• search hit 3 of 4
Back to Result List

ENGLISH ACADEMIC LITERARY DISCOURSE IN SOUTH AFRICA 1958-2004: A REVIEW OF 11 ACADEMIC JOURNALS

  • This study examines the discipline of English studies in South Africa through a review of articles published in 11 academic journals over the period 1958"2004. The aims are to gain a better understanding of the functions of peer-reviewed journals, to reveal the presence of rules governing discursive production, and to uncover the historical shifts in approach and choice of disciplinary objects. The Foucauldian typology of procedures determining discursive production, that is: exclusionary, internal and restrictive procedures, is applied to the discipline of English studies in order to elucidate the existence of such procedures in the discipline. Each journal is reviewed individually and comparatively. Static and chronological statistical analyses are undertaken on the articles in the 11 journals in order to provide empirical evidence to subvert the contention that the discipline is unruly and its choice of objects random. The cumulative results of this analysis are used to describe the major shifts primarily in ranges of disciplinary objects, but also in metadiscursive and thematic debates. Each of the journals is characterised in relation to what the overall analysis reveals about the mainstream developments. The two main findings are that, during the period under review, South African imaginative written artefacts have moved from a marginal position to the centre of focus of the discipline; and that the conception of what constitutes the "literary" has returned to a pre-Practical criticism definition, broadly inclusive of a variety of types of artefact including imaginative writing, such as autobiography, letters, journals and orature.

Download full text files

Export metadata

Additional Services

Share in Twitter Search Google Scholar
Metadaten
Author:Derek A. Barker
URN:urn:nbn:de:hbz:385-1-2649
Document Type:Book
Language:English
Date of completion:2007/09/14
Publishing institution:Universität Trier
Contributing corporation:Lindfors, Bernth (Afterword)
Release Date:2007/09/14
Tag:Peer-Review; Zeitschrifteninhaltsanalyse
English studies; Literary discourse; academic article; canon formation; career formation; discipline; knowledge formation; peer-reviewed journal
GND Keyword:Anglistik; Kanon / Literatur; Südafrika <Staat>; Wissenschaftlich Zeitschrift
Contributor:Platz, Norbert H. (Editor)
Institutes:Fachbereich 2 / Anglistik
Dewey Decimal Classification:8 Literatur / 80 Literatur, Rhetorik, Literaturwissenschaft / 800 Literatur und Rhetorik

$Rev: 13581 $