Training second language tertiary students as translators in a multilingual South Africa: translation from English into Afrikaans

Due to South Africa’s diverse speech community, and the needs of Afrikaans speakers, translation from English into Afrikaans has become relevant in making documents accessible. This study explored translation training of University of Technology (UoT) second year students who enrolled for a course in Language Practice engaged in translating. The study attempted to shed light on translation challenges experienced by Afrikaans second language translators translating from English into Afrikaans to bridge the knowledge gap on perceptions and challenges faced. Translation theories such as Skopos theory, and Communicative equivalence were used as theoretical lenses. A qualitative research approach was employed engaging students and lecturers in focus group interviews. It was revealed that students lacked the needed vocabulary, general knowledge, grammatical skills as well as application of translation strategies. A need for training in machine translation to improve the quality of translations surfaced from the research. &nbsp

Clinical profile and outcomes of patients receiving acute renal replacement therapy in the cardiac intensive care unit at a South African referral centre

Background: At least a quarter of patients admitted to the cardiac intensive care unit (CICU) will develop acutekidney injury (AKI), and some of these patients receive renal replacement therapy (RRT). The clinical profiles and outcomes of CICU patients receiving RRT in resource constraint settings like South Africa are unknown. Objectives: The objectives of this study were to determine the clinical profiles and outcomes of patients receiving RRT in the CICU in a South African tertiary centre. Methods: In this retrospective study, we included consecutive patients admitted and receiving RRT at the Groote Schuur Hospital CICU from 1 January 2012 - 31 December 2016. Results: During the study period, 3 247 patients were admitted to the CICU, and 46 (1.4%) received RRT. The RRT patients had a mean (SD) age of 52 (17) years, 56% were males, and 65% had a background history of systemic hypertension. Heart failure syndromes accounted for 60.9% of CICU admission in the RRT patient group, followed by acute coronary syndromes and arrhythmias, which accounted for 26.1% and 13.0%, respectively. The RRT patient population had in-hospital and 30-day mortality rates of 58.7% and 60.9%, respectively. Baseline use of angiotensin converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitor or angiotensin receptor blocker (ARB) was associated with a reduced 30-day mortality rate, hazards ratio (HR) 0.43; 95% confidence interval (95% CI) 0.20 - 0.93; p=0.031. In addition, heart failure was associated with an increased 30-day mortality rate, HR 2.52; 95% CI 1.10 - 5.78; p=0.029. Conclusion: In this single-centre study from an upper middle-income country, a small proportion of CICU patients receive RRT. Heart failure syndrome is associated with most RRT patients admitted to the CICU. Patients receiving RRT in CICU have a high inhospital and 30-day mortality

Peritoneal dialysis in a crisis: Navigating a severe drought and pandemic in South Africa

Background: A severe drought, followed by the COVID-19 pandemic, posed significant challenges to a South African peritoneal dialysis (PD) programme in Cape Town. The study reported here assessed the impact of these crises on peritonitis rates, bacterial organisms cultured, and patient and technique survival.Methods: This observational cohort study used data from a peritoneal dialysis registry from 2007 to 2022. The study population was categorized according to three periods: “Baseline” (2007–2014), “Drought” (2015–2019), and “COVID-19” (2020–2022). Baseline characteristics were recorded when PD began. Trends in peritonitis rates, organisms cultured and causes of technique failure were evaluated during each period. A drought-specific questionnaire explored water quality and source.Results: The cohort comprised 405 patients, representing 559 peritonitis events. There was no statistical difference overall in peritonitis rates, nor peritonitis-free survival at one year among the three periods. Despite Gram-positive organisms being the predominant species cultured, there was an increasing trend in Gram-negative peritonitis during the drought (24%, 46/195) compared to baseline (16%, 37/230) and COVID-19 (15%, 20/134) periods. Klebsiella pneumoniae was the predominant Gram-negative organism cultured overall. However, there was a rise in the proportion Escherichia coli cultured in the drought (17%) compared to the pre-drought (3%) periods. The proportion of Gram-negative catheter-related infections increased during the drought and COVID-19 periods (P = 0.001), with a predominance of Pseudomonas aeruginosa. Only 18% of patients boiled their water as instructed.Conclusion: The similarity in overall peritonitis rates for the three periods highlights the adaptability and sustainability of peritoneal dialysis as a treatment option, especially at a time of increasing environmental and public-health crises

APARTHEID’S LOST ATTACHMENTS (2): MELANCHOLIC LOSS AND SYMBOLIC IDENTIFICATION

This paper, the second of two focussed on the libidinal attachments of white children to black domestic workers in narratives contributed to the Apartheid Archive Project (AAP), considers the applicability of the concept of social melancholia in the case of such “inter-racial” attachments. The paper questions both the psychoanalytic accuracy, and the psychic and political legitimacy of such an explanation (that is, the prospect of an “inter-racial” melancholic attachment of white subjects to black care-takers). By contrast to the political notion of ungrievable melancholic losses popularized by Judith Butler’s work, this paper develops a theory of compensatory symbolic identifications. Such a theory explains the apparent refusal of identification which white subjects exhibit towards black caretakers and it throws into perspective an important conceptual distinction regards loss. On the one hand there is the psychotic mechanism of melancholic attachment, which expresses absolute fidelity to a lost object, even to the point of self-destructive suffering. On the other, there is the neurotic mechanism of compensatory identification, in which the original object is jettisoned and a substitution found, such that a broader horizon of symbolic and ideological identification is enabled

MIGRATIONS OF THEORY, METHOD AND PRACTICE: A REFLECTION ON THEMES IN MIGRATION STUDIES (Review article)

In this review article, I offer some reflection on three themes in migration research, namely, the categorisation and quantification of migration, the role of trauma and distress in such categorisation, and the feminisation of migration. I was prompted to explore these three themes after reading a recent publication on migration in southern Africa (edited by Kok, Gelderblom, Oucho and Van Zyl, 2006). In this paper I raise these as three areas that appear to be determining the boundaries of the discipline of migration studies in ways that raise familiar concerns about representation, claims to objectivity and the perpetuation of inequalities. Although these are by no means new debates in the social sciences, they are ones that appear to have been excluded from migration studies in southern Africa with worrying implications for the role that the discipline can play in the repressive management of migration

THE RISK OF PHALLOCENTRISM IN MASCULINITIES STUDIES: HOW A REVISION OF THE CONCEPT OF PATRIARCHY MAY HELP

In this article I critique South African work on masculinities through a fine grained reading of Morrell’s introductions to three texts. While this work appears, on first reading, to contribute to pro-feminist theorising, I argue that it inadvertently falls into a phallocentric trap. This is achieved in three ways: firstly, and most crudely, through conflating women and men into a singular, universal model that is in reality the masculine appearing as the universal; secondly, and more subtly, through concentrating almost exclusively on men and masculinities, thereby marginalising women (again); and thirdly, through constructing multiplicities of masculinities – this allows men to resist hegemonic masculinity, but never undo masculinity itself. In this way, the possibility of deconstructing the feminine/masculine binary recedes and the concept of patriarchy gets sidelined. I argue for a reinsertion of the notion of patriarchy into our study of gender, but also that the very notion of patriarchy needs revision in order to accommodate the multiple fissures that occur between men