AFL1501-23-S2-107T - Assessment 01

By

Blaine Jarod Page

19845928

Submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree.

LLB

In the

DEPARTMENT OF AFRICAN LANGUAGES

SCHOOL OF LAW

UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH AFRICA

SUPERVISOR: PROF M SWANEPOEL

AFL1501: LANGUAGE THROUGH AN AFRICAN LENS

08/08/2023
Contents
Task 1....................................................................................................................................................... 3
Task 2....................................................................................................................................................... 5
Task 3....................................................................................................................................................... 7
Bibliography ............................................................................................................................................ 8
Task 1
A home language is a language someone was taught during earlier stages of life and
spoken within an individual’s household. In my case, Afrikaans and English are my
home language.

I can speak proficiently English and Afrikaans. I grew up in a household where

Afrikaans and English were spoken and learnt English and Afrikaans throughout my
schooling. I have an NQF level 4 for my home languages.

Context is the background knowledge and epistemology which is used to make

distinctions in social interactions, establishing a shared understanding, comprehend
experiencing human interactions and assists with choreography of behaviour,
coordinating actions within interactions and social organisation. This is because the
meaning of words is understood differently in different contexts, the understanding of
the meaning of words within certain contexts is described as an intersubjective
linguistic reality. The concept of metatext signifies the importance of context as
different contexts can cause an informing interaction or a constraining interaction,
affecting the choreography of behaviour and coordinating actions within interactions.

Our languages do not define our entire identity but do reflect aspects of who we are.
Using a certain dialect, figures of speech and expressions or having an accent can
reflect your cultural heritage, perception of the world, social identity or your where
you are from. Language can, depending how proficient you are in your language,
reflect your adaptability and effective communication. This can also be the case
when there is a interaction between different friends and colleagues, like people who
switch between dialects or languages to adapt to social situations. These people
possess a capacity to adapt and communicate in various contexts and have great
dedication to learning and growth. This also happens because some languages have
more formal or informal register people can project professionality with their
language, reflecting their sophisticated character or to communicate more casually
and reflect a comfortable and relaxed persona.
Among English and Afrikaans, I gravitate more towards Afrikaans, because I express
myself more logically and process emotions with more structure due to having to
think before I speak so I can translate my words to Afrikaans or be more aware of
grammar and vocabulary.

Sometimes I feel misunderstood as well as misunderstanding towards others. This is

because I am left to rely on reading the body language, attitudes and tone of voice of
others to understand the context of the interaction. This causes me to be unable to
coordinate my actions within the interaction and unable to determine how to behave.
Because south Africa has 11 official languages, I feel pressured to learn to speak
proficiently in nine other languages. This makes me slightly more hopeless when it
comes to communication well with other South Africans who speak other languages.
Task 2
I thought about how languages evolve with cultural and technology advancements.
Also how depending on a geographic location, dialects and accents is normal for the
people who live there, but for people who live a few kilometres away it is foreign and
sometimes enough to alter their social interactions. With friends and family certain
languages or dialects are used more casually and, in the workplace, we
communicate more formally. Due to our multilingual society, some people are fluent
in various languages, and that is normal, but some people are more dominant in just
one language and that is also considered normal. It is interesting how many different
things are considered normal to different languages.

Language can influence how we perceive, interpret and interact with the world.
Different languages provide different labels and vocabulary for thoughts and
emotions. Some languages is easy to articulate emotions and thoughts and some
languages lack the vocabulary. Seeing that just words influence how we perceive our
thoughts, emotions and challenges, this also affects the interpretation of how we
remember events. This can in turn influence personal history and our sense of
identity.

Language evolves to have different dialects: where grammar, pronunciations and

vocabulary can differ due to geographical or historical influences; idiolects: where the
use of the language becomes unique to a person, because of childhood, and
interactions with other linguistic communities; and lastly ecolects: where the use of
language becomes unique to a community or social group due to slang, age group,
culture creating various communication patterns that can be linked to specific social
groups

South African English has a few characteristics that I think are unique. South
Africans can seamlessly switch between English, Afrikaans and Xhosa during a
conversation. This is because in South Africa we have a vast multilinguistic and
multicultural society, this does also however, cause miscommunication or
misinterpretations. Another distinction can be the different pronunciations of words
and rhythm and tempo of our communication that we share, South Africans that
speak English tend to emphasize infinite nouns during a conversation.
In any language there can always be miscommunication or misinterpretation of what
is being said. Whenever people speak ambiguously can cause verbs and nouns can
be misunderstood and an entire context of a sentence to be misinterpreted.
Something similar to this that also causes miscommunication can be where words
and sentences are translated before speech or as writing and the word order can
suggest something of an entire different context. This can also result in the wrong
use of words and contextual comprehension, such as using the wrong homophones
or homonyms. In the end the most common way people miscommunicate is because
of body language, tone of voice and facial expressions. These non-verbal cues even
cause miscommunication between the most proficiently speaking people.
Task 3
Interviewee: Anuschka Anderson

The interview is in a vibrant restaurant where people are conversing with background
music assisting the Guided flexibility method of the interview.

I speak Afrikaans and English. I grew up speaking Afrikaans at home but had both
English and Afrikaans home language. I speak more English now that I have English
friends, but I still speak Afrikaans at home with my family. Afrikaans derives from
Dutch influenced by other languages. The language is from the Dutch, German and
French descendants of South Africa. Afrikaans people are sometimes stereotyped by
being big farmers, people who love brandy, who are racist, white, and love to cook
food over a fire and conservative. I would like to learn German as I plan on moving
there with my boyfriend.
Bibliography
There are no sources in the current document.
Academic Honesty Declaration:

1. I know that plagiarism means taking and using the ideas, writings, works or
inventions of another as if they were one’s own. I know that plagiarism not only
includes verbatim copying, but also the extensive use of another person’s ideas
without proper acknowledgement (which includes the proper use of quotation
marks). I know that plagiarism covers the use of material found in textual sources
and from the Internet.

2. I acknowledge and understand that plagiarism is wrong.

3. I understand that my research proposal must be accurately referenced

4. This research proposal is my own work. I acknowledge that copying someone

else’s research, or part of it, is wrong and that submitting identical work to others
constitutes a form of plagiarism.

5. I have not allowed, nor will I in the future allow anyone to copy my work with the
intention of passing it off as their own work

6. I confirm that I have read and understood UNISA’s Policy for Copyright and
Plagiarism - https://www.unisa.ac.za/sites/corporate/default/Apply-for-
admission/Master%27s-&-doctoral-degrees/Policies,-procedures-&-forms

Full Name: Blaine Jarod Page

Student No: 19845928