Within the university, the department is known as one of the units that are constantly count amongst the first pertaining to research outputs. During its long history, this department have already produced many publications. Not only did Malherbe and Beukes complete most of their major corpus of creative work while being linked to this department; GJ Beukes and F Lategan published a history of literature, Skrywers en Rigtings; JC completed his autobiographic narrative, Hoeke boerseuns ons was, and published many academic works, amongst others monumental biographies about NP van Wyk Louw, M.E.R and Piet Cillié). Renowned researchers have formed and still form part of the staff cohort of this department. These include, amongst others, Jan Senekal, Charles Malan, MCJ van Rensburg, HP van Coller, Daniel Hugo, GJ van Jaarsveld and the Hertzog Prize winner, Henning Pieterse.