Overview

Research in UPSET is organised in three subprogrammes, and in these subprogrammes, in various research projects. The subprogramme Applied Linguistics is led by Prof Susan Coetzee-van Rooy, and focuses on two themes: multilingualism and academic literacy. The subprogramme Language Practice is led by Dr Herculene Kotze, and focuses on translation, editing, subtitling and interpreting. The subprogramme Descriptive Linguistics is led by Dr Johanita Kirsten, and mainly adopts a corpus linguistics approach to the study of Afrikaans and native and non-native varieties of English from usage-based perspectives. The three subprogrammes share methodologies through the use of eye-tracking and corpora, while there is cross-pollination in the ways that solutions to research problems in the one domain are developed with methodologies and perspectives that are drawn from another domain.

Applied Linguistics

The subprogramme Applied Linguistics focuses on the multilingual settings in South Africa, and explores the implications of these for the choice of languages and the challenges that ordinary language users have to face in their daily lives, including the part of their lives spent as students at universities.

In the multilingualism project, the choice between languages in different domains is investigated, together with changes over time in these choices. The languages include the official languages of South Africa, but also the languages brought to South Africa by immigrants and languages such as Fanagalo, which are associated with specific domains. In the academic literacy projects, the academic reading and writing abilities of students, as well as appropriate methods to test these abilities, are investigated.

Language Practice

The subprogramme Language Practice investigates the processes and products that result from the activities of language practitioners. The product data include corpora of translated and untranslated texts, edited and unedited texts, as well as sign-language and court interpreting. Process data, often collected by means of eye-tracking and/or an electroencephalogram (EEG), allow access to how viewers watch subtitles, how people read translations, or translators and editors go about their tasks of translating and editing. Researchers aim to develop a deeper understanding of how these processes work, and what the properties of the products are from the perspective of end users. Projects in language practice, which include a focus on interpreting and subtitling, aim to offer guidelines for improved training and practices, besides descriptive and theoretical goals.

Descriptive Linguistics

In the subprogramme Descriptive Linguistics we focus on real language data drawn from a range of settings such as ordinary writing and speech, and corpora of historical writing, while we also collaborate with researchers in language practice on translated and edited texts, compared to untranslated and unedited texts. We develop grammatical descriptions of contemporary Afrikaans and English, and also trace the historical development of these languages, while at the same time refining linguistic-theoretical constructs in a broadly functional/usage-based approach. The Constrained Language project conducts comparative linguistic research on written, spoken, translated and edited language in order to develop models of language structure and language use that account for the properties of language across such a range of contexts.