of 57 public librarians in 46 sites. The study finds that Mpumalanga public libraries are indeed heavily engaged in serving school learners. Shortcomings in certain physical facilities, such as the lack of space and absence of retrieval tools, are inhibiting factors with the heritage of apartheid still impacting on the availability of and quality of service. The low level of professional education of public library staff is found to impede innovation in library programming. The prevailing information literacy education model largely comprises oneto- one support, although there is a fair amount of source-based group library orientation. Moving towards information literacy education will depend on a shift in conceptions of the educational role of public libraries. In the absence of recognition of their curricular role by public library authorities and educators, many public librarians are not sure that their services to school learners are legitimate. There is, however, dawning recognition that present approaches are not meeting the needs of school learners and that more effective communication with educators is required. This recognition comes from public librarians’ frustrating encounters with learners rather than from insight into information literacy education theory and experience. The fundamental conclusion is that sustainable information literacy education in public libraries will depend on more dynamic leadership and on a vision of a new model of public library. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10566/608 Files in this item: 1
HartLiteracyEducation2006.pdf (558.4Kb) -
Hart, Genevieve (United Nations Economic Commission for Africa, 2007)[more][less]
Abstract: Introduction: This paper uses the lens of information literacy and information literacy education to view educational change in South Africa. Although the focus is on South Africa, I hope that the paper might resonate with delegates from other countries and that this might lead to the exploration of common ground. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10566/520 Files in this item: 1
HartInformationLiteracy2007.pdf (224.7Kb) -
Hart, Genevieve (Elsevier, 2010)[more][less]
Abstract: Job satisfaction was investigated at a South African university library undergoing change on many fronts. The study included 31 members of staff and the data were gathered via interviews/questionnaires, informed by standard HRM job satisfaction theory. The study found a “love–hate” relationship between respondents and their work. The key positive finding is that 61% report overall job satisfaction—with the core work of an academic library, providing for the information needs of clients, the source. However, only 51% claim to be proud to work at their library and 50% are open to other job offers. Causes for the restlessness include a sense of stagnation, frustration with inadequate resources, and anger at poor remuneration. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10566/252 Files in this item: 1
HartJobSatisfaction2010.pdf (1.839Mb)