The speech act of advice in educational contexts in isiZulu

[摘要] ENGLISH ABSTRACT: This study focuses on the communicative processes of advice in isiZulu throughwhich people aid each other with problems and stresses of daily life, including waysin which support is communicated. When friends or family members attempt to helpone another with stress and problems, they frequently give advice.Within the field of pragmatics, advice is a common but potentially face-threateningresponse to a friend or a loved one who is upset about a problem. Consequently it isuseful to identify ways a speaker may show regard for face in this kind of episode.Advice can threaten the hearer's autonomy by imposing the speaker's authority andsolutions on the hearer and it can also imply criticism of the hearer's emotionalreaction or handling of the problem.In this study, twenty-one advice topics, by Goldsmith (2000) that can be used invarious troubles talk episodes in isiZulu have been examined. It has been found thatsome advice situations have more topics than others. The situation with more advicetopics is the one referred to as personal. This is because people are always verykeen to give more advice to people with personal problems than to people with otherproblems. The situations with the least number of topics are abuse and teachers,because they are very sensitive in nature. The study found that the sensitivity comesfrom the fact that third parties are involved. People tend to be reluctant to give advicewhich might lead to confrontation between the parties that are involved. In thisresearch, the parties that are involved are learners on the one side and theparents/teachers on the other side. The other factor is that people do not want to seea parent who is abusing his/her child going to jailor a teacher who does not like aparticular child losing his/her job because of the advice they gave to the learners.

[发布机构] Stellenbosch University