Xany Jansen van Vuuren
Lecturer

jansenvanvuurenx@ufs.ac.za

Research interests: Simultaneous  Interpreting, Community Interpreting, Non-professional Interpreting, Semiotics, ecosemiotics, translation, knowledge translation, translation and activism, ecotranslation and interspecies translation and interpreting

Xany Jansen van Vuuren obtained her Ph.D. from the University of the Free State in 2022. She is currently a lecturer in the Department of Linguistics and Language Practice, specializing in interpreting on undergraduate and postgraduate level. Parallel to her teaching career, she has worked as a conference and community interpreter since 2007, receiving her conference interpreter accreditation in 2015.  She has attended and presented at numerous conferences, the most recent of which include the second biennial conference of the Association for Translation Studies in Africa in October 2021, the International Conference on the Complexity of Social-cultural Emergence: Biosemiotics, Semiotics and Translation Studies in August 2021, as well as an international colloquium on cognition, translation and semiosis in July 2021.

Her first post-phd publication is a book chapter entitled Translation between non-humans and humans for an edited volume on “Translation beyond translation studies” by Kobus Marais (forthcoming).

Kobus Marais
Associate Professor
Head of Department

jmarais@ufs.ac.za

Research interests: translation studies, semiotics, intersemiotic translation, translation and development

Currently, I teach editing and semiotics at both under- and postgraduate level. I am supervising/co-supervising six PhD students and four MA students who work in different aspects of translation, mostly with a focus on intersemiotic translation. My research interests are translation studies, semiotics, biosemiotics and development studies. I have published three monographs and four edited volumes. In addition, I am the editor of Journal for Translation Studies in Africa. I am currently in the publication process of a monograph on trajectories of translation in which I worked out in more detail my ideas about the emergence of social-cultural reality. This work explores the implications of thermodynamics for social-cultural studies and applies these ideas to three sets of empirical data.

Monnapula Molefe
Lecturer

molefema@ufs.ac.za

Research interests: community translation, community interpreting, terminology development, translanguaging and human development theory

I am Monnapula Molefe, a lecturer in the Department of Linguistics and Language Practice (DLLP) at the University of the Free State (UFS) in the Republic of South Africa. I teach students at both undergraduate and postgraduate graduate level respectively. The modules that I teach at undergraduate level are, Language Policy and Terminography (HLAP1514), Introduction to Translation and Interpreting (HLAP1524 [half of the module]), Language Planning and Terminography (HLAP2614), Strategies in Interpreting and Translation (HLAP26124 [half of the module]) and Approaches to Translation Theory and Practice (LAPT6808 [half of the module]). I am also a PhD student in the DLLP, conducting research on Non-Professional Interpreting and Translation practices in religious settings (Title of my research: “Faith-related Interpreting: co-performance at the Methodist Church of Southern Africa [MCSA]”). My research interests are community interpreting, community translation, NPIT, faith-related interpreting, performance studies and co-performance. I have co-authored chapter in a book and a book review (details are in my CV). I am also a member of the University’s Language Community and also serve at the DLLP’s Academic Committee. I am also a member of the Scientific Network Participatory Translation Studies. This network is made up of contributors from different parts of the world. We recently held our first meeting, which was held online (Gather Town) from 21-23 April 2022. 

Kristina Riedel
Senior Lecturer

riedelk@ufs.ac.za

Research interests: syntax & morphology, field linguistics, Bantu languages

Kristina Riedel received her Ph.D. from Leiden University in 2009. She is currently a senior lecturer at the Department of Linguistics and Language Practice at the University of the Free State. Before joining UFS, Riedel was the director of the Sub-Saharan African languages program and acting director for the Center for Language Instruction and Coordination (CLIC) at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Between February 2009 and August 2011, she was a postdoctoral researcher at the Center for General Linguistics (ZAS) in Berlin, Germany, working on a Franco-German research project on the phonology-syntax interface in the Bantu languages. Her research interests are centered around the interactions of agreement and word order in the Bantu languages, Bantu syntax and the description of Bantu languages more generally.

Her current research activities include leading the Seshegopuo project (2021-2023) which is funded by SADiLaR to create annotated corpora for Sesotho, Setswana and Sepedi (Sesotho sa Leboa) in collaboration with Dr Hannah Gibson (Essex). She is a prinicipal investigator for the Microvariation in Bantu languages of South Africa: Building theories from typology data project (2021-2027) with project leader Prof Seunghun Lee (ICU) and collaborators in Japan and South Africa. Visit the project website here. She is also a member of the project Agreement Mismatches in Experimental Syntax: from Slavic to Bantu (2018 - 2022).

She has been a member of the Southern African Linguistics and Applied Linguistics Society (SALALS) Executive Committee since 2019 where she has been serving as convenor for Linguistics since 2021. She serves as associate editor of the journal Southern African Linguistics and Applied Language Studies. She co-organises the Southern African Linguistics Network which hosts monthly online seminars in African linguistics. You can subscribe to the SALN newsletter here.

She is the team leader for the Digital Humanities Open Educational Resources (OER) Champions project entitled Decolonising syntax teaching materials for South African higher education. She is joint holder of a British Academy Writing Workshop grant. Past grants include a British Academy Newton Mobility Grant 2018-2019 for the project Variation in Sesotho and Setswana as spoken in the Free State.

Marlie van Rooyen
Senior Lecturer

vanrooyenm1@ufs.ac.za

Research interests: Translation Studies, Journalistic Translation Research, Sociology of Translation, Non-professional interpreting and translation, Alternative and community journalism

Marlie van Rooyen is senior lecturer in Translation Studies in the Department of Linguistics and Language Practice at the University of the Free State (UFS), Bloemfontein, South Africa. She also serves as the Programme Director for Language Practice at the UFS. Marlie holds a PhD in Translation Studies from KU Leuven (Belgium). She teaches translation theory and practice and is responsible for the supervision of postgraduate students in Translation Studies. Marlie also holds a fellowship from the UFS Centre for Teaching and Learning – an institutional programme that supports her research on translation and interpreting teaching. She serves on the board of the Association of Translation Studies in Africa (ATSA) and on the editorial board of the Journal for Translation Studies in Africa (JTSA). Her main research interests are journalism and translation, the sociology of translation and non-professional interpreting and translation. Marlie is a trained radio journalist, translator, language editor and South African accredited simultaneous interpreter.

Dr Marlie van Rooyen is currently exploring other avenues related to her main research interest of non-professional interpreting and translation (NPIT) in the South African context.  She is currently investigating the serendipitous development of translator and interpreter education in a resource-constrained context. Dr Van Rooyen is also involved in two multidisciplinary projects at the UFS. The first is in collaboration with colleagues from the Department of Geography in the Faculty of Natural and Agricultural Sciences, while the other is a joint project with colleagues from The School of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences in the Faculty of Health Sciences.

Hlumela Mkabile is a Lecturer in the Department of Linguistics and Language Practice at the University of the Free State. She holds a Master of Arts in Linguistics and Applied Language Studies (with distinction), Bachelor of Arts Honours in Linguistics and Applied Languages Studies, and a Bachelor of Journalism from Rhodes University. Before joining the department, Hlumela was a Junior Lecturer at the University of South Africa (UNISA), working on two honours modules, one on language teaching methods module and the other on language planning in education. Her main research interests are centered around the morphosyntax and semantics of the applicative and causative in Bantu languages.

She is currently on the Executive Committee of the Southern African Linguistics and Applied Linguistics Society (SALALS) as a Linguistics convenor, and she is also a co-organiser for the Southern African Linguistics Network (SALN), which hosts monthly online seminars in African linguistics.