Ukhubhukudu: Not Sinking in Language but Swimming
| dc.contributor.author | Law Viljoen, B. | |
| dc.contributor.author | Yaa de Villiers, P. | |
| dc.contributor.editor | Moore, M. | |
| dc.contributor.editor | Meekings, S. | |
| dc.date.issued | 2021 | |
| dc.description.abstract | The University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, like many universities in South Africa, has arrived at an important moment, when its teachers are being asked to implement a new language policy that seeks to bring parity in language use in the learning and teaching practices of the institution. This policy, brought into focus by the energising dissent of student movements like #rhodesmustfall, is one response to the needs of a multilingual country that has, since the advent of democracy in 1994, recognised eleven official languages. Questions of language are especially urgent in a creative writing program in which the medium of instruction is English. How do we respond properly to this moment and, more importantly, to the creative impulses of our students who think, speak, and write in multiple African languages? In this chapter, we (a poet and a prose writer) will attempt to describe the linguistic terrain of our creative writing classes and the pedagogical strategies we deploy to generate a continuum of languages rather than a hierarchy (and by languages we don’t simply mean systems of signs but rather the dense matrices of thought, expression, and visualization contained in those sign systems). Our courses are practice-led, and as teachers we seek to create encounters in the classroom and in writing assignments: between English and the mother tongues represented in the class; between written and oral traditions; between different idiomatic registers. By reflecting on our pedagogy in this dynamic linguistic environment, we are hoping to encourage a creative, rigorous and continuous shaping of language for the production of literary works. | |
| dc.description.statementofresponsibility | Bronwyn Law-Viljoen and Phillippa Yaa de Villiers | |
| dc.identifier.citation | The Place and the Writer: International Instersections of Teacher Lore and Creative Writing Pedagogy, 2021 / Moore, M., Meekings, S. (ed./s), Ch.2, pp.13-30 | |
| dc.identifier.doi | 10.5040/9781350127180.ch-002 | |
| dc.identifier.isbn | 978-1-3501-2715-9 | |
| dc.identifier.orcid | Law Viljoen, B. [0000-0002-0598-1958] | |
| dc.identifier.uri | https://hdl.handle.net/2440/148011 | |
| dc.language.iso | en | |
| dc.publisher | Bloomsbury Academic | |
| dc.publisher.place | Great Britain | |
| dc.relation.ispartofseries | Research in Creative Writing | |
| dc.rights | © Marshall Moore, Sam Meekings and contributors, 2021 | |
| dc.source.uri | https://www.bloomsburycollections.com/monograph?docid=b-9781350127180 | |
| dc.title | Ukhubhukudu: Not Sinking in Language but Swimming | |
| dc.type | Book chapter | |
| pubs.publication-status | Published |