Cross-referencing as a lexicographic device

The mediostructure, that is the system of cross-referencing, is a lexicographic device that can be used to establish relations among different components of a dictionary. This paper focuses on different mediostructural strategies and their practical application in general synchronic dictionaries. The structure of dictionaries is discussed from a metalexicographic perspective in order to explain the system of cross-referencing. It is shown how textual cohesion, achieved by the interaction of the various structural components, is promoted by the use of a system of cross-referencing and improved by an innovative approach towards a mediostructure-orientated lexicography. Keywords: cross-referencing; mediostructure; lexicography; dictionary; metalexicography; reference entry; reference relation; reference address; african language

Sekgapa : a culture-based study of a musical tradition of BaPedi women of Mailula, Mmamabolo district, Limpopo Province, South Africa

Includes bibliographical references (leaves 86-88).This dissertation sets out to provide a culture-based study of BaPedi women's Sekgapa Music.The Preface presents the topic, the research environment and methodology, a review of the existing literature, fieldwork 'protocol' and a synopsis of the first recording events. Chapter 1 provides a historical background to the music, whose origins remain largely unaccounted for; and an account of the researcher's personal 'journey' which brought him to his research project. Chapter 2 concerns Sekgapa as a distinctive genre of women's music, reflecting their roles in BaPedi rural economy, and in their individual households, and community. There are also accounts ofSekgapa performance contexts and their social functions. Chapter 3 looks at some requirements of Sekgapa performance style (including dancing dress and delivery of Direlo Praises), something of the concepts underlying the musical action, and correlations between certain dance style variants and BaPedi totemic associations. Chapter 4 contains description of the sound instruments-the drums and their contribution to the music and playing methods and technique, (with some musical examples to illustrate thetext), and the construction of sound-making accessories (hand-and ankle-rattles). Chapter 5 provides descriptions of the basic musical components of Sekgapa-its form, structure and style, instrumental polyrhythm, vocal homophony (with musical examples and content and meanings of song-texts, using 10 songs as representative examples.) Chapter 6 provides reasons for the restricted scope of the musical analysis, and the use and function of Sekgapa performances for social education, directed at the youth. The research draws attention to the serious gap in African music research in South Africa, and in BaPedi musical culture generally. Andrew Tracey's urgent plea (1991) for the 'patronage' of African music and musicians work is recalled, because it is no less urgent today than it was fourteenyears ago. Tracey' stance on the matter of the unequal 'arts patronage situation' existing betv.een popular urban African music, which continues to enjoy government and media support. and cultural music in which musicians are denied this. is endorsed by the researcher, who reiterates the urgent need for African music conservation, through research and sustainable performance practice, before it is too late, and musical genres "stagnate" and disappear altogether

Tone labelling algorithm for Sesotho

M.Sc., Faculty of Science, University of the Witwatersrand, 2011Studies have shown that text-to-speech systems need detailed prosodic models of a language in order to ideally sound natural to native speakers of the language. A text-to-speech system developed for Sesotho needs to have tone implemented in it since Sesotho is a tonal language which uses pitch variations to distinguish lexical and/or grammatical meaning. In order to implement tone for a language such as Sesotho, it is necessary for a tone modeling algorithm to receive as input the tone labels of the syllables of a word. This allows the algorithm to predict the appropriate intonation of the word. The aim of our study is to improve a basic tone labeling algorithm that predicts tone labels using three Sesotho tonal rules. The application of this algorithm is restricted to polysyllabic verb stems. The research study involves implementing an extended tone labeling algorithm that implements four additional Sesotho tonal rules and extends its application to all the other parts of speech. The results of our study show that the extended tone labeling algorithm significantly improves the basic algorithm by increasing the number of matched tone labels. Furthermore, our study provides the basic step to tone modeling for languages such as Sesotho which do not mark tone labels in orthography

How Sepedi, one of the official languages South Africa is represented on the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC)

ABSTRACT This thesis investigates through theoretical analysis and imperative research, how Sepedi is represented on SABC, especially on SABC 2 in accordance to the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (ICASA). Looking back Sepedi programming before democracy and after democracy, SABC has gone through a major transition. This thesis visits the transitions that SABC went through and how SABC is transforming to serve public interests. This essay will composed of empirical observations to depict whether these aims are in fact pursued and achieved

A Proactive Approach to the Translation of Bible Stories for Children

This paper presents cognitive poetics as an agent in overcoming difficulties in translating bible stories for young children in the multi-lingual and multi-cultural South African environment. The translated picture book texts typically involve the integration of words with pictures. For the purposes of this article, the Genesis 28 narrative of Jacob’s dream in the Hebrew source text is compared in various South African translations. Religious literature was chosen as subject matter because of the relative certainty of comparative translations in most of the eleven official languages of South Africa, but the present article is limited mainly to English and Afrikaans translations. The analysis is done within the fairly new framework of cognitive poetics, which combines psychological and cognitive linguistic approaches to the study of literature. The focus is on the contribution of cognitive linguistics to the translation of children’s literature, in the spirit of proactive translatology.Cet essai traite de la poésie cognitive comme facilitateur dans les traductions des histoires bibliques pour enfants dans l’environnement multiculturel et polyglotte de l’Afrique du Sud. Les traductions des textes des livres illustrés font généralement correspondre les mots avec des images. Dans l’exemple utilisé, soit la Genèse 28, le rêve de Jacob, dans son texte original en hébreu, est comparé à diverses traductions sud-africaines. La littérature religieuse a été choisie comme sujet de cet essai, étant donné la présence probable de traductions comparables dans la plupart des onze langues officielles de l’Afrique du Sud, mais cet article se limite à la comparaison des traductions anglaise et afrikaans seulement. L’analyse est faite dans le cadre relativement récent de la poésie cognitive, qui applique des approches linguistiques psychologique et cognitive à l’étude de la littérature. La concentration se fait sur la contribution de la linguistique cognitive dans la traduction de la littérature pour enfants dans un esprit de traduction proactive