Academic literature on the topic 'Discourse analysis – Zimbabwe'

The chapter seeks to make a comparative analysis of the representations of Zimbabwe's GNU in Zimbabwean newspapers – The Herald and NewsDay with regards to two main issues of contention – the Zimbabwe Sanctions Debate and the constitution making process. It is important to note that Zimbabwe at the time of the GNU was under European Union (EU) and United States of America imposed ‘sanctions' and the sanctions debate constituted one of the most contentious issues with regards to the relations between the parties to the GNU. As such, it examines the discourse linguistic question of ‘objectivity' (or ‘neutrality') in ‘hard' news reports on the matter in these newspapers and from an Appraisal linguistic theoretic perspective. It compares the textuality of purposively sampled ‘hard' news reports in The Herald and NewsDay that evince the political relations between the parties to the GNU and the functionalities of the GNU in general during the period between September 2009 and June 2013.

The popularity and consumption of dancehall music in Zimbabwe has grown exponentially over the past few years. However, despite its popularity, Zimdancehall has attracted controversy for promoting violence and vulgar behavior among other ills. This chapter casts aside society's moral judgements in order to investigate Zimdancehall music's role as an alternative public sphere. Using Fraser's alternative public sphere and Bakhtin's carnivalesque as its conceptual framework, and Norman Fairclough's approach to Critical Discourse Analysis as its methodology, the study analysed the discourses that underpin Zimdancehall music. The chapter argues that Zimdancehall music has become a counter public that provides marginalised youths with a platform to resist the dominant state-sponsored patriotic discourse. The music genre has opened a liberating alternative communicative space, outside of state control and ZANU-PF's patriotic discourse, where marginalised youths can symbolically invert their reality, protest as well as articulate their needs and aspirations freely.

The popularity and consumption of dancehall music in Zimbabwe has grown exponentially over the past few years. However, despite its popularity, Zimdancehall has attracted controversy for promoting violence and vulgar behavior among other ills. This chapter casts aside society's moral judgements in order to investigate Zimdancehall music's role as an alternative public sphere. Using Fraser's alternative public sphere and Bakhtin's carnivalesque as its conceptual framework, and Norman Fairclough's approach to Critical Discourse Analysis as its methodology, the study analysed the discourses that underpin Zimdancehall music. The chapter argues that Zimdancehall music has become a counter public that provides marginalised youths with a platform to resist the dominant state-sponsored patriotic discourse. The music genre has opened a liberating alternative communicative space, outside of state control and ZANU-PF's patriotic discourse, where marginalised youths can symbolically invert their reality, protest as well as articulate their needs and aspirations freely.

This chapter interrogates the appropriation of music by a marginalized minority tribe to challenge political authority in Zimbabwe. It examines how music is used to arouse the people's nationalistic feelings; exploit their grievances through memory, collective identity, and emotions; and spur them to action against their local colonialists. Using cultural memory and subaltern public sphere theories, it examines how Majaivana's music is utilized by the Ndebeles in post-colonial Zimbabwe to challenge authority and assert their minority, collective identity. Although this chapter does a critical discourse analysis of the IsiNdebele language protest music as a socio-political commentary and “weapon of the weak” for the Ndebeles in Zimbabwe, lessons drawn therefrom can be extrapolated to other countries in Africa where minority groups face the authoritarian force of the majority tribe in power.

This chapter seeks to assess the trends in rights-based development (RBD) and citizenship in Zimbabwe based on constitutional knowledge to proffer options on how the public can become constitutionally knowledgeable towards developing the nation. The chapter is informed by constitutional knowledge gathered through qualitative data from document analysis and literature on this discourse. The chapter first discusses the provisions of RBD and citizenship in Zimbabwe in light of the constitution. It assesses the trends in RBD and citizenship in Zimbabwe past, present, and the future to analyze the trends in the changes in the development of the nation, based on constitutional knowledge. Lastly, it proffers policy options on ways to nurture constitutionally knowledgeable citizenry.

The concept of smart transportation systems is increasingly becoming critical in addressing the challenges posed by an increasing number of mega cities in both developed and developing regions in maintaining safety, smooth traffic flow, and an environmentally friendly and sustainable urban environment. The Government of Zimbabwe deregulated its transport sector in the early 1990s. This development ushered in the informal public transport operators, locally referred to as ‘kombis'. Major cities such as Harare are characterised by a disjointed and chaotic urban public transport system. The major problems are the impacts this has on the quality of the environment. Currently, the urban public transport system is contributing greatly to both air and noise pollution within the confines of the city, especially in the Central Business Districts. The problem is further exacerbated by the massive importation of used vehicles from outside the country. These developments have resulted in high emission rates of major air pollutants resulting in a deterioration of the ambient air quality especially in the major cities such as Harare. Transportation is a major source of air pollutants. Vehicles are probably the largest single source of pollutants such as hydrocarbons, nitrogen dioxide and carbon monoxide. Other harmful emissions include as lead, benzene, arsenic, aldehydes, sulphates, particulate matter and the secondary creation of ozone. In Harare the number of registered vehicles increased from 192 901 in 1994 to 292 862 and by August 1999 showing that the increase in the number of vehicles is mostly in the cities. This chapter seeks to explore how smart transportation system can be adopted in Harare, the capital city of Zimbabwe. Harare was purposefully selected as it is experiencing rapid urbanization and motorization in the country. Using documentary analysis, discourse analysis and textual analysis, the chapter also describes and examines the challenges, constraints and opportunities of adopting smart urban transportation system in Harare. From this chapter the major conclusions are that the main problem associated with this rapid growth in vehicle population in the major cities is increase concentration of line and area emission sources due to traffic congestion at peak times. The stock of vehicles is quite old and they lack emission control equipment. Major constraints and limitations are observed in the current pieces of legislation. For example, the current Atmospheric Pollution Prevention Act (1971) does not require vehicles to be fitted with emission control equipment. Most of the vehicles use leaded fuel resulting in emission of the dangerous lead particulate matter in the urban areas. There is therefore an urgent need to design and implement air pollution control measures in the urban areas of the country. It is also critical to develop smart and eco-friendly transportation infrastructures so as to achieve sustainable urban communities. The integration of transportation, land use and decision making is also critical in the achievement of smart transport.

This chapter interrogates political discourse in popular songs of Shona expression with a view to establish the nature of their evaluation of state performance in Zimbabwe in the period, 2000-2015. By analysing the themes and the language of the songs (verbal, nominal and other constructions and figurative language), we aim to demonstrate the extent to which the songs, composed and performed by pro-opposition artists, objectively assess the performance of the Zimbabwean state. We exclude songs of pro-state musicians for the reason that, their assessment of state functionality is pro-state and therefore explicitly biased. They largely function as a vehicle for state propaganda, employed for the political discursive domination of the citizenry. In doing so they ignore or even glorify state repression, political violence, electoral fraud, insecurity of citizens, lawlessness and human rights violations, as well as the general degradation of the state system. Our observation is that, anti-state songs' depiction of the Zimbabwean nation-state as a case of death-resurrection is a more or less objective evaluation of the state's functionality. In addition to that, we argue that a much more objective assessment of Zimbabwe's performance should have been ‘a collapsed-and-partially-resuscitated state.'

The chapter seeks to, through the theoretical lenses of the linguistic discourse theory of Appraisal, analyse the notions of journalistic ‘objectivity' in Zimbabwean newspapers comparatively. The focus of analysis here is news reports of the factional politics within the ZANU PF political party, specifically with regards to the demise of the political career of former Vice President Joice Mujuru and how it is framed within these factional wars. The chapter seeks to comparatively analyse the portrayal of Joice Mujuru and the ZANU PF factional wars within both the public and private owned newspapers (The Herald and NewsDay, respectively). Within the Zimbabwean political landscape ZANU PF, led by incumbent president Robert Gabriel Mugabe, embodies the national narrative. In fact, because of its role in the liberation of the country from the British colonial masters, ZANU PF has technically appropriated the national metanarrative and the story of the Zimbabwean nation-state cannot therefore, since independence in 1980, be told outside the ZANU PF polity and ideology.

This chapter discusses prospects in the education of students who are deaf and hard of hearing (DHH) in light of the dichotomy between Zimbabwean government curriculum policy and the reality of implementation in a context where there are many different languages and cultures. Policy co-articulation in the education of students who are DHH is influenced by overlaps in changing perceptions of disability, the increasing availability of audiometric technology, and the Deaf community’s lobbying for the use of Zimbabwean Sign Language. Educational provision for DHH students has grown from five special schools with 800 students in 1981 to the current six special schools and ninety mainstream units catering for nearly 2,600 students. The chapter analyzes the discourses that dominate policymaking and implementation in these special schools and mainstream units, as they are the major site of struggles on interpreting and implementing policies for DHH students in Zimbabwe.