Latest News Archive

Please select Category, Year, and then Month to display items
Categories
UFS News Media Release Research
Years
2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 2022 2023 2024
Months
January February March April May June July August September October November December
Previous Archive
12 July 2019 | Story Valentino Ndaba | Photo Johan Roux
African languages as transformation tools
From left to right: Dr Elias Malete (conference chairperson and the newly elected deputy chairperson of Alasa Board), Prof I Koch (Scientific Editor of Alasa journal), Dr Hleze Kunju (secretary of ALASA Board), Dr H Gunnink (international guest), Prof Nobuhle Hlongwa (keynote speaker) and Prof Phalandwa Mulaudzi (former deputy chairperson of Alasa Board)
South Africa is a multicultural society, boasting 12 official languages with 10 of them indigenous languages. Due to colonialism, these native languages remain underdeveloped, much like in the rest of the continent. There is an ongoing critical dialogue on language policies and decolonising the curriculum in higher education, making the work of the African Languages Association of Southern Africa (Alasa) more relevant than ever.

The University of the Free State’s (UFS) Department of African Languages hosted an array of panel discussions under the theme Indigenous African languages and decolonisation: Revitalising African ways of knowing in a digital age from 8-10 July 2019. Distinguished scholars including Prof Nobuhle Hlongwa, Prof Sabelo Ndlovu-Gatsheni, and Prof SF Matshinhe delivered keynote addresses for the 21st biennial Alasa International Conference.

An instrument of empowering society
Dean of the Faculty of Humanities, Prof Heidi Hudson, offered a warm welcome to delegates on the first day of the conference at the Bloemfontein Campus. Prof Hudson echoed the beliefs of Kenyan writer Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o regarding the entwined nature of language and power. “Ngũgĩ reminds us that the language question cannot be solved outside the larger arena of economics and politics or the question of what society wants.”

Prof Monwabisi Ralarala, chairperson of Alasa, echoed similar sentiments in his opening remarks. “It is also worthy of note that the conference is taking place at an opportune time, when the United Nations Education, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (Unesco) saw it befitting to recognise the rights of indigenous people, and thus declaring 2019 as the International Year of Indigenous Languages,” he said.

Language is at the heart of equality
If discrimination and inequality are to be uprooted, indigenous African languages and Indigenous Knowledge Systems (IKS) should be at the centre of the transformation agenda. Prof Hlongwa addressed this issue in her keynote address titled: The role of indigenous African languages in knowledge production, dissemination and social transformation. “Historically, higher education in South Africa and Africa in general relied on foreign languages,” said Prof Hlongwa, Dean and Head of the School of Arts in the College of Humanities at the University of KwaZulu-Natal (UKZN).

A tool for access to and success in higher education
Prof Hlongwa advocated the revisiting of teaching and learning methods where learners are examined in a language they do not understand and where educators teach in a language in which they are not proficient. One solution would be to reposition mother-tongue education and implement a policy framework which guides language practice in South Africa.

Models for intellectualisation of African indigenous languages can be benchmarked from UKZN and Rhodes University where major strides have been made to develop terminology, term banks, reading and writing clubs, even as Apps.

News Archive

Eusibius McKaiser gives first talk on new book at Kovsies
2012-05-09

 

Eusibius McKaiser
Photo: Johan Roux
9 May 2012

Students and staff from our university got the first glimpse of political and social commentator Eusibius McKaiser’s new book, There is a Bantu in my bathroom, during a public lecture of the same title held by the author on the Bloemfontein Campus.

McKaiser told the audience that they were amongst the first people to get a preview of his book, a collection of essays on race, sexuality and politics.

His talk centred on domestic race relationships, posing the question whether it was acceptable to have racial preferences with regard to whom you live with. Recounting an incident he encountered while looking for a flat in Sandton, McKaiser said the country was still many kilometres away from the end-goal of non-racialism.

McKaiser, who hosted a weekly politics and morality show on Talk Radio 702, and is a weekly contributor to The New York Times, said the litmus test for non-racialism in South Africa was not what people utter in a public space, but rather what was said in private.

“We need to talk more about the domestic space. In public, we are very insincere and quick to preach non-racialism.”

Recounting conversations he had with Talk Radio 702 listeners on the incident, McKaiser said that preference about whom you live with was not specific to white people’s attitude. He said many of his black listeners also felt uncomfortable living with a white person. “The question is, ‘What do these preferences say about you? What does it say about where we are as a country and people’s commitment to non-racialism?’”

McKaiser was the guest of the International Institute for Studies in Race, Reconciliation and Social Justice.
 

We use cookies to make interactions with our websites and services easy and meaningful. To better understand how they are used, read more about the UFS cookie policy. By continuing to use this site you are giving us your consent to do this.

Accept