Games, tradition and ‘Being Human’ in Ayi Kwei Armah’s "The Healers"

In the era of transnationalism and globalisation it is easy to be drawn into totalising paradigms about what it means to be human which erase alternative ways of thought. It is therefore instructive to revisit Ayi Kwei Armah’s postcolonial critique in order to question our assumptions about human activities such as the Olympic Games and general health practices. Armah reveals ways of thinking in precolonial times which may have been forgotten and which could assist the West in finding a balance in the way we live and treat our environment.Keywords: Ayi Kwei Armah, The Healers, humanity, games, sports, healing practices, culture, linguistic

Inclusion strategies for multi-word units in monolingual dictionaries

This article focuses on inclusion strategies for different types of multi-word units, be it as part of the macrostructure or embedded as treatment units in the microstructure of a specific dictionary. The types of multi-word units discussed range from multi-word lexical items to collocations and multi-word compound lexical items. The general principles set out in this article are applied specifically to monolingual school dictionaries that target learners of English in the junior secondary phase. In order to discuss inclusion strategies adequately it is, however, necessary to make a cursory distinction between idioms and collocations, on the one hand, and between collocations and multiword compound lexical items, on the other. It is shown that current monolingual dictionaries often fail to distinguish between these types and therefore apply potentially confusing inclusion strategies. In the discussion of inclusion strategies for multi-word lexical items that follows, it is shown that, whereas loan groups and group prepositions require lemmatisation as full multilexical lemmas, the strategy for idioms is not as simple. The problems with a full lemmatisation of idioms are pointed out and an alternative system, whereby idioms are consistently included as sublemmas with full microstructural treatment, is proposed. Next it is shown that collocations do not have lexical item status and can therefore not be treated in the same way as multi-word lexical items. However, provision must be made that some collocations may need additional microstructural treatment addressed to them. Lastly, inclusion strategies for multi-word compound lexical items, which frequently occur in English, are discussed. The practice of sublemmatising so-called "transparent" compound lexical items and giving them no or little microstructural treatment, is shown to be inappropriate for school dictionaries. Hopefully the guidelines provided in this article can be of some help in clearing up the muddled approaches currently followed in some South African monolingual school dictionaries. Keywords: collocations, compound nouns, group prepositions, idioms, inclusion strategies, lemma, loan groups, macrostructure, microstructure, multi-word compound lexical items, multi-word units, sublemma, transparenc

The vexed “colour problem”: Doris Lessing and the “African Renaissance”

The question of an African Renaissance is drawing increasing debate among African scholars as they aspire for African unity and the revitalization of African cultures. This involves looking back to Africa’s past and evaluating traditions and customs in order to learn how to shape the future. In this paper it is argued that Doris Lessing, in her African Stories, anticipated post-liberation issues such as the protection of Indigenous Knowledge Systems which have become the cornerstone concepts of the African Renaissance today. She exposes the threat posed by colonial society to African traditions and thereby subverts colonial discourse. Keywords: Doris Lessing; African Renaissanc

Political power, national identitiy and language

Afrikaans is the home language of 5.9 million people. During the 1980s, Afrikaans was the dominant state language and a widely-used lingua franca in South Africa and Namibia. But by the end of the twentieth century, English had replaced Afrikaans as the dominant state language and a decline in the use of Afrikaans was in evidence, even among native Afrikaans speakers. An examination of this language's twentieth-century journey helps illustrate the relationship(s) between political power, national identity, and the growth and/or decline of languages

Soil resistivity : a limiting determinant to zero-sequence currents for grounded conductors in South African low voltage networks

Abstract: In this paper, the dependence of soil resistivity on the geological structure and meteorological conditions are discussed. The South African context of changing resistivity and its inevitable consequences on the behaviour of prospective zero-sequence currents in low-voltage distribution systems is highlighted. Therefore, field measurements of soil resistivity using the Wenner Array technique is conducted on expansive clay-based soil. The resulting zero-sequence current inherent to the soil conditions is also assessed. The results obtained indicated that the soil resistivity value of 488.74 Ω. m, which corresponds to the soil conditions at the time and measurement season, represents an increase of 62.91% of the standard limit value for expansive clays, and causes 37.14% decrease in the zero-sequence current likely to flow at the limit value of expansive clay’s resistivity

School self-evaluation for school improvement: Examining the measuring properties of the LEAD surveys

Research evidence suggests school self-evaluation with the participation of school stakeholders could improve teaching and learning. Identification and use of appropriate self-evaluation frameworks, however, is not an easy task for schools. Such a framework, the LEAD School Effectiveness Surveys, has been developed by Independent Schools Victoria in Australia. The LEAD suite of school stakeholder surveys enables schools to evaluate their overall effectiveness in several domains and make informed decisions for school improvement. This article evaluates the reliability as well as the face, content and construct validity of the LEAD surveys and discusses the ways in which school self-evaluation results could contribute to school improvement. Data were gathered from a total of 119,749 students, teaching staff, general and parents taking the LEAD Surveys in 112 independent (non-government) schools and followed a five-year longitudinal design from 2009 to 2013. The results support the reliability as well as the face, content and construct validity of the LEAD surveys. The importance of evaluating the measuring properties of instruments used for school self-evaluation is discussed and suggestions for school self-evaluation are provided. Independent Schools Victoria (Australia

Making sense of revolution lost

Abstract: Please refer to full text to view abstrac

Present-Day Dillemas And Challenges Of The South African Tertiary System

The Education White Paper 3 on Higher Education aimed to transform the higher education system. Change within tertiary education included adjusting the size and shape of institutions, the meaning of autonomy and accountability, the nature of higher education, the character of student demographic distribution, management and governance, roles of student politics, models of delivery, the notion of higher education in terms of the relationship between free trade and public good, programme changes and the nature of the academic workplace. At this stage, transformation in higher education is leaping outwards to fulfil the criteria set by international competitiveness and related efficiency criteria that can be attributed to globalisation pressures and to deeper factors inherent in the nature of higher education, especially in terms of its resistance to change and modernization. In this regard, the tertiary higher education system in South Africa is faced with many multi-dimensional challenges that need to be addressed in this article. This includes stating whether Grade 12 results as the outcome of this exit point at school level are, internationally speaking, a reasonable predictor of first-year academic success at university. In South Africa, there is no benchmarking of the National Senior Certificate (NSC) examination; therefore, first-year students have difficulty in adapting to the university environment as they find themselves devoid of indispensable bases for the pursuit of their studies and the weakness of the level of education given at school level in a large number of instances. Furthermore, five universities were placed under administration in the 2011-2012 period because of appallingly poor levels of management, which adds extra layers of suspicion to the notion of the impact of higher education in South Africa. Many other challenges are facing the South African tertiary education system, which will be analysed and recommendations arrived at that will attempt to contribute to an enhancement of tertiary education in South Africa

The influence of yoga therapy on anxiety

The stressful lifestyles that accompany modern living generate levels of anxiety that become a major concern in society. Psychopharmacological medication and psychotherapy for anxiety is expensive for government health departments as well as for individual consumers. Although the value of yoga as a beneficial and cost effective therapy for anxiety has long been advocated, there have been very few well designed scientific studies in this regard. Therefore the aim of this research was to evaluate the effectiveness of yoga therapy on anxiety perceptions and experiences. The research hypothesis that yoga could decrease such anxiety was investigated by comparing two groups, an experimental group of 18 participants that practised yoga and a control group of 19 participants that did not practise yoga, over a duration of three months, The research design included quantitative and qualitative research methods. Quantitative results from the Beck Anxiety Inventory (BAI) indicated that, although regular yoga therapy was associated with significant decreases in anxiety perceptions over time, these changes were not significant when compared with the control group. Therefore, no causative inferences can be made. Qualitative findings from thematic content analysis of participants’ experiences suggested meaningful relief from anxiety over time, especially with regard to such themes as physicality, contentment, relaxation, breath control, mindfulness, transcendence and spirituality. Although further randomised controlled studies with larger samples are needed, this research provided some systematic evidence for yoga therapy as a significant and relatively cost effective intervention for anxiety reduction. Key Words: Yoga, therapy, anxiety, stress

Restructuring And Mergers Of The South African Post-Apartheid Tertiary System (1994-2011): A Critical Analysis

Socio-economic and vocational needs of communities, governments and individuals change over the years and these discourses served as a compass for restructuring of higher institutions in South Africa from 1994. Before 1994, the claim to legitimacy for government policies in higher education rested on meeting primarily the interests of the white minority. From 1996 onwards, the newly established government considered education a major vehicle of societal transformation. The main objective had been to focus on reducing inequality and fostering internationalisation. Therefore, the rationale for the restructuring of South African universities included a shift from science systems to global science networks. Various challenges are associated with restructuring and include access, diversity, equity and equality. Thus, the restructuring and mergers between former technikons and traditional universities were probably the most difficult to achieve in terms of establishing a common academic platform, as transitional conditions also had to be taken into account and had a twin logic: It was not only the legacy of apartheid that had to be overcome but the incorporation of South Africa into the globalised world was equally important as globalisation transforms the economic, political, social and environmental dimensions of countries and their place in the world. Initially, the post-apartheid higher education transformation started with the founding policy document on higher education, the Report of the National Commission on Higher Education and this report laid the foundation for the 1997 Education White Paper 3 on Higher Education in which a transformed higher education system is described. Restructuring and mergers also had a far-reaching impact, positive and negative, on the various tertiary institutions. This article also reflects on the impact of restructuring and mergers of higher education and reaches the conclusion that higher education faces many more challenges than initially anticipated prior to transformation