September was so full of it! Full of everything. From general meetings, to workshops and conferences. Then also all of the task agreements and last but not least our very fun social event organised by the social committee. We were also involved with the language and gender awareness week - long story short: SEPTEMBER YOU KEPT US ON OUR TOES!
When I reflected on the month I realised that to be busy and to have deadlines is actually just a blessing. It means that we are working and we are showcasing our talents as well as contributing to society. So give yourself an applause for getting up in the morning and really adding something meaningful to life.
May you all have a blessed October month! Stay strong and safe...
Kindest regards
Liané van den Bergh
September Blogs:
Below you can read up on the latest blogs on the SADiLaR web:
The Southern African Linguistics and Applied Linguistics Society (SALALS) recently held its Annual General Meeting (AGM) in a virtual format for the first time.
Prof. Daan Wissing, who is affiliated with the SADiLaR node CTexT, received a very special honour in that he was awarded honorary lifetime membership of the Society. Dr. Herculene Kotzé, who is affiliated with SADiLaR’s host institution, the North-West University (NWU), presented the award in Prof. Wissing’s mother tongue of Afrikaans.
[T]he English language will be able to carry the weight of my African experience. But it will have to be a new English, still in full communion with its ancestral home, but altered to suit its new African surroundings.[1]
We ought to change the way we think about language from “what languages look like to what people do with languages”.[2] In precolonial Southern Africa, for example in the kingdom of Mapungubwe, people lived and communicated with each other in a mix of different languages; Khoe, Nguni, San, and Sotho peoples used a range of languages that overlapped.[3]
In today’s blog, I provide a general overview of qualificatives in Xitsonga. The primary purpose of this blog is to investigate the morphology, semantics and syntax of Xitsonga qualificatives. Qualificatives are words that describe or modify nouns and pronouns in a sentence. In Xitsonga, there are three types of qualificatives namely possessive, adjective and relative qualificatives. This blog will mainly focus on possessive qualificatives.
The South African Centre for Digital Language Resources (SADiLaR) and the Dictionary of South African English (DSAE) would like to present to you the influence that our indigenous South African languages have on South African English. This series of videos was developed to illustrate how rich our country is in diversity and how we’ve made English our own. Sit back and enjoy the "indigenous spice" which adds a lot of flavour to South African English!
SADiLaR was represented at the NWU Gender and Language Awareness week by being part of the week's programme dedicated to topics related to gender and language.
Prof Langa Khumalo and Benito Trollip were presenters at the event.
Blog by Roo Mabuya in the spirit of Gender and Language Awareness week: Language and Gender Sensitivity in reference to Zulu culture
Language is a vehicle through which gender sensitivity is expressed. According to (Wodak, 1997) gender concerns the psychological, social and cultural differences between males and females. Gender refers to the fact of being male or female while gender sensitivity is the state of being aware of what society thinks about of being male and female.
Prof Menno van Zaanen and Liané van den Bergh submitted an abstract to be part of the CLARIN Conference Bazaar. The abstract was accepted and they created an interactive video to showcase SADiLaR's work (research, projects, nodes, etc). Click on the image below to view the interactive video...ENJOY! To view the abstract: https://www.clarin.eu/content/clarin-bazaar-2020
Publications & Presentations
Prof Menno van Zaanen has an article accepted at the ASCILITE conference. He also gave presentations at the DH-HSRC symposium and at a DH symposium at Pondicherry University (India).
Upcoming events
Join in the first DH colloquium hosted by SADiLaR. Learn more about the field of digital humanities from experts. If you are interested in DH, the theory, example research, practical applications, etc. this will provide you with an excellent platform to expand your knowledge and connect with other researchers in your field of interest.
