DELEGATES & ABSTRACTS for 2001 Conference

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Andrianaivo, Bert: see Meinhof et al.

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Baldauf, Richard : Language policy and planning goals

Day 1 (Monday 9 July), 11:00-11:40, Eden Grove Blue

Language Planning has been defined as deliberate, future oriented change (i.e., goal oriented) in systems of language code or speaking (corpus planning) in a societal context (status planning). It also normally involves planning for education / the acquisition of language and planning for and developing the status or image of a language. Each of the four types of language planning (status, corpus, language-in-education, prestige) can be realised from two approaches: a policy approach with an emphasis on form, or a cultivation approach with an emphasis on the functional extension of language development and use. In this paper, the goals of language planning - as discussed in the literature - for each of these eight planning perspectives are briefly outlined and examples are given, thereby providing a framework for or overview of the discipline.

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Blunt, Sandy; Goodier; Caroline & Harran, Marcelle: Student perceptions of the English Placement Assessment (EPA) at the PE Technikon

Day 2 (Tuesday 10 July), 16:10-16:50, Eden Grove Red

This paper builds on a paper entitled "The English Placement Assessment (EPA) at the PE Technikon", presented at the Academic Development: Changes and Challenges Conference at Rhodes University, 4-6 December 2000. That paper evaluated the implementation of the EPA as well as its perceived benefits to students and staff. The validity of the assessment within the context of the Technikon was also discussed.

The current paper is based on a questionnaire completed by those students who wrote the placement assessment for 2001, to determine placement in English A or B. The paper firstly describes the types of questions included in the questionnaire and their purpose. Then it presents the questionnaire findings and discusses the implications. Finally, the EPA is evaluated in the light of the students' perceptions, and current research.

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Bohn, Hilario: Applied Linguistics revisited - a look into the underprivileged social and economic groups

Day 2 (Tuesday 10 July), 14:30-15:10, Seminar Room 2 

The field of Applied Linguistics has identified a variety of academic and social responsibilities for the applied linguist. Some of these are related to theoretical demands - there is a need to define the theoretical boundaries of the field and the principles that govern it; there is also a need to research the linguistic phenomena related to applied linguistics - the complex language acquisition process and the use of the linguistic system by individuals; additionally, applied linguists have the responsibility to address the issues related to language policies, language politics, and issues related to language loyalty and culture. The academia has done pretty well in the first two areas of research. However, studies related to the third set of responsibilities have been addressed by the field only marginally. There seem to be several reasons for this: the issues at stake in the third group are particularly salient in parts of the world where Applied Linguistics is less developed; research interests at University Departments around the globe are many times financially bound - acquisition studies and projects on the description of specific language uses are more easily supported than studies on language loyalty, linguistic rights, ethics and values; globalization phenomena have introduced utilitarian motivations in many applied linguistic initiatives. Given such a scenario, I propose to critically analyze Applied Linguistic priorities, many times dictated by hegemonic groups, for the developing, emerging or the so called third world countries which hold about half of the world's population. The outlook of the profession to some of the fundamental linguistic issues, skills and rights such as literacy, bilingualism, and the notion of cultural difference will be evaluated. The authoritarian Western views on literacy will be especially emphasized, showing how they homogenize, despite difference and cultural variation. Implications for regional and national policy making in Applied Linguistic research will also be examined.

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Botha, Liz: see Zinn et al.

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Botya, Paula: see Zinn et al.

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Boughey, Chrissie: Working with mainstream academics in the development of academic literacy: a tentative model.

Day 1 (Monday 9 July), 12:30-13:00, Eden Grove Red.

In recent years, understandings of the construct of 'academic literacy' have led many language practitioners to argue for the need for 'across the curriculum' approaches to the development of the language proficiency needed for students to succeed at tertiary level. This paper draws on five years experience of team teaching and researching in a first year systematic philosophy class at a historically black South African university to build a practical 'model' for team teaching which could be applicable elsewhere.

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Busch, Brigitta: see Meinhof et al.

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Buti, Wesi: see Coombe et al.

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Candlin, Christopher (convenor);  Jones, Rodney; Sarangi, Srikant & Makoni, Sinfree : Colloquium on Language, discourse and the delivery of healthcare: appraising patient outcomes and quality of life

Day 2 (Tuesday 10 July), 8:30-9:25, Eden Grove Blue

This colloquium brings together three papers, from different social, healthcare and linguistic contexts, which focus on the relationships between language choice, discursive practices and the quality of healthcare outcomes for patients. Two papers address issues surrounding the determination of "quality of life", in particular emphasizing the importance of its relational, contextually specific, interactionally accomplished and mediated nature. The third paper explores the extent to which healthcare outcomes in contrastive contexts are mediated and influenced by dialectal and language differences. All three papers discuss the implications of their results for the formulation and exercise of healthcare policies.

Paper 1

Rodney Jones & Christopher Candlin: Problematising "quality of life" in the discourses of HIV/AIDS

Drawing on the results of a recent ethnographic and discursive study with people living with HIV/AIDS in Hong Kong, this paper argues that appropriate appraisal of quality of life (QOL), and any healthcare policies to improve it, must take a social perspective on its nature. Specifically, we argue that current individualistic/cognitive models of QOL have failed to account for the complex interrelationships among a range of social factors which impinge on QOL and, in particular, the importance of its socially mediated nature. In our view, QOL is best seen as a relational process interactively mediated with and among involved participants through negotiation. Such a process is directed at three interrelated domains: doing things and getting things done (pragmatic); being and relating (interpersonal); knowing, thinking and feeling (cognitive). Understanding these relationships and knowing how they may be refined itself depends on negotiated understanding of professional and client cultures. The paper will present a brief account of the research methodology employed in the study and, in particular, the reflexive engagement of the research processes and outcomes with PHA’s, and with professional and non-professional caregivers.

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Paper 2

Srikant Sarangi: The interplay of "quality of life" and "quality of interaction" in healthcare discourse

In this presentation, I look at the strategic ways in which "Quality of Life" comments are interactionally embedded in the context of healthcare discourse. Drawing upon data from three healthcare communication sites – genetics, cancer and HIV/AIDS – I suggest that while "Quality of Life" talk is a marker of patient-centered medicine, it does stand in opposition to the "voice of medicine". For instance, in the context of cancer communication, the side-effects of different treatment regimes are brought to the fore in the consultation, in the same way as the desirability of genetic testing is discussed in relation to disclosure of information within the family. Overall, the "quality of life" talk aims at interactional resolution and becomes a counterpoint to medical intervention. I conclude by drawing attention to the indeterminate scope of the concept of "quality of life" – which ranges from the physical/functional and social/cultural to psychological/spiritual and economic dimensions – and the difficulties associated with this concept when measuring healthcare outcomes cross-culturally.

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Paper 3

Sinfree Makoni: Does language really matter? An assessment of the role of language differences in health assessment outcomes

Using data from the United States African American communities and South African Afrikaans/English communities, the study explores the role of language differences on the assessment of healthcare. The study compares the temporal stability of measures of cognitive assessment administered in two different languages to bilingual healthcare clients. Most if not all the validated published cognitive measures for late-life disorders in the USA are in Standard American English, and not African American Vernacular, in spite of the fact that some African Americans who have lived most of their lives in one community may only speak African American Vernacular and a variant of Standard American English. Using data from an ongoing study which compares the performance of the same subjects when the cognitive assessment tasks are administered in African American Vernacular and Standard American English, the paper explores the extent to which healthcare assessment outcomes are mediated and affected by dialectal/language differences between African American English Vernacular and Standard American English in the United States, and Afrikaans and English in South Africa. The paper will briefly compare the extent to which health assessment measures are mediated by language by comparing the results from the United States with those from South Africa, and the implications of such studies for the formulation of contextually sensitive healthcare policies and the accuracy of diagnosis of cognitive disorders.

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Castillo, Emma: Learning language the CACALLA way

Day 1 (Monday 9th July), 16H45-17H25, Eden Grove Blue

Comparisons are made between the formerly popular structure-based model of teaching a language, which has dominated the language teaching field for about three decades, and more recently developed models, which are based on communicative theory. The paper introduces a new model, called CACALLA. This model is also premised on communicative theory. However, it attempts to establish a firm methodology and is thus able to avoid potential pitfalls which models like the Communicative Approach (CA),otherwise known as the Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) methodology are criticized for.

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Celestino, Isildo: Media language awareness in Inhambane, Mozambique (research in progress)

Day 3 (Wednesday 11 July), 11:05-11:35, Seminar Room 2

Nobody denies that media play a very important role in the society. It is also true that it can be harmful. This paper looks at some findings of the research carried out in all the lower secondary schools in Inhambane province on critical media language awareness by the students.

The research, which is still in progress, has found out that 98% of students attending lower secondary school level in Inhambane, view language, according to Janks (1996), "as a transparent medium". In other words, Mozambican students do not critically analyse the texts presented by the media. This situation can be considered dangerous if we take into account that the majority of Mozambique have more access to media than Education.

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Chidi, Maselepe: ` Mirror! Mirror on the wall.` discovering Outcomes Based Education through critical reflection on ordinary ESL classroom interaction

Day 2 (Tuesday 10 July), 16:55-17:25, Seminar Room 3

This paper is derived from critical reflection on video data comprising an ESL lesson I taught at my school in rural Northern Province. It shows how critical reflection on naturalistic classroom data can lead to new insights and the discovery that some of the outcomes of OBE are achievable even in a lesson in which the teacher had no intention to teach the OBE way. This convergence of the `old` with the `new` compels me to challenge the notion of the `new` in what is lauded as new. The extent to which the new is new is explored by matching the data with the Specific Outcomes of the "Learning Area", Language Literacy and Communication.

The paper thus seeks to inculcate a culture of intellectual engagement with educational theory among teachers by means of critical self-reflection in order to allow teachers to comprehend their practice better. It is my strongly held belief that the prevailing disenfranchisement of teachers by means of an ecological relationship between teachers and researchers, in which researchers are unquestioned producers of knowledge and teachers its gullible consumers, needs to be challenged. Teacher critical self-reflection has immense and inexhaustible potential for teacher empowerment.

At the dawn of the twentieth century, great scholars such as John Dewey have realised the importance of teacher critical self-reflection. Dewey emphasised the need for teachers to reflect on their own practice and integrate their observations into emerging theories of education (Cochran-Smith,1993). Unfortunately that was not to be a defining characteristic of the twentieth century teacher.

I fully agree with McNiff (1988) that teachers should develop their own personal theories of education from their own class practice.

The course of educational change in South Africa is, in my opinion, flawed and thoroughly misguided for as long as it remains a top-down imposition which does not involve intellectual metamorphosis on the side of teachers.Without this intellectual metamorphosis, Giroux (1988) convinces us that teachers are deskilled and remain mere technicians. Educational stakeholders, teachers, researchers, curriculum planners, material developers, etcetera, must accept that ` no post-apartheid education is possible without post-apartheid teachers` (Hartshorne in Christie,1985).

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Claes, Marie-Thérèse : Direct/indirect and formal/informal communication: a reassessment

Day 1 (Monday 9 July), 14:30-15:00, Seminar Room 2

Directness and indirectness are often given as causes of intercultural misunderstandings and confusions. The concepts are often linked to explicit and implicit communication styles, and to formality and informality.

In business interactions, rituals and social rules are translated into patterns of behaviour and speech. In intercultural business communication it is important to distinguish the degree and nature of formality and to separate formality from directness/indirectness. Direct/indirect and formal/informal issues have been an influence, whether perceived or not, in a diversity of intercultural business operations including negotiation and relationship management, especially in difficult areas like cross-border mergers and acquisitions.

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Clarence-Fincham, Jenny:  A help or a hindrance? Systemic functional grammar and its role in the analysis of media texts

Day 1 (Monday 9 July), 16:45-17:25, Eden Grove Red

This paper explores the ongoing development of a second level course in Applied Language Studies offered on the Pietermaritzburg campus of Natal University. Entitled Analysing Media Texts, the course introduces students to the principles of critical discourse analysis and systemic functional grammar as well as to key ideas in Media Studies. It will briefly describe the main aim and structure of the course but will focus on the analysis of texts produced by students themselves. Bearing in mind the growing criticism of SFG as a suitable analytical framework for student use, the purpose of this is to examine the extent to which students are able to apply insights from systemic functional grammar, not only to the interpretation of media texts, but more importantly, to the production and analysis of their own texts.

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Cohen, Andrew: The learner's side of second language learning: where do styles, strategies, and tasks meet?

Day 1 (Monday 9 July), 15:05-15:45, Eden Grove Red

This paper focuses on the links between general style preferences and specific strategy choices, and then relates these two variables to tasks in second language learning. The paper addresses the interactive connection interactively across these three styles, strategies, and tasks - since different tasks may evoke the use of different strategies, depending on the learners' style preferences. The paper will start by defining language learning styles, language learning and use strategies, and language tasks. Then we will consider a visual representation of how styles, strategies, and tasks might intersect. Next, we will take a brief look at the research literature. Finally, we will consider four possible examples of the task-style-strategy intersection. The examples will involve a reading text and written open-ended questions, the learning of new oral vocabulary, an oral retelling of a TV news story, and giving a talk about flight rage. The paper will end in a discussion of ways that teachers can support learners in their efforts to be more effective at language learning and language use through heightening their awareness of the impact of task and style preference on the use of language strategies.

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Coombe, Barbara; Makhubalo, Vava; Mati, Xola & Buti, Wesi: Put it on the backburner: another perspective on the multilingual debate

Day 3 (Wednesday 11 July), 11:40-12:20, Eden Grove Red

This paper is a collaborative effort which describes the agonies and ecstasies of six hardened mother-tongue idealists working in a range of Western Cape primary schools. The results of our research and interventions have forced us to take another look at the implementation of additive multilingualism. While the mother-tongue vs. English debate wages on, there are learners in classrooms all over the country not learning to read and write in any language. Clearly there is a problem, why? Does the problem lie with popular views about language status or with the current state of language teaching in this country?

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de Klerk, Vivian: The role of English in mixed marriages: is there really a choice?

Day 2 (Tuesday 10 July), 12:20-13:00, Seminar Room 2

In this paper, I report on interviews with ten Afrikaans/English couples: so-called "mixed marriages", evenly distributed between the two languages (4 mothers and 6 fathers were English, 6 mothers and 4 fathers were Afrikaans). All of them have been married at least 8 years, all have at least one child. The paper will explore the linguistic experiences of these families over the years, tracing the changing roles and functions of English in their lives, in an attempt to explain why 8 of the 10 families ultimately admit to having shifted to English in various degrees, despite starting off with very different intentions. Historical and demographic factors (in the Eastern Cape) will be explored, as will the role of English as an international language; relevant theoretical aspects which form a backdrop to the research include language attitudes, language and identity and language shift. The paper will argue that, despite the country’s language policy, and despite avowed intentions and positive mutual attitudes to each other’s languages, a shift to English in such cases is almost inevitable, given its high status and functional versatility nationally and internationally.

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Deen, Jeanine: Language in the mathematics classroom

Day 2 (Tuesday 10 July), 11:45-12:15, Seminar Room 2

In Dutch secondary education, efforts are undertaken to implement Content Based Instruction in multilingual content classes in the mainstream. A prerequisite for this is a good understanding of the current practice in these classes, in which ethnic minority pupils experience less success as compared to native Dutch peers.

This paper reports on a qualitative research project (in progress) in which a multidisciplinary approach was chosen to get a better understanding of inclusion and exclusion processes of minority students in Dutch secondary education, in particular Moroccan students. The focus is on mathematics courses, as this subject (in the internationally influential Dutch concept of 'realistic math') requires an intensive interaction between teacher and students. Interaction data in two mathematics classrooms are the heart of the study. In the presentation, classroom interaction samples will be shown and commented on in terms of discourse analysis, teacher strategies and L2-learner behaviour concerning the construction and negotiation of meaning of math concepts. The focus is on the different types of language in the classroom (daily life, school and math language) to gain insight in the problems in understanding the students may have due to this language use.

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Eliason, Patricia: Access to education: English for Academic Purposes

Day 1 (Monday 9 July), 10:05-10:35, Eden Grove Blue

Sustained access to higher education requires proficiency in academic literacy, including reading, writing, and critical thinking in an academic context. The Commanding English program at the University of Minnesota, USA, now in its 21st year of serving refugees and permanent residents, was designed to address the needs of high school graduate language-minority students who may be underprepared for university study. This model program offers a fully supported freshman year curriculum: a research writing sequence, adjunct reading courses that are paired with content classes (biology, sociology, art and anthropology), an oral communication class and a literature course. Students are taught in a supportive environment that includes small classes, tutorials, and intense advising.

Students receive full college credit for these courses and, upon satisfactory completion of the program, are able to transfer to another college at the University or continue their education elsewhere.

The presenter will give the rationale for Commanding English and an overview of the program, along with statistics that show that students who enter the Commanding English program are retained at a higher rate than their non-Commanding English peers in the same college, and that they show much higher rates of transfer to other colleges as well.

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Engel, Hermine & Slemming, Fatima: The one-to-one writing consultation as a site for facilitating and learning about writing at the University of the Western Cape

Day 3 (Wednesday 11 July), 9:15-9:45, Eden Grove Blue

Writing Centres are relatively new academic development interventions on South African campuses and have become well-known student learning support structures. As such there is a great deal of research to be done to increase their efficacy within the context of tertiary learning in South Africa. The identification of a need for more intensive reflection on current practice resulted in a group research study project. The study was conducted by six black, female student researchers employed in the Writing Centre Project and the English for Educational Development (EED) course, a compulsory foundation course for all first year students at the University of the Western Cape (UWC). The researchers were employed as peer consultants and peer tutors respectively. In the context of limited research capacity and output by black women researchers at HDIs, a parallel aim of the study was to provide black women researchers with training and experience in conducting a large-scale research project using various research methodologies and techniques.

The aim of the study was to explore the way students learn to write - and the transfer of this ability to different writing situations - through the lens of the one-to-one writing consultation. The writing development of a sample of students from the EED course, who also had a series of writing consultations at the Writing Centre, was investigated. The following questions were addressed: what does the student learn from the consultation in order to improve the particular draft discussed during the consultation in terms of, for example, structure, grammar and logical flow; what does the student learn from the consultation which he or she is able to transfer to other writing situations; and how can this knowledge about students' writing development support learning about writing in departments at UWC.

The project tracked the writing development of a sample of EED students in the following ways: an examination of student essays, as well as consultation evaluation sheets of visits to the WC and observations of consultations. Also included were recorded interviews with students and, separately, with consultants who conducted consultations, as well as a comparative study of each student's marks. In addition lecturers were interviewed to provide insight into assessment criteria for the essays analysed.

The envisaged outcomes of this project are to increase the efficacy of writing centre consultations, not only at our institution but, more generally, to add to the understanding of how students learn to write academic essays. This paper, then, attempts to synthesise and present the findings and experiences of the researchers, as documented in five individual papers.

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Finlayson, Rosalie & Slabbert, Sarah: "What turns you on?" An exploration of outcomes of learners’ literary texts

Day 1 (Monday 9 July), 12:30-13:00, Eden Grove Blue

Outcomes Based Education requires inter alia the development of learning material for the African languages within a new education paradigm. There is therefore a need for learner-centred teaching and learning strategies. This implies that the languages that the learners actually use will have to be taken into consideration in the development of this material. For learners to become actively involved in the learning process of their primary languages, a satisfactory relationship between the standard and the non-standard spoken varieties will need to be established that will include a regained sense of pride in ‘my language’. This paper consists of a presentation of the process leading to and some interesting outcomes drawn from the PANSALB Pilot Literary Competition conducted during 1999/2000. The aim of the Competition, apart from encouraging urban learners to use the languages they speak everyday in the creation of literature, was also to contribute to the development and analysis of oral and literary texts for urban schools. The variety of topics submitted by the competitors clearly showed that their ideas were informed by what is presently happening to them. Their exposure to the HIV/AIDS threat as well as crime in South Africa seem to have been topics which featured prominently in the material generated by the competition.

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Goodier, Caroline: The genre of the case study in radiography (see also Blunt et al.)

Day 3 (Wednesday 11 July), 9:15-9:45, Seminar Room 2

This paper is based on one aspect of a study of the writing of radiography students at the PE Technikon. During their course these students are expected to write case studies and research articles similar to those published in professional radiographic journals. The broader study draws on a systemic functional linguistic approach to textual analysis and also on genre and register studies, and a comparison is made between a corpus of student and a corpus of professional texts.

The focus of this paper is on the genre of the case study. A structural move analysis as exemplified by Swales’ work on research article introductions will be shown to be inadequate to describe the genre. Following what may be considered to be a more functionally oriented and dynamic approach, the case study will be described using a combination of structural moves with problem-solution analysis.

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Grabe, William: The reading construct and the development of the New TOEFL Exam (see also Grabe & Stoller).

Day 2 (Tuesday 10 July), 11:45-12:15, Eden Grove Blue

Educational Testing Service (ETS) in the U.S. has been engaged in a complete redesign of their TOEFL exam over the past 5 years. A major change has been the effort to build a test from construct definitions while also making the shift from a discrete point proficiency test to a test with more complex academic language performance tasks. I have been involved in the development of the reading component of the New TOEFL exam since 1997. In this talk, I will outline the steps taken by the reading group to develop a definition of the reading construct for reading assessment purposes. These construct ideas were then used to develop testing prototypes and guidelines, improve the construct validity of the new test, and build a test that more effectively measures academic language abilities.

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Grabe, William & Stoller, Fredricka: From reading research to action research (see Grabe & see Stoller)

Day 1 (Monday 9 July), 11:00-11:40, Eden Grove Red

In this presentation, we will begin with an overview of reading theory and describe how this perspective can guide meaningful action-research projects on issues related to reading. The presentation will address action-research concerns that teachers might have about their reading instruction, their students, their students' learning, and/or their own performance as teachers. We will then introduce a flexible 12-step process that will allow teachers to conduct action research in their own classrooms. We will conclude by suggesting possible action-research projects that participants can adapt to their own instructional contexts.

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Hall, Joan Kelly: Examining the links between classroom interaction and the learning of languages

Day 3 (Wednesday 11 July), 8:30-9:10, Seminar Room 2

The purpose of this presentation is to offer an overview of a discourse analytic approach to the study of language learning in second and foreign language classrooms. I will first present a short overview of a sociocultural perspective of language and learning, which is the theoretical orientation that frames this approach, and which includes a short discussion on recent research on classroom discourse. I then describe some specific methodological procedures and findings on language learning arising from these methods. Next, I discuss the particular methods that have been used to investigate language learning as it occurs in the classroom interaction of several second and foreign language classrooms. I conclude with a discussion of some of the theoretical and practical implications arising from this particular approach to the study of language learning.

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Harran, Marcelle: see Blunt et al.

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Hendricks, Monica: see Zinn et al.

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Higgs, Colleen: Primary school second language English teachers’ literacy histories (Poster Presentation)

Day 2 (Tuesday 10 July), 10:35-10:55 (Morning tea) & 15:45-16:05 (Afternoon tea), Eden Grove foyer

Understanding teachers’ personal literacy practices and literacy histories could shed light on how they view literacy in the classroom. Such a study also investigates the discourses into which teachers were initiated and into which current learners are being initiated. Such an understanding is invaluable as we search for ways in which all learners can be offered the opportunity for gaining critical access to dominant discourses, including high levels of literacy (see Delpit,1995 and Cope & Kalantzis,1993).

What comes first, however, is mapping the literacy terrain, finding out what current literacy practices there are, and finding out what meanings are made of them. My study maps a small part of the terrain by means of a case study of three primary school English second language teachers, who have Xhosa as a mother tongue.

The poster presentation will be of a research project in progress. In the presentation I will draw out some of the findings about what seem to be the most significant literacy practices which emerge from this interpretive study at this stage. The poster will use vignettes and narrative as a way of illustrating these practices.

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Hunt, Sally: Speech acts across cultures: African language mother-tongue speakers of English and requests

Day 2 (Tuesday 10 July), 10:05-10:35, Seminar Room 2

This paper will present the results of research into the realisation of status and social distance in requests in English by speakers of indigenous South African languages, using DCTs (discourse completion tests) and Think Aloud.

Single-sex pairs of subjects, all speakers of African languages, were presented with nine scenarios for which they were asked to formulate requests jointly. The scenarios were constructed so as to vary in terms of the relationship between the subject and the other imaginary participants in the scenario. The onerousness of the requests was kept constant (on a level of mild imposition) so as to focus on the effect of status (power distance) and social distance (Brown and Levinson 1987) on the framing of the request. The subjects' deliberations were recorded on audio-tape and analysed for factors which influenced their choice of form. I will describe the methodology and the implications of the results in terms of previous (Eurocentric) assumptions about the operation of these factors in politeness.

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Jackson, Fiona: Divine interventions: current takes on action research for academic literacy and curriculum development

Day 1 (Monday 9 July), 10:05-10:35, Seminar Room 3

This paper provides a critical exploration of work in progress to develop a genre based course that promotes post-graduate academic literacies amongst new EFL and ESL Honours and Masters students in the School of Theology, University of Natal, Pietermaritzburg. It traces the path of an action research project, utilising an eclectic needs analysis of post-graduate Theological students for their writing, in order to design and implement an effective intervention course. The paper evaluates the successes and failures of the project thus far. The final section of the paper considers the challenges presented by both micro- and macro-level contextual factors within the tertiary education sector to such a project, and the implications arising from these for academic development responsibilities facing both disciplines seeking to expand student access to post-graduate study and academics with writing development expertise.

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Jones, Rodney: see Candlin et al.

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Joseph, Michael: see Ramani & Joseph

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Jurgensen-Fouche, Sioux: see Knott & Jurgensen-Fouche

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Kamdem, Seraphin: Multilingual education and community development: the contribution of local language newspapers in Cameroon

Day 2 (Tuesday 10 July), 10:05-10:35, Eden Grove Blue

The work is a research in the domain of multilingual education, more specifically in the area of adult post-literacy as it relates to the provision of a local language print-rich environment contributing to community development. It deals with the development and use of African (Cameroonian) languages as reliable and sustainable tools for education, and mainly for community information and communication through small local language newspapers.

Through bibliographical researches, study of the existing titles, field investigations, informal and formal interviews and discussions, study visits in the concerned producing institutions, the author presents a descriptive and analytical assessment of the contents and ‘functioning’ of these Cameroonian language newspapers. He lays emphasis on demonstrating the contribution these newspapers can and must have to authentic and sustainable community development.

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Knott, Anne & Jurgensen-Fouche, Sioux: Work in progress: assessment issues for researching the use of a standardised English test at an HBI

Day 3 (Wednesday 11 July), 11:40-12:20, Seminar Room 2

Despite calls for integration from the South African Qualifications Authority (SAQA), to date, interventions in English language and/or academic literacies development, whether in the form of an entire course or modules, can be described as either "stand alone" or adjunct to the mainstream curriculum on the Port Elizabeth (PE) campus of Vista University.

This year, 263 students have registered for the Foundation Year of the four-year BSc curriculum in Science on the PE campus of Vista University. The lecturer who teaches the foundation course in mathematics on campus attended two TELP (Tertiary Education Linkages Project) "training and technical assistance" workshops on Standardised Assessment Tests (SATs) in 2000 and 2001 respectively after Vista University became part of the TELP initiative in the second half of 1999.

This year (2001), the lecturer has used the standardised tests in English and Mathematics in order to assess as many students as possible for diagnostic purposes. This paper reports on work in progress in relation to the English test. It outlines the practices (e.g. of invigilation and marking) of the Academic Development Coordinator and lecturer in English and some of the problems experienced. It offers some preliminary results and insights as to how research could be conducted in the future. Feedback will be elicited from the audience.

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La Rose, Chris: A problematisation of a sample definition of literacy (Poster Presentation)

Day 2 (Tuesday 10 July), 10:35-10:55 (Morning tea) & 15:45-16:05 (Afternoon tea), Main foyer

I have chosen to undertake an exploration of the issue of literacy by problematising a sample definition of literacy. By this I intend "to show that (literacy) is not something that can be neatly and easily defined, (and) that any definition is likely to be contested" (Byanham, 1995: 6). This method of examining literacy, via problematisation, has been chosen to counteract the tendency towards a single unifying definition, and to combat the concept of a ‘definition’ of literacy. For Rassool (1999:5) the concept of a ‘definition’ of literacy necessarily involves the selection of criteria for what it means to be literate, criteria that will be situated "within a particular society at a specific historical moment." According to Graff (1986: 58), "definitions of literacy are highly problematic, for the present as well as the past." Further, defining literacy by criteria sets up certain either/or dichotomies of literacy and illiteracy, with particular problems on inclusion/exclusion, and responsibility, which will also be discussed.

The primary definition I would like to unpack, is the 1978 United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (hereafter, UNESCO) Revised Recommendation Concerning the International Standardisation of Educational Statistics. Since the 1950’s, UNESCO has repeatedly attempted to redefine literacy in the face of changing theories about literacy from a growing number of fields (Skutnabb-Kangas, 1999, in Rassool, 1999; Limage, 1999, 1994). Thus, selection of this particular definition hopefully provides insight into dominant thought on literacy from a particular era, which we may be able to contrast with prior conceptualisations on the topic and with current views of literacy. In this way, I hope to show a timeline of progressive theory on literature in the fields of education theory, linguistics, sociology and psychology.

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Linnarud, Moira: Stress, relaxation and creativity in second language writing

Day 1 (Monday 9 July), 10:05-10:35, Seminar Room 2

In cooperation with the Department of Psychology at Karlstad University, use was made of sensory deprivation by means of a floating tank in order to test the effects of relaxation on creativity in second language writing. Sixty students from the first term course in English at university level were subjected to the following kinds of pre-writing treatment. One third were floated in the tank to achieve total relaxation. One third were subjected to stress and one third were a control group.

All three groups received the same words which had to be used in a free writing task. The texts produced were marked subjectively for creativity and originality by a panel of evaluators. The texts were also subjected to a linguistic analysis of vocabulary, organisation and language correctness.

The results, which suggested that the relaxed group performed more creatively and that the texts from the stress group contained more social realism, will be discussed.

The study will be put into a framework where possible fields of cooperation between linguists and psychologists will be touched on and the effects for language teaching explored briefly.

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Lüdi, Georges: Bilingualism is not enough! Plurilingual repertoires for the challenges of the 21st century

Day 1 (Monday 9 July), 11:45-12:25, Eden Grove Blue

Plurilingualism can be viewed from many different perspectives: multilingual societies, simultaneous first language acquisition, management of plurilingual repertoires, plurilingual education, plurilingualism as goal of language teaching, etc. We will start by analysing a couple of prejudices that continue impeding efforts to foster plurilingualism and language learning. Having done so, we will review several ways of conceiving individual plurilingualism, including functional plurilingualism as defined by the Council of Europe as goal for language teaching at school. We will then ask ourselves how languages are learnt in the interaction between learners and (near) native speakers and which learning strategies learners adopt on the ground of different language biographies and learning styles. On that ground, an outdated view of language teaching as transfer of knowledge will be opposed to a more differentiated conception that assigns teachers the task of coaching language learning processes. Consequences on more or less efficient forms of class room interaction will then be drawn; this will include the question of the role of the mother tongue in the second language classroom. Finally, perspectives for an efficient educational language policy will be developed.

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Luís, Mateus: The question of norm in the language of schooling in Mozambique

Day 2 (Tuesday 10 July), 15:15-15:45, Seminar Room 3

In order to understand the Mozambican school system one first has to take the school medium language (Portuguese) in its wider perspective of an L2 and more restricted perspective of L1. The language used for teaching in that context can actually be seen in its three dimensions (L1, L2, and FL), the most significant of them being the FL situation in which the majority of schoolchildren experience it in their everyday world in the classroom. On this perspective the Portuguese variety obtained may be seen as "corrupted" by mingling features of Mozambican languages of bantu family thus "threatening" the preservation of the European norm widely held in official "circles" as the right choice. This paper, based on data collection that took place in representative schools nationwide, encompassing learners between 8 and 18 years of age, searches to respond to the following questions involving the variety of Portuguese that might be in the process of evolving into a natural norm (synthesizing the norm of prestige and national varieties that have risen): a) how is the emerging Portuguese norm constituted in school contexts in Mozambique? And b) what attitudes and consequences can be detected in learners´ language production that could be associated to different features of a Mozambican Portuguese?

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Magura, Ben: The sociolinguistics of language in the media

Day 2 (Tuesday 10 July), 16:55-17:25, Seminar Room 2

Information surrounds us. The transmission of such information in a correct, honest, crisp and fast manner obsesses the information technologist. The crispness of information is inevitably connected with language. News in the dailies of Southern Africa comes out as a coverage of daily happenings in the region and abroad. From that point of view, one would expect a factual representation of news. However, when one critically looks at what actually happens, it is the social and political scene that is reported through careful manipulation of language. This paper attempts to describe the choice of news, the editorial stance and voice, the pertinent ideologies of the newspapers, and the accompanying bias associated with the reporting. Such analysis will be based on a comparative treatment of The Herald vs The Daily News of Zimbabwe; and The Star vs The Citizen vs The Sowetan of South Africa. In each case, the paper will try to show the role and manipulation of language in establishing the stance of the paper and in news reporting.

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Makhubalo, Vava: see Coombe et al.

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Makocho, Andrew: see Williams et al.

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Makoni, Sinfree: see Candlin et al. & Meinhof et al.

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Mati, Xola: see Coombe et al.

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Mauranen, Anna: "Let's just kind of leave that a little bit vague right now". Observations of academic speaking

Day 1 (Monday 9 July), 14:30-15:00, Eden Grove Red

Spoken language has been a neglected area in the study of academic discourses, although written academic genres have received a good deal of scholarly attention. Following the tradition of analysing writing, the early explorations into academic speech have focused on monologic speech such as is found in lectures. Yet it is in the interactive or dialogic situations that academic speech differs most clearly from the written genres. The 'backstage' talk like disagreements, failures, irrelevancies, negotiations of unclear meanings, which can be likened to Gilbert and Mulkay's 'contingent' repertoires, get more to the forefront when a variety of dialogic event types, such as seminars, group discussions, meetings and consultation hours are investigated. Such event types are well represented in the Michigan Corpus of Spoken Academic English (MICASE), which I am using as data. I shall explore some uses of metadiscourse which tend to be ironed out from the more formal and polished academic discourses - for instance saying that you're not very good at maths, explaining that what you're going to say next is not relevant to your topic or admitting you are unable to answer questions on your lecture.

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Mavela, Xolani: Teacher-Learner interaction on the "wheel". Systemic Functional Grammar and the curriculum cycle in the teaching of Xhosa

Day 1 (Monday 9 July), 16:10-16:40, Eden Grove Blue

This paper will focus on the positive role of employing functional grammar on the learner`s attainment of language understanding and competence in the teaching of isiXhosa. The teaching of grammar in language pedagogy plays a major role towards the attainment of language accuracy and appropriateness. Recent approaches to the teaching of language structure emphasize the role of grammar in expressing communication and social purpose of written or spoken discourse. Consequently linguists and language teachers have embarked on the new approaches to teaching language structure, which differ significantly with the traditional and the Chomskyan formal approaches to grammar. Unlike the latter approaches of grammar, which were prescriptive (telling the students what is right or wrong), the new inclusive and contextual approaches to grammar focus on a creative and interesting language learning environment in which grammar is learnt interactively, whilst being presented alongside its social purposes. It is suggested that a language pedagogy for isiXhosa is more successful when teachers involve learners actively in the language teaching and learning process. Learners do not take what is taught as given, instead, they analyze and criticize it creatively. This approach to teaching grammar is also called an inclusive or a communicative grammar.

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Mawadza, Aquilina: Language, culture and university Life

Day 3 (Wednesday 11 July), 11:05-11:35, Eden Grove Blue

Students speak with a distinct style and expressive vocabulary. This paper looks at Zimbabwean university slang by examining the slang identities that students use to characterize peers. It is argued herein that university slang plays a specific role in university life by providing terminology that is appropriate to the student’s conception of university life. Zimbabwean university slang is a characteristic diction of university students. Denotative phrases for both academic and social life characteristics, for instance terms referring to degree programmes, studious students, the riot police, lecturers etc exist. University slang is distinctly sub-cultural in usage and is spoken within the social worlds of university life and used to symbolize identification with other students. It is argued however that not all slang spoken by students is confined