Language teams

Afrikaans & South African English

Frenette Southwood
PhD (General Linguistics)
Professor: General Linguistics, Stellenbosch University

Frenette’s research focuses on typical and impaired child language development in multilingual contexts. As part of the ongoing collaboration that stemmed from European COST Action ISO804 (Language Impairment in a Multilingual Society), amongst others, she is working on a dialect-neutral and culturally fair child language assessment instruments in Afrikaans and South African English. With Dr Ondene van Dulm (previously of Stellenbosch and Canterbury Universities) she developed culturally appropriate language therapy material for use with young South African children. Frenette is a qualified speech-language therapist and audiologist. She obtained her PhD from Radboud University Nijmegen in 1997 on language impairment in Afrikaans. She spent 2010 at Heidelberg University as an Alexander von Humboldt research fellow and has received the Rector’s Award for Outstanding Research and Outstanding Teaching.

Helena Kruger
MSc (Clinical Linguistics)
Lecturer: Speech-Language and Hearing Therapy, Stellenbosch University

Helena is a qualified speech-language therapist. Her research interests include language and literacy development in multilingual and multicultural contexts, as well as assessment of developmental language impairment. She is involved in teaching, clinical education and research supervision of undergraduate and postgraduate students in the Division of Speech-Language and Hearing Therapy. (Formerly Helena Oosthuizen.)

Nina Brink
MA (Afrikaans and Dutch)
Lecturer: Department Afrikaans and Dutch, North-West University

Nina is a lecturer in Afrikaans linguistics with a specific teaching focus on general linguistics, sociolinguistics and Afrikaans text editing. Her research focuses on the study of Afrikaans first language acquisition from a cognitive linguistics approach. In her master’s study, she focused on how very young children, just beginning to learn Afrikaans, make a conceptual mapping between the lexical form and a certain meaning. She is currently working on a PhD which focuses on Afrikaans-speaking children’s language development.

isiXhosa

Babalwa Ludidi
MSc candidate (Speech-Language Pathology), University of Cape Town (Speech-Language and Hearing Therapy), Stellenbosch University
Speech-Language Therapist

Babalwa is a practicing Speech-Language Therapist with experience working in the National Departments of Health and Education. She is currently with the Department of Education, in the LSPID (Learners with Severe to Profound Intellectual Disabilities) Program. She has a special interest in working with children on the autistic spectrum. Babalwa’s Masters research project is aimed at describing the development of isiXhosa in children aged
8–32 months, and contributing to the adaptation of the isiXhosa CDI.

isiNdebele

William Jiyana
MEd (Childhood Development Studies: Literacy Education in isiNdebele)
Lecturer: Faculty of Education, University of Mpumalanga

With lecturing responsibilities focused on IsiNdebele and Literacy Education for Foundation Phase pre-service teachers, his contribution to the development of IsiNdebele in education is high on the agenda. His experience as an educator, linguist, and translator stand him in good stead. William has also been involved with Language Policy Planning and Development both in the public and private sector.

Nomsa Skosana
BA(Hons) (African Languages)
Digital Humanities Researcher: IsiNdebele, SADiLaR, North-West University

Nomsa graduated from the University of Pretoria. She received her Bachelor degree in Education as well as a Bachelor of Arts Honours specialising in isiNdebele. As part of her honours degree she mainly focused on isiNdebele literature. In the future Nomsa would like to publish literature books of her own and also digitise the books to contribute to the data that is available for isiNdebele research. isiNdebele is still a developing language and as a researcher she plans on developing more language terminologies and place her focus on lexicography as well as the standardisation of the language. In her Master’s degree she plans to focus mainly on differentiating isiNdebele and from the other Nguni languages.

Monicca Thulisile Bhuda
PhD (Indigenous Knowledge Systems)
Lecturer: Culture and Heritage Studies, University of Mpumalanga

Monicca is a culture activist, an isiNdebele culture influencer, a Children’s book author, and an indigenous scholar, as well as being a lecturer at the University of Mpumalanga. She holds an Indigenous Knowledge Systems PhD from North-West University. Monicca specialises in African Ethnomathematics, with a special interest in Ndebele mathematics. She has been featured on TV, radio, magazines and newspapers as an indigenous scholar and for her interest in Indigenous Knowledge Systems. Her research interests include decolonization of education, promotion of indigenous languages, indigenous knowledge preservation, protection, management and dissemination.

Sesotho

Heather Brookes
PhD (Language, Literacy & Culture)
Professor: General Linguistics, Stellenbosch University

Heather specialises in multimodal (speech and gesture) communication and has documented the gestural systems of black urban township communities in South Africa. Since 1998, she has been tracking language practices among multilingual township youth. She also works on language and gestural development in Sesotho investigating the development of representation and abstraction in language and gesture in early and later childhood and the effect of linguistic and cultural constraints on multimodal language production. Heather is leading the development of the Communicative Development Inventory for Sesotho. She also works on English second language acquisition among Xhosa speakers from 9 to 14 years from a multimodal perspective. She served as Vice President of the International Society for Gesture Studies from 2002-2005. She obtained her PhD in 2000 from Stanford University.

Sesotho sa Leboa

Portia Khumalo
PhD candidate (General Linguistics), Stellenbosch University;
MECI (Early Childhood Intervention), University of Pretoria
Lecturer: Speech Pathology, Stellenbosch University

Portia’s research focuses on early childhood intervention and child language development in indigenous African languages. Her research interests include the trajectories of language development in typically-developing children within the diverse contexts of South Africa, and the influence of these contexts on language development. She has worked at government institutions in underserved communities as a Clinical Speech Therapist and Audiologist. Her PhD focuses on the impact of socioecological factors on the linguistic development of Sesotho sa Leboa (Northern Sotho) speaking toddlers.

isiZulu

Nomfundo Buthelezi
PhD candidate (Speech Pathology), University of Cape Town;
MA (Speech Pathology)
Lecturer: Speech Pathology, University of KwaZulu-Natal

As a Speech Therapist who is an isiZulu speaker, Nomfundo strives to increase our knowledge of the lexical and grammatical development of isiZulu-speaking children. Her vision is to establish developmental language norms for isiZulu. Her research interests include the development of assessment tools that are culturally and linguistically sensitive, and contextually relevant for assessing speech and language development in isiZulu-speaking children. Nomfundo has a passion for training Speech Therapists that will be competent to provide assessment and intervention for children that speak South African indigenous languages.

Setswana

Olebeng Mahura
PhD (Speech-Language Pathology)
Lecturer: Speech-Language Pathology and Audiology, University of Pretoria

Olebeng Mahura is a speech-language therapist and lecturer in the Department of Speech-Language Pathology and Audiology, at the University of Pretoria. Her research has focused on documenting speech sound development in Setswana and other indigenous languages in South Africa. She also has an interest in contributing to the development of linguistically and culturally relevant resources to help improve speech-language therapy services in the country.

Sefela Yalala
MA (Linguistics)
Graduate Student: Communication Sciences & Disorders, Northwestern University

Sefela’s Masters studies focused on researching early language acquisition, especially within the contexts of Setswana-speaking children, her home language. Her interests are in infant and toddler language, the role of the social environment in language development, and early intervention. She has worked on adapting a language assessment tool (the CDI) into Setswana, and also consults on Sesotho and isiXhosa research. Sefela is continuing her research with a PhD looking at caregiver and child interactions and language intervention methods.

Xitsonga

Mikateko Ndhambi
PhD (Speech Language Pathology Contact)
Associate Professor: Speech-Language Pathology, University of Fort Hare

Mikateko’s research interests are articulation disorders, Developmental Phonological Disorders, and South African Sign Language. Her clinical skills are in Childhood Language, Language for Learning, Early Intervention, and Educational Audiology. She is developing a niche in Mixed Methods. Her most recent publication is ‘Beyond lip service: Towards human rights-driven guidelines for South African speech-language pathologists’.

Siswati

Sibusiso Ndlangamandla
PhD (Education)
Senior Lecturer: English Studies, University of South Africa

Sibusiso is a senior lecturer in the Department of English Studies at the University of South Africa. He received his PhD from the University of Cape Town in 2015. His research interests are in language learning and technology, language policy, discourse analysis, and sociolinguistics. His current research on Southern theories, multilingualism and technology has been published both locally and internationally. He was a visiting scholar from 2019 to 2020 in the Department of Applied Linguistics and African studies at Penn State University, USA. He is a Siswati language practitioner and activist for African languages, literacy, and education in Africa.

Muzi Matfunjwa
PhD (Languages, Linguistics and Literature)
Digital Humanities Researcher: Siswati, SADiLaR, North-West University

Muzi is a Siswati researcher at SADiLaR. His research interests and experience lie in pragmatics and sociolinguistics. He focuses on the use of language in society and the socio-cultural traits that manifest through language usage. As a Siswati researcher, he is also concerned with other linguistic fields such as semantics, lexicography, morphology and phonology. Muzi would like to play a major role in preserving the Siswati language and culture by conducting research and developing the language. He is involved with the use of language technologies to promote the utilization of digital resources in order to stimulate teaching and learning as well as research in the Siswati language.

Tshivenda

Lufuno Tshiwela Miriri
MA (African Languages)
Tshivenda Language Practitioner

Lufuno is a Tshivenda language practioner in rural Limpopo province. He has also worked as a lecturer in Education at the University of Limpopo with specific teaching focus on Tshivenda Grammar and Literature, and supervision of honours students. In his MA study, he focused on how younger and older women are portrayed in literature and also in society. Lufuno is a qualified linguist, educator, and teacher of Tshivenda. He obtained his BA Languages in 2018, his Hons in 2019, His PGCE in 2021 at the University of Limpopo. He is passionate about developing intervention tools for his mother tongue.