Papers by Ebrahim Alexander
This study uses close linguistic analysis to investigate how a group of Xhosa English Second Lang... more This study uses close linguistic analysis to investigate how a group of Xhosa English Second Language (XESL) Speakers use repetition as a discourse strategy in their written academic work. The study analyses the nature of their repetition and draws on critical theory to situate repetition in its socio-cultural context. The four primary research questions are: (1) What is the nature of repetition in the essays of XESL Speakers? (2) In what ways does repetition affect the structure of XESL Speakers' written academic argument? (3) How do items of cross-linguistic transfer from Xhosa to English affect the structure of their written argument? (4) How do XESL Speakers texts differ from the genre, which is considered appropriate written academic discourse, in terms of both structure and sentence level? This study is primarily based on data in the form of written essays collected in the Faculty of Education, University of the Western Cape, in 1998 and 2005. The case study is also informed by student questionnaires and interviews with lecturers. Halliday's (1989 and 2004) conceptual framework of Systemic Functional Grammar (SFG), as well as cross-linguistic analysis were used to show the precise forms of repetition at the level of the sentence and discourse. The analysis shows that the participants used repetition to create cohesion and coherence within their texts in order to make their writing conform to the university's discourse conventions. Rather than being a surface feature, the repetition in the students' texts reflects a lack of understanding of the deep structure of academic argument. The texts reflect a repetitive, inductive, oral, declarative style more typical of traditional Xhosa genres, of conversational discourse, and of political rhetoric. Based on the findings, the study ends with a description of an intervention strategy, which was designed to address the problem of the over-use of repetition.
One of the most pertinent issues currently confronting South Africans and perhaps people around t... more One of the most pertinent issues currently confronting South Africans and perhaps people around the world is the question of how to bring about social justice for everybody regardless of ‘races’, ‘ethnicities’, cultures, religions and genders. With this in mind, this study evaluates through a critical discourse analysis model the preambles of selected public policy documents in conjunction with the issue of racial classification as prescribed in the Z83 job application form in a post-apartheid South Africa. It draws specifically on Halliday’s (1978, 1989, and 2004) discourse analysis framework to evaluate the field and tenor of public discourse (what happened historically and who was involved in public policy formulations) and finally, the mode of public policy discourse (the part that language plays in the making of a new South African society). Moreover, it uses the education sector as an indicator of transformation to highlight the successes and failures of post-apartheid histori...
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Papers by Ebrahim Alexander