Masters Degrees (Visual Arts)

Permanent URI for this collection

https://scholar.sun.ac.za/handle/10019.1/683

Browse

Browsing Masters Degrees (Visual Arts) by Subject "Afrikaans language"

Now showing 1 - 1 of 1
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Kaaps : exploring the power of language as lived experience and its formative role in knowledge production and self-understanding within an art gallery in the South African context
    (Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2020-03) Ingham, Chelsea Robin; Alexander, Neeske; Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. Dept. of Visual Arts.
    ENGLISH ABSTRACT: During my undergrad education in the Visual Arts Department at Stellenbosch University, as a working-class ‘coloured’1, I was immersed in a white Afrikaans culture for the first time. It allowed me to see that the Kaaps variety (a non-standard variety of Afrikaans) reflected a deep-rooted colonial and apartheid ideology around the ‘coloured’ experience and language purity. The effects of this are troublesome in a post-apartheid South Africa, with nonstandard varieties like Kaaps still being marginalised by race hierarchies. The nonrecognition of specific language use persists in influencing people’s ideas about themselves and others. This case study is an exploration of Kaaps speakers' lived experiences and attitudes toward the Kaaps variety through dialogue and visual representation within an art gallery. This was done in order to promote the potential educational capacity of the art gallery to renegotiate more just recognitions and representation of oppressed narratives and racial identities outside of the classroom setting. The theoretical perspectives of critical theory and pedagogy, indigenous knowledge, and social justice were employed to inform the research. As research design a case study was used. Probability sampling and qualitative methods were used to collect data. Individuals participated in the research through interactive dialogue and interview processes concerning lived experiences and attitudes toward Kaaps within a specific art gallery and exhibition space in Cape Town. To understand the data collected, inductive content analysis was used. It was found that participants recognised the education system as a significant roleplayer in how they perceived their racial identity through language, due to standard language ideology. Any association with the Kaaps variety is personal and practical and their preference for the ‘master’ language of English is for ‘successful’ social integration and economic or political reasons. The difficulty in properly integrating or acknowledging individuals' actual (multilingual) language in their learning environments, as well as recognition of cultural difference, was problematised by the participants and they responded with recommendations. Implications from the findings and conclusions involve integrating more creative and critical engagement around marginalised narratives. The context significance of non-standard varieties in the personal and social environments of learners must be more effectively considered, and must be engaged through identity texts for just recognition, representation, and dialogue. This implies that the art gallery’s educational capacity should be realised to renegotiate dominant ideology through critical processes of creativity that help better articulate the lived experiences of marginalised communities, as well as the potential to evoke responsive meanings for social justice.