Thesis (MA (African Languages))--Stellenbosch University, 2008.This study deals with the analysis of accounts of marriages in isiXhosa. Gergen
(1994) proposes the following aspects that such narratives should cover: structure of
narrative account; narrative form; self-narrative: process; pragmatics of self-narrative,
interknitting of narratives, and emotion. Each of the listed aspects has its own
variants. The variants will be dealt with in Chapter four, where Gergen’s theory is
being summarised. The proposals Gergen (1994) made are central and significant in
this research, since the narratives that have been given by five Xhosa-speaking
married persons will be analysed according to his theory on self-narratives.
This research seeks to verify the validity of Gergen’s (1994) theory of narratives in
the Xhosa context. The research has been conducted by involving five Xhosaspeaking
married persons. Each person had to give his or her account of marriage in
line with the topic of this research, namely, the analysis of accounts of marriage in
Xhosa. After narratives had been collected, an analysis of each narrative has been
done in Chapter five of this research. The analysis reveals how each narrative
reflects the following: the structure of the narrative account, narrative form, selfnarrative:
process, pragmatics of self-narrative, practices of self-narratives, and
emotions, as suggested by Gergen (1994). Analyses vary from one narrative to
another because an account of married life varies from one person to another.
Bakhtin (1981) suggest that the words that narrators use are inter-individual. The
understanding of social morals, values, norms, justice, and the history of the
community by the narrators enables them to be intelligible in their narratives. It is
therefore crucial that this study be pursued in the Xhosa language because
narratives are socially embedded. The narratives in this study could assist people to
think correctly about the marriages in the Xhosa context. The issue of marriage
affects all people, despite language diversity, and it is therefore proper that this study
be conducted in all languages. If this is not done, others may think that the findings
from this research is applicable to the Xhosa-speaking community only.
The analytic part of this research would help communication practitioners and
language practitioners to analyse narratives in their languages in the same manner as they have been analysed from Xhosa narratives. This research analysis would
assist developing communicators to grow into competent communicators
