AFL1501/2020

Student number: 36962325

Unique Assignment nr: 867984

How does language signify attitude and world view?

The significance of language is base more on how you can express yourself in your own language, that
way the message came must clearer across to the audience. Most people want to convey a message in
his or her second language and either cause havoc or unintentionally be little the audience or either
embarrass him or herself. Thus, the significance of attitude and worlds view on language enable us to
convey our message much clearer to the world considering our issues. Yes how we speak portray more
of use than we realize, pronunciation give language the signified attitude, we can relate to poetry,
drama and music, its not everyday that you find a state member, king or president delivery a good
speech, but in drama, poetry and music the essence lays in how the world view the composer, of the
drama, music and poetry in conveying a message to it.

Myself I have come across a lot of different language in relation to my family, and this still make me
wonder why my family is scattered all over, so say it may be because of the indifference in our country
called Apartheid, but looking back it was more of how they can identify themselves in this country. My
grandfather as being told by my father had three brothers and each had a different last name/surname,
himself (Matthews) the others Mathebula, Mathe and Mastas, that’s why within my extended family
you will find Zulu people, the Mathebula’s, Sesotho’s’ the Mathe’s, coloured people speaking only
Afrikaans, they are the Mastas and last was they Matthews people they speak more than one language
and still today we all relate to one another when it come to family events. We Identify ourselves to this
world as Matthews, Mathebula, Mathe, Mastas Family and we live all over the country. My grandfather
never married any of the women he had children with, but he taught my father to be much more
responsible than him, “man never abandon his family.” I was born in March in the city of Kimberley yes,
the “Diamond Capital” of the world even thou our city never really benefitted from any of its produce.
My parents both fluently speak Setswana and the community where I was brought up back then
everyone spoke Setswana in Greenpoint, no not Green Point in Cape town but here in Kimberley.

Here most of your influential people lived before area like Galeshewe, Vergenoeg could exist, people
like Sol Plaatje, Manne Dipico (First Premier of Northern Cape after 1994 elections,) and also Dipuo
Peters (second Premier of the Province) all stayed here, than the Group Areas Act can into existence and
people were move forcefully to Galeshewe and Vergenoeg. A few remain and it was established as a
coloured area where mostly Afrikaans speaking people stayed. My grandfather remained behind as well
as my father. I growth up speaking Setswana as a child and stayed with my grandmother from my
mothers’ side, they too were removed but opted to stayed on the farms in the areas surrounding
Kimberley. At age seven I came back to live with my parents and attend school at Groenpunt Primary
school an Afrikaans medium school for Greenpoint residence. Both me and my elder brother and sister
struggle to adapted to the new environment, I failed Sub A/Grade 1 twice, my sister manage somehow
but my eldest brother had it worst off, he had to be put in adaption class/”aanpassingsklas” due to the
fact that he could not easily adapt to Afrikaans. Our parents never give up on us even through the
failures we manage to succeed, they in their own way encourage and support us with schoolwork and
the Afrikaans language. Every evening my mom would read the Afrikaans Bible and the way she read it
developed my reading skills too. To a grade deal I can acknowledge by reading the Afrikaans Bible daily
also assist and improving my reading skills. My dad was not educated but when he spoke you would be
inspired of how much he knew, I remember he worked at Telkom as general worker and position for
assistant technical officer was advertised, he applied knowing he had no qualification, he convince the
panel that knowledge should never be based on theory only, but on practicalities too. What he lacked in
theory, he made up for in practice, he convinces them that he can operate a crane without receiving any
book instructions on operating a crane, he can wire telephone cables correctly without the necessary
theoretical part. He had more experience than most of the other general workers that had qualifications
and base on that he was appointed as assistant technical officer. That inspired me to also becoming a
technical officer at Telkom in 1998.

During most of my life time after school Afrikaans and English was the most dominant languages in my
life, here and there, Sesotho, IsiZulu, IsiXhosa and Setswana, in 1999 I went with my mom and sister to
Lesotho and I must admit for the first day it was quite hectic to communicate, but as time passed in
Lesotho we manage well, most of the relatives from my mothers’ side are Sesotho speaking people, and
it taught me to make room for improvement in other areas like be open to other people’s language,
don’t distance yourself, try if you must even if you fail, they will assist and encourage you in their own
way. English, Afrikaans I use daily and yes it benefits me but more the people whom I share and relate to
in my immediate surroundings. The norm in our society is that English has become the ultimate medium
of communications in our children’s life, in church when serving I have to serve in both English and
Afrikaans, most of our senior members are not conversant in English than I have to use Afrikaans as
communication medium, both my own to children attend a fully Afrikaans medium school, their mom
teach them Setswana, English only become an additional language to them. To operate in society and
where most of the people that I meet if need be, I usually have assistance of translator to ensure those
who attend and are either Zulu, Xhosa, Sotho or Tswana speaking are not left out.

I have many people who contributed towards me speaking Afrikaans, English, Isizulu, Sesotho, Setswana
and little bit of IsiXhosa, mostly from my extended family as mentioned above, colleague’s at work,
fellow political organization members that I meet with monthly, yearly and so on, friends on social
media and in my own community. My whole family have impacted my life totally as from birth right up
to now, they have always show tremendous support, from my grandparents on my mothers side, my
family on my fathers side, both my parents and even today my own family they support me none stop.
They believe in me and encourage me in their own way, my wife she would always ensure that if
something fall short, she financial or in anyway best to her ability avail it so I can make a success of my
dreams. They not only support financially, spiritually they support too, we true Christians in the sense
that we apply the rule of “love your neighbour, as you love yourself”, “I am my brothers keeper”, in love
we serve each other, most time we set aside our differences and ensure what ever possible difficulty
one has should first be solve and come together as family and support the one with the problem.

In this life there is a lesson to be learned every second of the day as the clock tick off your day. Lessons I
have learned is as follows: believe it can be done; never give up; have faith in yourself; challenge
yourself, stand on your own two feet, prepare well; don’t waist time; keep your word, calculate risks and
take them; try new things; aim high; work together; don’t have regrets; put family first, face problems
head on; be polite and respectful, be strict, yet firm; keep your good name; do not leave this world as
 1

you have get it, add change to it; do no harm. Like Plato the ancient Greek, said, “the beginning is the
most important part of any work.” The work can never start on its own you have to start it, think of
Henry Ford, Alexandre Graham Bell, Mozart Von Beethoven they did not only daydream they made their
dreams become a reality by working on it constantly, and my support system is intact.

I have always been a positive person and not only my forefathers but each and everyone that greatly
impacted my life has had a positive influence towards it. We still uphold the principles that even our
forefathers have lived by. It has shaped our identity in such a way that in our community we serve in key
structures/positions, we serve the community with honesty and integrity, we not only upholding our
own name but that of the community. People still reflect to me how some of my forefathers impacted
positively in their family lives and I am honoured to carry that legacy forward with me in teaching my
children and grandchildren in the future how to identify themselves in this world as citizens with good
morals. 2
 RESULTS
Assignment 2 = 80

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Total = 80 / 100 (80%)

 COMMENTS
1 Citation missing/incorrect: Facts, pictures or quotations need citations. Document is either missing an
in-text citation and/or a reference list.
2 FINAL SCORE: 80%. Content and quality: (8 out of 10). Organisation: (8 out of 10). Communication: (7
out of 10). Final Product: (9 out of 10).
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(CONTENT & QUALITY 40%): We marked how well a student followed instructions and told a story
about themselves, the key word here is story. Merely stating facts about yourself is not a story. We
were also looking for the following details, mostly relating to language: 1) Who you are in terms of self,
language, and identity? 2)What and who contributed towards you being you? 3)Do you look back on
your past and say, "my past made me who I am?" 4)Which language/s dominate your everyday life? 5)
Do you think the language/s that you know and speak benefit you somehow? 6)What and who
contributed towards you learning those languages? 7) Have your family members played a role in
shaping what you see in the mirror and how? 8)What life lesson/s can you take from this observation?
Between 10 and 5: Answered all questions or more than half were attempted. Wrote an interesting
story about themselves. Between 5 and 0: The questions are only partly answered/details missing or
did not answer any of the questions coherently/ missed the point of the assignment; such as not
mentioning language, too focused on physical attributes. Not telling a story merely stating information.
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(ORGANISATION 30%): Did the student organised their assignment coherently? How well was the
story presented, i.e. logical flow of writing. We want to see structure, i.e. paragraphs, themes, analogy,
purpose, narrative. Between 10 and 5: Well organised assignments with most or all questions
answered in a logical/creative manner. Between 5 and 0: Only certain parts of the assignment is
complete, no separation of ideas/concepts, bad presentation of ideas.
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(COMMUNICATION 15%): Did the student write well, how many spelling and grammar mistakes were
there? Use of slang is not appropriate in an academic context. Did the quality of spelling and grammar
interfere with the overall understanding of the assignment? Between 10 and 5: No mistakes or very few
mistakes. Between 5 and 0: A small but number of mistakes or little to not care in editing the final
product.
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(FINAL PRODUCT 15%): Overall presentation of document. How engaged with the assignment was
the student? How much effort was put into telling a story about themselves. Perhaps sharing
something personal? Writing more than expected. Adding a front page. Reference correctly etc.
Between 10 and 5: Student wrote more than was required, brought in personal ideas and information
to the topic to make the assignment more interesting. Between 5 and 0: Students did not try very hard,
wrote very little. Did not write a story or include many details of their own thoughts/ideas, or overall did
sloppy, incomplete or incoherent work and missed questions.