Doctoral Degrees (Linguistics and Language Practice)

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Browsing Doctoral Degrees (Linguistics and Language Practice) by Advisor "Marais, Kobus"

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    Implications and explications of police translation of complainants’ sworn statements: evidence lost in translation?
    (University of the Free State, 2015-07) Ralarala, Monwabisi Knowledge; Marais, Kobus; Kaschula, Russell
    This interdisciplinary case study demonstrates that ‘retelling and rewriting’ of complainants’ legal narratives constitutes translation. The police officers’ (hereafter referred to as transpreters) exercise of translating such narratives from isiXhosa (ST) into English (TT) is quite essential in the administration of justice in a multilingual and multicultural environment such as South Africa, and specifically in the South African Police Service. The challenge (amongst others) in the current system is that traspreters are neither accredited nor posses the necessary credentials to perform this fundamental role and function. The key objectives of this study were investigated by means of scientific papers – both publishable and published as book chapters as well as journal articles in both international and accredited journals. Drawing on various conceptual and analytical frameworks (Sturge 2007, 2009; Asad 2010; Goffman 1981; Dollerup 1999, 2003, 2006, Schiavi 1996 and Chatman, 1978, 1990), the study teases out both micro and macro elements that emanate from 20 voice-recorded and 20 textual translation episodes of sworn statement – which were used as data. The research contributes significantly to scholarship. Apart from calling for a debate on the identifiable flaws of the current model of record construction within the criminal justice system, the study also paints a clear picture of the perpetuation of inequalities and dominance, and points out that these issues seem to have a direct bearing on the failure to observe social justice, access to justice and linguistic human rights in the South African Police Service. Elaborating on research- based explanations for these existing gaps, the study also offers important recommendations that are directed towards the revisiting of the current model of police record construction.
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    Sociolinguistics of Lesotho English in the Kingdom of Lesotho
    (University of the Free State, 2021) Hala-Hala, Mokhoele Aaron; Marais, Kobus; Muhleisen, Susanne
    𝑬𝒏𝒈𝒍𝒊𝒔𝒉 This study set out to investigate Sociolinguistics of Lesotho English in the Kingdom of Lesotho. Mainly premised on the principles of the qualitative research design and methodology, this study adopted the narrative interviews, rapid and anonymous observations as well as documentary sources for data collection in answer to the research questions. The research questions which this study set out to answer for achieving the research objectives are as follows: Is there any emerging variety worthy of the name Lesotho English (LesE) amongst the Basotho in Lesotho? If any, to what extent is such a variety critical in defining LesE at the levels of phonology, morphosyntax and lexicon? and How does LesE differ from Sub-Saharan Southern African Englishes, particularly Black South African English (BSAE) and/or other World Englishes? With the above questions, the study has, therefore, made general observations of linguisticvariations at the levels of phonology, morphosyntax and lexicon of LesE from both the oral and written data sets for this study. In particular, using the above-mentioned instruments for collecting oral and written data from the target participants, the study has found systematic salient phonological variations from English which I assume to be BrE. The findings include recurrent spelling pronunciations, syllable-timing, aspiration, missing contrastive stress and syllabic consonants, diphthongal and neutralised vowel sound patterns as well as substitution of interdental fricatives across the oral data on LesE in the context of Lesotho. Further, the morphosyntactic variants discovered from the data comprise the progressive aspect and levelling of the preterite and perfect aspect, the modal system, grammatical and notional concord, relativisation, pronominal appositions, the article system and prepositional usages. Qualitative evidence has thus revealed systematic morphosyntactic variants from the oral and written data for this study, thus highlighting features, possibly unique to LesE and/or comparable to other outer-circle, and, to some extent, inner-circle varieties of English. Similarly, at the lexical level, LesE has been found to bear systematically salient lexical and orthographic variants, coupled with alternative spellings, heteronyms and dehyphenated compound words and sporadic variants of semantic extension. It is, therefore, concluded, in this study, that sociolinguistics of LesE in the Kingdom of Lesotho could be seen as bearing nativised, endonormative and exonormative variations of English, making LesE a comparably emerging English variety to other outer-circle and inner-circle Englishes. ___________________________________________________________________