TSEBO Journal of Humanities

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https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14155/234

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Introduction of Free Primary Education in Lesotho: Who are the Beneficiaries?
(National University of Lesotho: Faculty of Humanities, 2008) Makatjane, T. J.
by all Basotho children irrespective of their socio-demographic standing. It was also the objective of this study to investigate if differences in participation rates between boys and girls have disappeared following the introduction of Free Primary Education. Using the ten percent sample from the 1996 Lesotho Population Census and the 2001 Lesotho Demographic Survey, the findings of the study suggest that children’s access to primary education is influenced by their socio-economic standing. The sex of the child and the child’s relationship to the head of the household are associated with access. Male children were the major beneficiaries of Free Primary Education while children of the household head were the least of the beneficiaries. The results further showed that female children who benefited were mainly non-relatives of the head of household while among male children grand children of the head and other relatives of the head were the major beneficiaries. It was also apparent from the study that when resources are limited for sending children to school female children were given a chance over male children. There is a need to address the gender imbalance with respect to access to education in Lesotho. Regarding participation gap between boys and girls, 2001 figures indicate that the gap has declined by at least 50 percent in the majority of cases. More still has to be done to afford Basotho boys access to primary education. Legislating for Free and Compulsory Primary Education is not enough to increase boy’s access to primary education without change of attitude among Basotho men regarding herding of livestock.
‘Entangled Objects’: Cultural Contact in Things Fall Apart and Stars of the New Curfew
(National University of Lesotho: Faculty of Humanities, 2008) Mokuku, Molefi
Folktales as an Educative Device
(National University of Lesotho: Faculty of Humanities, 2008) Ekanjume, Beatrice Ilongo
Studies on folklore (William Bascom 1954, Cox, M. 1968, Wolfgang Mieder, 1981, Perez-Stable, M. 1994, amongst others) have focused on how cultural views are expressed in societies through tales, music, dance, legends, oral history, and proverbs. Folklore is thus considered as a set of practices through which these expressive genres can be shared. The present paper looks at one aspect of Folklore - “Folktale” - from the educative perspective. Given that folktale can be considered as a general term for different varieties of traditional narratives, this paper seeks to depict the communicative and educative values of folktales using one of Cameroonian tales entitled “Baku, Prince of the Forest”. The claim here is that the choice of words and characters makes the tale a vital element in moral education and character building. This folktale tells about the essence of life and the role of mankind in it. It shows how the evil characters are disposed of and the good ones rewarded. This folktale as a tool and method for teaching moral education asserts that folktale is a very effective means in teaching moral education since it instructs while entertaining to enable learners to see the moral concepts of the society. These include the biophysical, the social, the political, and the economic aspects. Through participation in the folktale, learners are also able to bring out the possible moral and environmental risks, crises and challenges surrounding their society.
Staging Rebellion: The Plays of Yulisa Amadu Maddy
(National University of Lesotho: Faculty of Humanities, 2008) Dunton, C.
Sierra Leonean dramatist Yulisa Amadu Maddy is one of the most radical voices on the West African stage, both in terms of the iconoclastic political orientation of his work and in terms of its dramaturgy. As Julian Spencer points out, “He has made a powerful impact in the theatre in Sierra Leone, as well as in other African countries” (Spencer, 99). To date, however, Maddy ‘s plays have received virtually no critical attention beyond brief notes in reference texts on African literature and reviews of stage performances. The present paper offers a detailed critical analysis of seven of Maddy’s’ plays, with particular emphasis on the interface between theme and dramaturgy. It argues that Maddy‘s work is most successful when the radical tendencies of the latter are matched by a significant level of seriousness in the former, and least successful when the convention-defying actions of Maddy ‘s characters fail to resonate beyond the level of theatrical rhetoric.
‘Unspecific Deixis’ in a Southern African English Context
(National University of Lesotho: Faculty of Humanities, 2008) Fandrych, Ingrid
‘Africanisms’ are commonly defined as characteristics of African Second Language English usage on a range of levels of linguistic analysis, that is, in terms of Phonetics and Phonology, Morphology, Syntax, Lexis and Semantics, Pragmatics and Usage, and Register. So far, most studies have concentrated on the more structural aspects of this phenomenon (phonological, morphological, and syntactic features). However, what is much more far-reaching in terms of its communicative impact is the way people, places and events are referred to, or verbally pointed to (deixis). ‘Deixis’ refers to linguistic strategies that place utterances in space and time, in relation to the speaker. Deictic expressions include words like here and there, now and then, first and second person pronouns, demonstrative pronouns, and tense. This paper will focus on pragmatic and usage-related features of Southern African English communicative behaviour which differ from equivalent linguistic behaviour by speakers of other varieties of English. In this context, it will discuss and analyse the use of deictic expressions in actual face-to-face interactions as a feature of African English. In order to investigate this ‘unspecific deixis’, examples from actual conversations, formal meetings and television interviews will be analysed.
A Thematic and Historical Synthesis of Embu Oral Traditions
(National University of Lesotho: Faculty of Humanities, 2008) Mushonga, M.
Oral traditions, after years of intense debate about their usefulness and admissibility as sources of history, have now come to be accepted as sources of historical inquiry. While they remain largely underutilized, in the absence of any other sources, oral traditions can be very useful for historical reconstruction. This paper offers a thematic analysis, as well as a historical synthesis of oral traditions collected among the Embu of Kenya by H. S. K. Mwaniki in 1971. It shows that despite the inherent limitations in oral traditions, Embu oral traditions have greater historical value and significance. For easy analysis, Embu oral traditions have been packaged into traditions (themes) pertaining to genesis/origin, the economy and famine, time and space, and war. The importance of this study is to provide a thematic and historical synthesis of Embu oral traditions in the absence of any known analysis since they were collected in 1971. The study therefore offers a mere thematic and historical synthesis of this corpus of oral traditions.
Gender Asymmetry in the Address System of the Basotho
(National University of Lesotho: Faculty of Humanities, 2008) Letsoela, P.M.
Address forms are regarded as indicators of deference, politeness and markers of social distance. This paper examines the address forms and referring expressions used by the Basotho. These forms and expressions are examined with a view to looking at the factors determining their use. The paper is based mainly on semantic and pragmatic analysis with sociolinguistic/ethnographic overtones. It argues that the use of these terms is a result of cultural stereotypes which have seen men and women treated differently. The paper thus indicates that the terms are not merely linguistic but are indicators of the Basotho's social universe.
The Problem of Word Division in Written Shona: A Historical Survey
(National University of Lesotho: Faculty of Humanities, 2008) Muringani, Bertha
The exercise of reducing Shona to written form was undertaken by non-native speakers most of whom were Europeans. Their linguistic knowledge of their languages, whose structures are different from that of Shona, tended to influence the manner in which they dealt with Shona orthography, particularly its word division. In this paper, the methods of word division used by these early grammarians, namely conjunctive and disjunctive, are examined with the aim of discovering their sources and how they were applied to the Shona language. Different groups of missionaries worked on various Shona dialects using these two methods of word division. Here, this is illustrated by analyzing examples of the earliest gospel translations. They treated nouns and verbs differently in relation to disjunctive and conjunctive systems. Two types of words that result from the methods of word division used by early grammarians, namely phonological and morphological, are brought out and discussed.
The Pragmatics of Nicknames Students Use for their Lecturers
(National University of Lesotho: Faculty of Humanities, 2008) Sobane, Konosoang
Nicknames are a very special communicative tool in institutions; therefore, this paper sets out to explore nicknames that are used to lecturers by students at NUL. The paper discusses the nicknames in terms of their origin and the reasons for which such nicknames are coined. The paper also looks at the pragmatics of the nicknames and the implications that they have about student-lecturer relationships in the institution.
I’m Going To Lis The Cows: Development Of Code Switching In The Speech Of Sesotho- English Bilingual Preschool Children
(National University of Lesotho: Faculty of Humanities, 2008) Moloi, Francina L.
Code Switching as a topic in linguistics has been dealt with so extensively that it no longer needs to be defined. For some people it means a “dialectal mixture” (see, for example, Labov, 1972:188). For others it means “…some sort of relationship – negative or positive – between languages” (Khati, 1992:181) or even “…switching languages or linguistic varieties within the same conversation” (Slabbert and Finlayson, 1999). The present study uses a naturalistic approach to examine development of lexical, morphological and syntactical mixing of English L2 and Sesotho L1 in the same utterance between ages 3;0 and 6;0. In this way it differs from some current local studies whose focus is on the sociological (Khati, 1992; Slabbert and Finlayson, 1999; Kamwangamalu, 1999; Matee, 2000) and educational (Keiswetter, 1995; Akindele and Letsoela, 2001, du Plessis and Louw, 2008) functions of code switching. It shows a bell-shaped rate of code switching development from the beginning of exposure to the second language, where there is very little switching to L2, through the “grey area” period, where children switch easily from one language to another, to the period where they largely separate the two linguistic codes. It further shows a productive switching of morphemes, lexical items, phrases and sentences from one language to the other.
African Christian discourse redefining identity, literature and language education in Southern Africa: the case of the founding text of Paul Mwazha’s African Apostolic Church
(National University of Lesotho: Faculty of Humanities, 2008) Manyawu, Andrew Tichaenzana
Being both a subject and a medium of learning in Southern African schools, language is the vehicle through which society may pass on its worldview to its youths. This raises questions of selection and grading of material to be incorporated into syllabi and textbooks. This paper argues that Southern African language syllabi need a paradigm shift in order to better serve an African society seeking to reaffirm its identity after decades of oppression. There is need to more aggressively open up language curriculum to texts and discourses widely consumed by Africans but hitherto ignored by formal educational systems still biased towards Western worldview. These texts include founding the discursive production of African Instituted Churches. One such text is examined from the perspective of intertextuality in order to illustrate its literary and educational value. A case is then made for the inclusion of such texts onto secondary school curricula in Southern Africa.
The Structural Configuration of Linguistic Code-Switching: Examples from Sesotho and English
(National University of Lesotho: Faculty of Humanities, 2008) Khati, Thekiso G.
The inquiry investigated the structure and systematicity in bilingual code-switching (CS). It further determined whether grammatical complexity of switches and length of switched utterances can be regarded as an indication of bilingual competence. The study was motivated by perceptions that CS is a “gruesome mixture” of languages in contact; that is, an unsystematic juxtaposition of languages. (Sebopeho-Puo sa Sesotho, 1981:11). The researcher used a sample of standards six and seven pupils from three English-medium, and three dual-medium primary schools in Maseru as respondents or CS performers. Also, two teachers in each school were used as anonymous observers and recorders of the CS corpus. As with previous CS studies, this inquiry has revealed that CS is a structured linguistic performance. Further, it has indicated that advanced or fluent bilingual pupils in English-medium schools produce more grammatically complex switches than less proficient bilinguals in Sesotho-English medium schools, thus indicating that CS is an index of bilingual competence

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