Welcome to the Department for Linguistics and Language Practice! Here you can find out who we are and what we do, and what you can study with us. You can also learn about events, departmental news and activities, and find resources and information for current and prospective students under Academic Information.

The Department of Linguistics and Language Practice came into being by combining the disciplines of linguistics and language practice into one department, establishing a new platform for the training of linguists and language practitioners in South Africa.

Students in our department receive training opportunities that do not exist elsewhere in this format. Our courses afford students the opportunity to be educated and trained in linguistics, translation, interpreting, text editing, terminology and language management. We offer degrees in Language Practice and Linguistics (as a major under the BA General) from BA to PhD level.

The lecturers in our department carry out research in translation studies, interpreting studies, sociolinguistics and theoretical and descriptive linguistics. In addition, our department also regularly hosts postdoctoral fellows and visiting scholars, and we have research associates at leading international universities. Find out more about staff research and profiles and our postdocs and associates on the staff and research pages.

Please refer to the current Kovsies yearbook or Humanities Rule Book for more information on our courses.

new paper by Dr Mwaniki (with Beatriz Arias and Terrence Wiley)

by Kristina Riedel | Sep 16, 2016
Dr Mwaniki's paper (coauthored with Beatriz Arias and Terrence Wiley) "Bilingual Education Policy" was just published in Bilingual and Multilingual Education (which is part of the Encyclopedia of Language and Education series and edited by O. García et al.)

Abstract: The chapter is a critical appraisal of bilingual education policy scholarship and practice against a backdrop of contestations that characterize determination and
execution of bilingual education goals and the spread of the idea of linguistic
human rights in education – and discourses attendant and consequent to these
processes. A dominant and recurrent motif in bilingual education policy discourses
is the assumed analogous relationship between language and the
nation-state and the sometimes integrative, sometimes disruptive role of education
in this relationship. Resultant bilingual education types have, in practice,
manifested themselves in a range of programs. Invariably, these programs fall
within a dyad of language policy orientations, these being promotion/tolerance
and repressive/restrictive. These orientations influence types of educational programs
and their outcomes. Nowhere are these dynamics more pronounced than in
postcolonial contexts – which, from the critical perspective adopted in the
chapter, include, apart from the “usual” contexts in the global south, western
democracies with a colonial past. In these contexts, presumed “mother tongue,”
local language, or minority language becomes both important and problematic in
the conceptualization and implementation of bilingual education policies. In other
instances, even when language-in-education policies are allegedly intended to
increase opportunities for educational access and equity, in practice, they (re)
produce, perpetuate, and entrench unintended outcomes largely inimical to the
progressive goals of bilingual education policies. However, when effectively
implemented, bilingual education policies remain potent tools for social, political,
and economic inclusion of marginalized groups in postcolonial contexts,
irrespective of whether these are in the global north or global south.

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FACULTY CONTACT

T: +27 51 401 2240 or humanities@ufs.ac.za

Postgraduate:
Marizanne Cloete: +27 51 401 2592

Undergraduate:
Neliswa Emeni-Tientcheu: +27 51 401 2536
Phyllis Masilo: +27 51 401 9683

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