Marang : Journal of Language and Literature - Volume 18, Issue 1, January 2008

This paper explores the linguistic contexts, uses and meanings of the colour terms ntsho (black) and tshweu (white) in Setswana. Using a corpus data, the paper argues that the two terms display cultural and linguistic meanings which are sometimes lacking in Setswana dictionaries and certain translations. The analysis of the data reveals that the two colour terms collocate with a variety of other words in the language to result in a complex array of meanings. Further, the analysis reveals that while traditionally ntsho is associated with negative semantics, it is used in a variety of senses to celebrate heroes and heroines in Setswana culture. In a similar way, tshweu has negative senses in certain limited contexts.

This research seeks to examine the role that context or learning situation plays in strategy choice by comparing the strategy patterns of a private English medium secondary and a government secondary school in Botswana. More specifically, the main objectives of this study are to, firstly, investigate whether the type of school influences the choice of language learning strategies of its students: secondly, to find out whether private English medium secondary school students use more strategies than government secondary school students in Botswana; and, thirdly, to explore the role played by gender on the choice of language learning strategies. Form four students from one private English medium senior secondary school and one government senior secondary completed the Strategy Inventory for Language Learning (SIILL). The data was analysed using descriptionptive statistics to calculate means and standard deviations of strategies and inferential statistics such as ANOVA to establish the relationships between group and individual strategies. The findings of this study showed that the choice of strategies was not greatly influenced by the type of school from which the student came. However, this study found that government school students relied more on the use of dictionaries. On the other hand, private English medium students volunteered to look for conversation partners in order to get practice in speaking English. In relation to gender, the findings of this study confirmed other previous findings that female students use more language learning strategies than do male students.

This paper focuses on the applications of phonemic contrasts in the utterances of forty final-year Yoruba-English bilingual University undergraduates and the implications of their applications on pedagogic practices especially in English as a second language (ESL) environment. This subject is rarely studied in Nigeria, yet, it might be significant for shaping the effective teaching of oral English. The respondents, twenty of whom were students of English and the other twenty, students of Yoruba, were tested based on the framework of traditional phonemic theory. The results indicated that only 40% of the students studying Yoruba Linguistics were able to apply phonemic contrasts in the rendition of English words whereas 60% of the students undertaking English Studies did. The study establishes application or otherwise of phonological rules as a vital dimension of investigating phonological variationn and proficiencies in ESL and suggests the need to pay more attention to the area in ESL teaching and learning operations, especially for students in other disciplines.

Various forms of language are often used by advertisers of goods and services to capture the attention of the target audience or prospective customers, to arouse their interest, to make them desire the advertised goods and services and ultimately to make them demand for them. This paper presents the outcome of a study and analysis of 80 randomly selected contemporary Nigerian advertisements. The study/analysis shows that seven out of the eighty adverts i.e.9% use personification. Eleven out of eighty i.e. 14% use alliteration. Thirteen out of eighty i.e. 16% use ambiguous language. Eight out of eighty i.e. 10% use indigenous language. Six out of eight, i.e. 8% use Nigerian Pidgin. Four out of eighty i.e. 5% use faulty language. Seven out of eighty (9%) use pun. One advert each i.e. 1% each use simile, climax and sexist language. The remaining twenty i.e. 25% use simple or plain language.

This paper examines the formation patterns and functions of names in Chinua Achebes Anthills of the Savannah, motivated by the scanty scholarly studies on names in the text. All the personal names in the text are studied and analysed, using insights from contextual models. The paper identifies four types of names in Anthills: official names, first names, nicknames and institutional/titular names. It also picks out three dimensions of these names: branching, non-branching and active-mentioned, which are associated with the types. It shows that the names have structural and formation patterns such as + title prefixing, +first name, + surname, indigenous language form, coinage, abbronymy, clipping, qualification and full form representation. It also demonstrates that the names play contextual and ideological roles such as being interactional tools, address terms, weapons of criticisms and vision projectors. The paper concludes that names in Anthills are carefully chosen to serve particular thematic and stylistic purposes.

The aim of this study is to investigate sex-related euphemisms in Setswana. Although sex matters, as embarrassing phenomena, are not usually talked about in Setswana communities, they have recently been brought to the open by the incidence of the HIV/AIDS pandemic. The assumption in this study is therefore that, with more open discourse of sex-related matters in Botswana, more euphemisms have been created to camouflage the embarrassing nature of the various referents in this field. The sex-related matters include private parts, sexual activities, sexual secretions, sexual diseases and related phenomena. This study descriptionbes the nature, origin, and types of these euphemisms and considers their place and role in the social interaction of the people of Botswana.

This paper examines the morphological and syntactic differences between English and Setswana pronouns, and how these differences manifest in students usage of English pronouns at the University of Botswana. It also discusses some of the ways by which the learners may be assisted to become more proficient in using English pronouns. An analysis of 542 essays written by second and fourth year students of the Department of English reveal the following categories of pronoun errors: the intrusion of an independent subject pronoun between a subject and its verb, the conflation of the standard expression the onethe other into the otherthe other, inter substitution of they/there/their, lack of gender and case distinctions, use of pronouns without antecedents and pronoun referent agreement errors. In terms of the sources of these errors, the paper shows that the first six types of errors seem to relate directly or indirectly to the morphological and syntactic structures of Setswana pronouns while the last type is largely intralingual. The paper recommends that policy planners should recognise the existence of Botswana English and its influence on learners acquisition of English, and appropriately reflect this in language teaching policy, tests and exams in the country. It also suggests that teachers should raise their awareness of Botswana English in order to be able to distinguish between learners usage that are unpredictable and those that have become systematic localisms, and delegate more learning responsibility to the learners themselves.

Mikhail Bakhtin worked with his enterprising study of the author-hero relation all his life. His works bring the philosophy of dialogism into the discussions of literary works and sees the relationship between the author and the hero in terms of a dialogue. The author should release his power to enable the full blooming of the consciousness, as revealed in language of the hero. With all the characters blooming in their diverse ideologies, the novel can be written in the mode of polyphony with its diversity of languages deeply rooted in social life. Nevertheless, the authorial discourse is responsible for the style of the novel. He must be conscientious in the arrangement of characters and settings and meticulous in presenting the structure of the narrative. This study examines those diverse social languages presented in Edith Whartons The Custom of the Country to testify that the authors voice strikes roots in the formation of a novel. Pointing out Bakhtins possible mistakes in the discussion of those social languages in Whartons novel, I want to show that the linguists persistence in the author-hero dialogical sphere needs to be revised to be more satisfying.

In this paper, I intend to support Schechners (1988: 197) argument that to be in trance is not to be out of control, and that in trance or possession the performer does exhibit elements of acting. Schechner mentions that two processes are identifiable in performance: the performer is either subtracted in a performance closely resembling the art of the shaman who acts in ecstasy or what Jerzy Grotowski calls the holy actor, or the performer is added to or doubled, according to Antonin Artaud, in the process of performing. This doubled actor is considered to be in trance, something Schechner likens to Constantin Stanislavskis character actor. In defining these two phenomena and other forms of acting, my intention in this paper is to prove that the whole of Africa is a gold mine of artistic performances. I intend to prove this by analyzing the acting styles and levels in Zimbabwean traditional performances. In traditional Zimbabwean performances acting is realized in different social functions and contexts. In the context of this paper, acting means to feign, to simulate, to represent, to impersonate. (E.T. Kirby 1972 3) Defining acting and its qualities in the scope of this paper will achieve three things. First, I will identify instances where acting is realized. Secondly, I will show how Zimbabwean societies use these defined/identified qualities in different contexts. Thirdly, I will judge the levels of acting regarding their seriousness, commitment and functions. To achieve these aims, I will analyze four categories of performances, storytelling, children's make-believe, rituals and ceremonies.

The paper offers a reading of Shakespeares The Tempest, Othello and Titus Andronicus that sees the plays black characters as diasporic protagonists seeking alternative constructions of difference from those that are demanded by the dominant white patriarchal culture. The paper deploys two fairly well-known strategies for non-canonical readings of canonical texts. Firstly, the apocryphal approach offers an account of the significance of the fact that details of the origins of the black characters in the plays seem suppressed. Secondly, drawing on postcolonial discourse of the body, the paper reads the characters themselves as texts or spaces in which conflicting discourses can be written and read. I argue that reading the plays this way helps us to understand the struggles of diasporic characters as they attempt to inscribe their presence in the dominant cultures of the West and also to see in their struggles reflections of the trajectory of texts from marginalized communities in the era of global multinational capitalism.

The Theatre of the Absurd, an avant-garde experiment in the theatrical enterprise, was devised in the 1950s and early 1960s by radical European and American dramatists to express their frustrations at the waste and hopelessness of human existence, particularly after the First and the Second World Wars. Operating from philosophical and etaphysical levels, Absurd dramatists artistically communicate non-realistic unconventional images that are designed to express the incomprehensible complex world that human beings are condemned to live in. The aesthetics of this theatre abandon logical flow of actions; the plays are plotless, characters lack individuality, language used by the characters is sheer gibberish, and often the plays contain no believable stories.