1,720,957 research outputs found
The Last Kick of a Dying Horse: Preserving Ethnic Identity in Shisukuma Greeting System
No full textThe phenomenon of language shift is common in situations where there is a demographic or status imbalance between ethnic groups. Usually the speakers of the disadvantaged languages will progressively shift to the more socio-economically or politically privileged languages. Such language shift will involve identity shift in its various forms. This paper examines the patterns and processes of language shift based on a study carried out in Tanzania in which the traditional greeting systems in Kiswahili, the national language of Tanzania, and Shisukuma, a minority Tanzanian language, were investigated. The main purpose of the study was to find evidence that would support the claim that ethnonymic identity is the last form of identity to be lost when speakers of one language are shifting to another language. The study revealed that ethno-linguistic groups, like Basukuma (Shisukuma speakers), have put in place a complex greeting system as a strategy to preserve their ethnonymic identity, embedded in their traditional clan system. This system has made it possible for the Shisukuma speakers to identify their origins and parentage. However, many Basukuma are no longer keen to know the origin or parentage of the people around them, particularly the younger generation.Keywords: language domination, language shift, autonymic identity, ethnonymic entit
Batswana: A New Perspective on the Origin of the Stem -tswana in the Name
Get PDFThe history of ethnic Batswana and their migration through the Eastern Bantu stream from present dayCameroun, the Great Lakes, the Zambezi valley and Limpopo River into what is now Botswana has beenwritten on extensively. There have been many research studies on Botswana, as a country, and Setswana, themain vernacular and national language of Botswana. However, little attempt has been made to investigatethe origin of the stem -tswana, the root of the ethnic name. There have only been a few speculative attemptsby some scholars. This study re-examined and re-interpreted data from the earlier studies, using a historicaland comparative linguistics approach. This method traces the likely historical or evolutionary path thatthis stem might have taken. The main argument of this study was that names are usually not given by thespeakers themselves, but by their neighbours. Another important argument was that there was a sharedculture and identity among many of the people in the interior of the Southern African region, despitethe various names that have been given to those cultures and peoples over time. This study widened thescope of the investigation to explore the possible origin and development of the stem -tswana. One of itspremises was that names are not always in congruence with reality
Ten commandments for Setswana to be a resourceful vehicle of development in Botswana
No full textWhen most African countries became independent in the early 1960’s, they were driven by a strong nationalistic desire to be united, sovereign and developed. After realizing that many languages were spoken within their borders, they had to come up with language policies, which would meet their aspirations. Although many countries selected the demographically and socio-politically dominant indigenous languages to be national media, in most cases, the national language remained functionally symbolic. Botswana is one of the African countries which selected its dominant indigenous language, Setswana, to be the national language (Republic of Botswana, 1994).This paper examines the position of Setswana, whose role has remained largely symbolic, as a national language (Bagwasi, 2012; Chebanne et al., 1993). However, in order to ensure maximal utilization of the national medium, as a vehicle for development and mass mobilization, Botswana needs to accord Setswana more control of the country’s socio-political, economic and technological domains for sustainable development. The paper proposes ten possible measures, that it terms “commandments”, which ought to be followed for Setswana to become a resourceful and effective national and primary official language.Keywords: capacity planning, national language, norm planning, official language, status plannin
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Get PDFThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Fighting A Losing Battle: Assessing The Impact Of Mother-Tongue Education Advocacy In A Hostile Environment
No full textMost countries in Africa are multilingual with an average of about 40 languages per country. This has given rise to a complex state of multilingualism, with various patterns of language use (Batibo, 2005). One major challenge has been to decide on the medium of instruction that would be not only effective, but also acceptable to the relevant communities. Although UNESCO (1953) and a number of other educational organizations have persistently advocated for mother-tongue education, such advocacy has made little impact in most countries. This paper takes stock of some of the issues and arguments involved. It then shows how mother-tongue education remains an elusive goal in most African countries. The main thrust of this paper is to assess and highlight the major reasons, which have rendered mother-tongue advocacy in most African countries, a great challenge, to the extent that many countries accept mother-tongue education in spirit, but not in practice. The paper looks at some of the compromises that many countries have taken.Keywords: mother-tongue education, multilingualism, medium ofinstruction, advocacy, plurilingualis
Variations on the Author
Get PDF“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Get PDFWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts
Get PDFWe conducted a full-scale evaluative citation analysis study of scholars in the XML research field to explore just how different from each other author rankings resulting from different citation counting methods actually are, and to demonstrate the capability of emerging data and tools on the Web in supporting more realistic citation counting methods. Our results contest some common arguments for the continued
use of first-author citation counts in the evaluation of scholars, such as high correlations between author rankings by first-author citation counts and other citation
counting methods, and high costs of using more realistic citation counting methods that are not well-supported by the ISI databases. It is argued that increasingly available digital full text research papers make it possible for citation analysis studies to go beyond what the ISI databases have directly supported and to employ more
sophisticated methods
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