Sign langauge and hate speech: The potential pitfalls of iconic signs

This chapter explores the ways in which some identity signifiers in sign language may be seen as examples of hate speech. The issue is considered by posing three questions: To what extent do iconic signs qualify as hate speech? In what way do iconic signs qualify as hate speech when observed by hearing nonsigners? How sufficient are the definitions in current legislation to address hate speech transgressions in sign language? Before these questions are dealt with individually, an overview of lexis in sign language explains what iconic signs are and how some are considered politically incorrect. This is followed by an outline of the criteria for hate speech in both the Equality Act and the Hate Speech Bill. The conclusion is that sign language, like any other language, falls within the ambit of the law. The existing legislative definitions and terminology include communication of a visual nature, placing signing Deaf people on par with everyone else.Afrikaans and Theory of Literatur

Using prototype theory to determine the ordinary meaning of words

The interpretation of words in case law is often a central focal point, especially when the ordinary meaning of words is contested. One of the more popular ways to determine the ordinary meaning of words is by looking it up in a dictionary. Even though dictionaries are valid resources for this task, alternative resources should also be considered. Prototype theory is a well-known linguistic approach whereby a category’s best exemplar or typical member is identified. Meaning can be found on three different levels, that is the superordinate, the basic level and the subordinate. We find prototypes mostly on the basic level and it is also on this level that we often find ordinary meaning. Therefore, it should be equally helpful to determine and study the prototypicality of contested words. Furthermore, by studying a contested word’s proximity in relation to the prototype, we can tell to what extent we are dealing with that word’s ordinary meaning and what this ordinary meaning consists of. In this note, the authors want to introduce South African legal scholars and practitioners to prototype theory and they will demonstrate two possible methods to determine the prototypes of concrete categories.Afrikaans and Theory of Literatur

A Call to Revise Section 8(2)(e) of the Occupational Health and Safety Act to Include Crisis Risk Communication

This article gauges s 8 of South Africa’s Occupational Health and Safety Act and highlights its lack of clarity and prescriptive guidelines on crisis risk communication. Paragraph 8(2)(e) specifically obliges employers to provide information and training to ensure a safe and healthy working environment. However, the Act neither defines the words ‘communication’ and ‘information’ nor does it clearly provide for the dissemination of information during a crisis, like industrial action, which affects many employees simultaneously. The #FeesMustFall and insourcing protests that occurred at universities across the country during 2015-2016 are a good example of this. The protests compelled universities to send out text messages as a means of communicating with their staff and students. Though crisis risk communication theory expects messages to provide clear and straightforward directives, some messages were vague. This begs the question whether an institution must simply provide information to comply with the law, or whether clear directives should be the only legal standard. Subsection 8(2)(e) of the Act provides little insight. With the above in mind, this article suggests best practice criteria for crisis risk communication and a proposed reformulation of s 8(2)(e).Afrikaans and Theory of Literatur

Disposing of Bodies, Semantically: Notes on the Meaning of "Disposal" in S v Molefe

In S v Molefe the presiding officer determines the meaning of the word "disposal" at the hand of two criteria, namely visibility and permanence; this means a body has to be permanently out of sight to be considered disposed of. He applies these two criteria in order to conclude if the accused is guilty of concealing the birth of her child by disposing of its body. In doing so, the court no longer interprets the word as an everyday word but turns it into a legal term. This note questions the linguistic soundness of the criteria by investigating how language structures space, and how these constructions relate to the word "disposal". In order to scrutinise the criteria, a text analysis was carried out by applying Talmy's ideas surrounding prepositions in structuring space and movement. Connected to this is the semantic difference between the words "seeing" and "looking": seeing is a sensory act, whereas looking is a cognitive one. In keeping with the contested word's status as a legal term, the difference between seeing and looking aids in formulating two new criteria. Courts may consider assessing whether disposal took place on the grounds of containment and movement; for instance, has the body been moved from one location to another and is the body being contained within another object like a bucket, a wooden box or a suitcase

‘Het doet emmer toverie’: ’n forensiese ondersoek na die (on)waarskynlikheid van nekromansie in Die Hexe

Die Hexe (“The Witch”) included in the Hulthem codex, is a Medieval Dutch farce which comically addresses the issue ofwitchcraft. Researchers see the text either as an explicit warning against the dangers of witchcraft or as a mockery of people’s superstitious beliefs. This article proposes to analyse the text from a forensic linguistic perspective by examining the word const which some annotators translate as “necromancy”. It is argued that const also means “knowledge” or “experience”, implying that the character Juliane is falsely accused of witchcraft and necromancy by the characters as well as the annotators. The article provides background knowledge to forensic linguistics followed by a brief overview of Die Hexe. The farce is subsequently discussed in terms of a fictional court case in which the legal semantic theory of ordinary meaning of words is applied. By studying the context and the relevant wording reasonable doubt can be established in terms ofJuliane’s innocence

‘Het doet emmer toverie’: ’n Forensiese ondersoek na die (on)waarskynlikheid van nekromansie in Die Hexe

Die Hexe (“The Witch”) included in the Hulthem codex, is a Medieval Dutch farce which comically addresses the issue ofwitchcraft. Researchers see the text either as an explicit warning against the dangers of witchcraft or as a mockery of people’s superstitious beliefs. This article proposes to analyse the text from a forensic linguistic perspective by examining the word const which some annotators translate as “necromancy”. It is argued that const also means “knowledge” or “experience”, implying that the character Juliane is falsely accused of witchcraft and necromancy by the characters as well as the annotators. The article provides background knowledge to forensic linguistics followed by a brief overview of Die Hexe. The farce is subsequently discussed in terms of a fictional court case in which the legal semantic theory of ordinary meaning of words is applied. By studying the context and the relevant wording reasonable doubt can be established in terms ofJuliane’s innocence

Gay- en queer-kodes in geanimeerde films

Early Hollywood films made use of certain codes and signifiers to imply aspects that were banned by boards of censors after the Great Depression. By using these codes filmmakers were able to say secretly much more than they were allowed to say. Sometimes these signifiers went unnoticed by audiences and sometimes informed audience members could immediately read between the lines. The same can be said for modern-day animated films. The point of argument is that makers of children’s animated films make use of the same type of signifiers and codes which were used in early Hollywood films to imply that certain characters are queer or gay. To demonstrate the point of argument, the Shrek trilogy will be read through so-called queer lenses to point out these queer and gay codes.Afrikaans and Theory of Literatur

'n Middelnederlandse teks vir die moderne Afrikaansklaskamer

Due to the fact that Afrikaans is such a young language with a young literary tradition, the Afrikaans classroom has no real equivalent to older texts like Chaucer or Shakespeare. The absence of these types of texts from the Afrikaans classroom may leave learners culturally and literarily impoverished. In an attempt to find a way to fill this gap this article proposes the use of Medieval Dutch literature like the plays Elckerlijc (Everyman), Walewein and Van den vos Reynaerde as a possible answer to an apparent need in especially the grade 12 Afrikaans classroom. What follows is a short discussion on the possible reasons why, and ways in which, a Medieval Dutch text can be adapted for classroom use by learners and teachers alike.Afrikaans and Theory of Literatur

A legal fallacy? Testing the ordinariness of 'ordinary meaning'

The canon that dictates that words be interpreted according to their ordinary meaning has been widely debated. Many studies have either highlighted the shortcomings of the ordinary meaning principle or have tried to debunk its existence altogether. Despite efforts to introduce a new approach to the interpretation of statutes in South Africa (through Endumeni), the application of the ordinary meaning rule persists and remains a contested issue. Weighing in on the debate by scholars such as Cowen (1980) and Labuschagne (1998), this contribution tests if the phenomenon of ordinary meaning actually exists. Rooted in the argument that ordinary meaning is representative of a so-called reasonable speaker’s understanding, data were collected through a survey approach. The survey tested ten words taken from South African case law that were interpreted according to the ordinary meaning principle. The results were then compared with the meanings assigned by the respective courts and those appearing in the iWeb corpus. Interpreted against the demographic information of 151 participants, the preliminary results indicate correspondence between the courts’ understanding of the selected words and that of the respondents. Therefore, the findings cautiously confirm the existence of the ordinary meaning principle as a phenomenon within a specific spectrum of society.Afrikaans and Theory of Literatur

Using frames to determine ordinary meaning in court cases: the case of "plant" and "vermin"

The South African judicial system has a variety of ways to determine the ordinary meaning of words, ranging from preceding court cases and academic publications to expert witnesses. However, one of the main resources in the interpretation of ordinary words is a dictionary. Much has already been published on both the use (and abuse) of dictionaries in court cases and the ordinary meaning of words as a legal phenomenon. In continuation of this discourse, I propose that jurists consider using a conceptual approach to the interpretation of ordinary words as opposed to relying overly on dictionaries. One such conceptual approach is the use of frames, which deals with meaning in a way that is similar to Gestalt. In this article, I suggest the use of Barsalou’s (1992) frame structure that may be applied to a contested word in six steps. To illustrate the way Barsalou’s frame functions, I have applied it to two contested words taken from South African court cases. Building a frame in order to determine the ordinary meaning of certain words in court cases proves to be a possible alternative or an additional resource to dictionaries.Afrikaans and Theory of Literatur