Masters Degrees (Afrikaans and Dutch, German and French)

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Browsing Masters Degrees (Afrikaans and Dutch, German and French) by Subject "Applied linguistics"

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    'n Diskoersanalitiese ondersoek na die aard van Afrikaanse en Engelse radio-advertensies in reklamekompetisies
    (University of the Free State, 2009) Bertram, Mariska; Van Niekerk, Angelique
    English: A discourse analytical investigation is done into the nature of Afrikaans and English radio advertisements in advertisement competitions, namely, The Loerie Awards (English and Afrikaans) and the Pendoring Awards (2005, 2006) with the focus on the following research question: In what way can a discourse analytical investigation into the recursive language patterns found in radio advertisements contribute to the establishment of workable guidelines in order to write credible radio copy? The following goals were set on the basis of the above research question: A) Which language (e.g. dialogue and code-switching) and language-related strategies (e.g. humour and intertextuality) characterise Afrikaans and English radio copy? Advertising and communication do not occur in a socio-economic vacuum, and the fact that advertisements communicate with real people via real characters or spokespersons in a given socio-economic context, would make it possible to draw conclusions about the socioeconomic world as illustrated by radio advertisements from the selected competitions. This brings me to my second goal: B) What image does South African radio advertisements sketch about the socioeconomic world, given the marketing message in every advertisement? Given goal A was there a clear distinction made between the terms ‘language characteristics’ and ‘language related characteristics’. The distinction is to a great extent based on Van Jaarsveld’s (1987:204) distinction between the linguistic and the communicative assumptions as prerequisite for successful communication. Carstens’ (1997:105) distinction between constitutive and regulative principles for textuality according to me further justify the necessity of the distinction made. The former create and define the form of language behaviour what is to be known as textual communication. That implies that certain rules must be performed to determine the textuality of a text. The second principle control existing forms of behaviour and has as premise that this behaviour will still occur even if there do not exist clear rules for them. These assumptions and principles are being discussed in detail in chapters four and five that contain the language and language related characteristics. In the literature study an overview is given of the communication process, marketing, integrated marketing communications, advertising and the advertisement process. Here an overview is given of the nature of radio as advertisement medium, as well as of the functions of radio as medium, radio programming, the creative brief, the creative brief and the selling idea, positioning and message strategies. The focus then shifts to advertising and specifically radio advertising. Next, the data itself and the analysis of each advertisement are discussed. Here the Pendoring Toekennings and The Loerie Awards radio prize winners of 2005 / 2006 were used. Descriptions are given of the inventory variables (humour, intertextuality, codeswitching, and so forth) which were used to analyse the data. Each advertisement is analysed in terms of language and language-related characteristics, and concludes with the marketing message of each advertisement. The analyses of the data is consistent with the didactic-academic goal, namely, to compose guidelines for the writing of creative radio copy, which will be included in the conclusion. The following language characteristics are discussed as a whole in terms of their realisation in the data: Dialogue characteristics (address forms, turn-taking, hesitations, rude language use, lexicon, interruptions, cyclic nature of time, slang, tone of voice, pronunciation, exclamations, assimilation), repetition, code-switching, code mixing, rhyme and language play. According to the language-related characteristics – shared knowledge, historic time happenings, humour, intertextuality, irony, auditive nature (which consists of background sound and music), controversy and stereotypes – and the marketing message from the data as a whole, the image of the South African society can be expressed. The image from the data can be summarised as follows: South Africans presently live in an era where politics exercises great influence and is realised in contemporary radio advertisements. The biggest part of the dataset holds a connection with political changes which influence the society. It can, for example, be seen in the name changing of cities and the apartheid museum which was built. At the same time Afrikaans speakers fight for their language to survive – art festivals for example the KKNK are held, not only for entertainment, but also to promote Afrikaans.
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    Die teoretiese begronding vir die ontwerp van ’n nagraadse toets van akademiese geletterdheid in Afrikaans
    (University of the Free State, 2017-07) Keyser, Gini; Weideman, A. J.
    English: The low levels of academic literacy of students at South African universities are a well-known problem, and one which is increasingly being identified as one of the prime reasons for a lack of academic performance and low throughput rates. The employment of academic literacy tests by tertiary institutions is a direct result of the need to identify which students are potentially at risk, and would therefore need additional academic support in order to complete their degree courses successfully in the prescribed time. One such test that has been used for some time nationally and internationally to measure the academic literacy levels specifically of postgraduate students is the Test of Academic Literacy for Postgraduate Students (TALPS). This test, however, is currently unavailable in any of the other official languages. This study therefore confirms the need to promote multilingualism at postgraduate level, even in the face of this goal at present being increasingly undermined by the favouring of a monolingual English dispensation at university. More specifically, this and previous studies acknowledge the lack of an Afrikaans alternative for TALPS as a serious shortcoming in language assessment at tertiary level. In response to this need the study intends to design, develop, test out and refine a postgraduate of academic literacy in Afrikaans (TAGNaS – Toets van Akademiese Geletterdheid vir Nagraadse Studente). This is done with reference to a theoretical-analytical framework of constitutive and regulative design principles that relate assessment design on the one hand to intrinsic, conventional conditions such as reliability and validity and, on the other, take account of social impacts such as transparency, accountability, and fairness. For the theoretical justification of TAGNaS multiple sets of evidence are presented, among which are the articulation of the theoretical rationale for the test (a key element of construct validity) and an argument integrating several statistical analyses of the pilot test results. Since the test rests theoretically upon a recently modified definition of academic literacy, experimentation with new or modified subtests and task types was part of the investigation. The results indicate that it can be highly productive to treat the operationalization of the construct with ingenuity and creativity, and also that experimentation with the challenges that new articulations of established constructs provide can be successfully accomplished.