South African Sign Language
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Item Open Access Drunkenness, prostitution and immodest appearances in Hebrew Biblical narrative, second temple writings and early rabbinic literature: a literary and rhetorical study(University of the Free State, 2006-05) Kohn, Eli; Gitai, Y.; Nel, P. J.English: A number of narratives in the Hebrew Bible deal with seemingly inappropriate behaviors such as drunkenness and prostitution. These stories include, Noah's drunkenness after the flood in Genesis 9:18-29, Lot's drinking of wine with his two daughters in Genesis 19:31- 38 and the narrative of Judah and Tamar in Genesis 38:1-30. The unseemly aspects of these stories are the more puzzling because the major protagonists are often characters who are portrayed as models of righteous behavior. Noah, for example, is the only character in the Bible who is referred to as a righteous ( צדיק ) man (Genesis 6:9 and Genesis 7:1). Yet, after he leaves the ark after the flood, his first action is to plant a vineyard and to get drunk. The biblical narrative does not dwell on Noah's inappropriate behavior. Similarly, in Genesis 19:31-38, the Bible describes the actions of Lot and his two daughters after the destruction of Sodom. The two daughters make their father drunk and commit incest with him so that they can conceive children. In this narrative, the act of drunkenness is compounded by the sin of incest. Yet this provocative biblical narrative is elliptical in style giving no judgment of their behavior. The story of Judah and Tamar in Genesis 38:1-30 is also a puzzling moral narrative. Tamar intentionally deceives her father-in law by impersonating a prostitute and Judah engages a woman who he considers to be a prostitute. Moreover, he and his daughter-in-law commit what appears to be incest. This seemingly inappropriate behavior on the part of royal ancestors creates an intolerable tension within the narrative that calls upon the reader for meaningful resolution. These provocative and perplexing biblical narratives invite and even demand interpretation. This study explores how ancient interpreters provided new meanings to these ancient texts. Despite their varied cultural and historical backgrounds, this study details how these interpreters shared common perceptions about the underlying hermeneutic principles of biblical interpretation. These include the ideas that the Bible is a cryptic document, that scripture is fundamentally a relevant text and that the Bible is harmonious and divinely inspired. While the narrative features, themes and canonical contexts of these three biblical stories guided early Jewish interpreters to some natural conclusions, this study shows how these interpreters also made hermeneutic decisions at critical junctures in the biblical narrative and sometimes reconfigured the story's plot and characters to correspond with their understanding of its central message. Their elaborations and clarifications therefore restricted and channeled the meaning of the biblical narrative in distinctive directions. The study focuses on the literary and rhetorical strategies and received exegetical traditions that influenced the interpreters' understandings of the narrative. The striking differences between the treatments also stem from the very active nature of the interpreters' engagement with the biblical narrative, which included reshaping the narrative into forms capable of expressing the values and ideals of different types of ancient Judaism. The study also explores how ancient interpreters and particularly the authors of early midrashic literature, established standards of rabbinic morality by reshaping and developing the early biblical narrative. Their interpretations of the biblical narrative may in fact offer an assessment of what the early Rabbis considered moral behavior. While drunkenness is clearly denounced by the Rabbis, we find much more nuanced postures about the evils of prostitution. The introduction of exegetical motifs such as the Messiah and Godly intervention in their interpretations ensured that these somewhat puzzling narratives were interjected with values and religious ideals with which their readers could identify, thereby enabling scripture to retain its normative and vital function within these living religious communities.Item Open Access Plagiaat in die akademie: 'n beleids- en opvoedkundige perspektief(University of the Free State, 2010-03) Olivier, Aletta Petronella; Du Toit, J. S.; Venter, L. S.English: In this dissertation, the notion of plagiarism is examined in the context of academic writing. The development of the notion of plagiarism is first of all put in historical perspective, because the problems revolving around the notion emerged with the first etymological reference to it as plagiarius (“kidnapper”). One of the factors that complicate plagiarism is that it is confused with copyright in the wake of copyright legislation. Other extrinsic and complicating factors include unreliable statistics on plagiarism, the phenomenon of intertextuality as opposed to plagiarism, the Internet, varying cultural views on plagiarism and the influence of second language issues. Although the existence of plagiarism in academic writing is undisputable, its nature and management vary. Approaches to plagiarism in academic writing are as complex as the phenomenon of plagiarism itself. The approaches to plagiarism discussed here represent the general trends over the past decade. The sequence of discussion corresponds with the development of the approaches to plagiarism during the given period: first the ethical, then the policing, followed by the intentional, the developmental and learning, the textual, and the contextual approaches. With this complex situation in mind, definitions of plagiarism in 13 institutional policy documents are discussed in terms of six elements: the corpus, appropriation, source, reference, intention and scope. The vision and mission, values, academic and/or integrity issues and prescribed approach of each university are accounted for in the respective policies. This study prioritises the educational approach. Acts of plagiarism are often committed through lack of writing skills, especially in the case of inexperienced students that are still apprentices in the craft of academic writing. Basic writing techniques and transformational writing strategies are demonstrated with reference to Van Dijk’s (1971) transformation theory. The transformation types addition, deletion, repetition, structuring and argumentation are illustrated by means of examples. There is no simple solution to the complex dilemma of plagiarism. This dissertation indicates that an implementation plan for the prevention of plagiarism in academic writing comprises three aspects: a transparent policy, the didactic use of detection mechanisms, and the specific teaching of academic writing skills. The emphasis on the educational approach and proactive writing instruction entails that the focus in combating plagiarism is on education. Plagiarism as an unacceptable form of academic writing can be remedied by the teaching of acceptable writing techniques and strategies.Item Open Access Application of South African Sign Language (SASL) in a bilingual-bicultural approach in education of the deaf(University of the Free State, 2010-05) Akach, Philemon Abiud Okinyi; Lotriet, A.; Aarons, DebraAfter contextualising the challenges of deaf education in the twenty-first century in the global context, this study focused on sign language in the environment of bilingual-bicultural education for the deaf in South Africa. Each of the five essays pinpointed particular challenges and as a result the study ventures to use empirical research to demonstrate conclusively that the issue of sign language in a bilingual-bicultural education for the deaf in South Africa, as is the case elsewhere, is a complex matter in which a motley intersection of dynamics is to be taken into consideration. Fundamentally, the study indicates that sign languages in many polities in general, and in South Africa in particular, despite positive constitutional, legislative and policy developments, are subject to a particular challenges coined as “double linguistic imperialism”: sign languages are not only marginalised by the former colonial languages that have been adopted as official languages in many states in the developing world; they are also marginalised by the dominant indigenous languages in these societies. Language policy in general and educational policy and concomitant systems in particular are some of the mechanisms that can be deployed to redress this state of affairs. In addressing the issue of sign languages acquisition and deaf education, the discussion establishes that the deaf child, in order to fully integrate into a predominantly hearing world, is faced with a particular challenge of adapting to an education system that provides for bilingual education. In such circumstances, sign language should ideally feature as first language, or mother tongue, as well as language of instruction. However, for purposes of reading and writing, the deaf child should also be exposed to a second, spoken language. This approach, the thesis argues, should lend emphasis on the so-called “critical period” in the child’s development. This relatively obvious solution to the challenges that bedevil deaf education poses a particular challenge, given the ill-informed preconceptions of parents and society at large regarding the Deaf, Deaf culture and sign language, as well as its status as a natural language, and thus whether it is found “appropriate” as alternative medium of instruction. The study thus also challenges one of the fundamental issues in educational linguistics, namely language attitudes with particular reference to parents’ and teachers’ attitudes towards sign language as a medium of instruction for deaf learners. Empirical research conducted and published here for the first time reveals that parents’ attitudes towards sign language as medium of instruction are as a rule at variance with particular situations, conditions and circumstances prevalent at any given time. However, the parents surveyed tend to agree that signed language should be used in instructing the Deaf child at school. They further agree that signed language holds the key to a deaf learner achieving higher levels of education. Overall, from an attitudinal perspective, parents of deaf learners would prefer signed languages to be the languages of instruction for their children. By contrast, educators seemed to find themselves unable to distinguish between the use of SASL and alternatives in the classroom, calling all methods of communication “SASL”. The abundance of experience the teachers have plus the fact that they believe they have acquired SASL without any structured training is detrimental to the learners not only as it is detrimental to their communicative abilities in the classroom, but also as it devalues the need for formal training in SASL in the minds of the teachers, and this is transferred to their learners. The conclusion is that teachers are in dire need of formal training in order to appreciate the true complexity of signed language and by extension therefore realise the current limitations in the education of the learners. Despite current attitudes it was found that most of the teachers (60,5%) indicated a desire and intention to study further and such study should inter alia include the study of SASL. With regard to policy, the study establishes that Deaf education is a victim of the same fate that has been visited upon MTE in the developing world. There is an apparent non-recognition of the primacy of sign language as the mother tongue of the Deaf and therefore the failure to use sign language in education. This is a glaring failure which the principles, policies and legislation on Deaf education have certainly not remedied. Further, it can be posited that some of the failures in Deaf education are attributable to the same principles, policies and legislation that have guided Deaf education over time, Policies setting out the requirement that the Deaf are taught through the medium of signed language have certainly not been heeded nor implemented on the continent of Africa. The last paper in the study also establishes that sign languages, caught between negative societal perceptions, lethargic educational policies and an outdated pedagogy, suffer from a paucity of the development of instructional/learning materials. It is therefore important to recognise that there is need for materials development for sign languages so that they can become entrenched in the curriculum as taught subjects and in educational policy and practice as a media of instruction for Deaf learners. Admittedly, a lot of work remains to be done in the area of Deaf education. The issues addressed in the various papers in this study could serve as pointers to the critical issues that need redress if there is to be any hope of entrenching sign language in bilingual-bicultural education of the deaf, not only in South Africa, but elsewhere.Item Open Access Early language intervention in deaf children of hearing parents(University of Stellenbosch, 2021) Le Roux, Annemarie; Stander, MargaLanguage development is often hampered by the fact that 90 per cent of deaf children are born into hearing families who do not know Sign language (SL) or haven't had any previous contact with the deaf world. Such parents often use only spoken language to communicate with the child, which results in no or very little language exposure. Many deaf children only start to learn a language, signed or spoken, when they start attending school, usually between the ages of three and seven. As a result, the deaf child has a delay in cognitive and language development and finds it hard to learn a SL, like South African Sign Language (SASL), as well as a written language (e.g., English). This late exposure to SL proves to be a serious cognitive problem for deaf children when compared to those children who acquired language from birth.This problem led to the research question namely, whether deaf children’s language and cognition can still develop to the required level for school readiness if early language intervention (ELI) takes place within the critical period of language acquisition. To answer the question, a case study was done at a school for the deaf and blind with a small group of deaf learners in the foundation phase. The results show that the little language exposure these children received in only one year of school already made a huge difference to their language and cognitive development. This article also makes recommendations to the various stakeholders in deaf education.