BACHELOR OF ARTS HONOURS LANGUAGE LITERATURE AND INTERCULTURAL COMMUNICATION (HLLIC)
| Module Code | Module Name | Description |
|---|---|---|
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HLLIC 100 |
Introduction to Literary Modes and Genres | The module introduces learners to Literary Modes and Genres that embrace evolving literary traditions, philosophies and mythologies dating back to Greek, Roman, Germanic and classical African past. These influence perceptions of art, its expressive modes and role in moulding society and its environment. The module employs the genre theory (from Aristotle to contemporary theorists) to examine elements of various genres and modes drawing examples from English and African language literatures. Literary Modes and Genres are intertwined but the former refers to form (structure) while the latter largely refers to content (plot, style, theme, language) and the intended emotional, aesthetic and intellectual effect of the piece of writing. Each genre is particular in its expressive mode because it is a product of its own cultural aesthetics, philosophical, historical and political milieu. The module, therefore, surveys the impact of history, culture and politics in the construction and shaping of the sensibilities of the writers, poets and playwrights within the colonial, post-colonial and 21st Century dispensation. It examines a diversity of experience and reproduces reflection of, and on the world. The module prepares students for variety of roles in which skills such as creative writing, critical thinking and close reading are crucial. Students develop strong critical literacy in the rapidly evolving literary and cultural landscape, preparing them for a variety of careers in fields such as creative writing, journalism, publishing, research, teaching and academia. |
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HLLIC101 |
Introduction to the Structure of Language and Usage | This module provides an overview of how language as a human feature can be explained. The module exposes students to a universal and theoretical description of language as a structural entity that has realisable features. The overarching question guiding this module is: What is language made of, and how does it work? Students will have an opportunity to appreciate the common characteristics of the human species and how the universal properties of language can help to explain the historical questions on the intricate connection between the origin of human beings and that of language. Relevant theories and methodologies will be used to problematize basic assumptions related to this connection. The module provides foundational knowledge for a higher level module that introduces socio-cultural aspects of linguistic performance as determinants of the shift from the universal to the particular |
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HLLIC102 |
Introduction to Intercultural Communication | This module aims to enable students to recognize and understand the role of language as a key locus of personal and socio-cultural identity as well as cultural understanding. It will combine a theoretical understanding of language and intercultural communication; problematize concepts of culture and intercultural communication, intercultural competence, linguistic and cultural diversity, verbal and non-verbal aspects of intercultural communication, critical theories of culture and language, especially in global lingua franca contexts and applications of this to practical settings. The module adopts an interdisciplinary approach that helps students to appreciate different analytical tools and approaches. These are useful for understanding Africa and beyond in the context of hunhu/ubuntu and practical communicative experiences deriving from global mobility, bilateral and multilateral engagement as well as political and economic negotiation and mediation protocols. By the end of this module, students should have developed intercultural awareness and therefore be able to conceptualise and solve communication problems emanating from cultural diversity. Student will have the basics of construction human interaction tools needed during intercultural negotiations and conflict resolution. |
| HLLIC103 | Introduction to Programming | This module aims to equip students with basics in programming in order to equip them with skills of programming in general and specifically in language. The overall aim of this module is to equip students with skills to apply the basics programming in language studies in order to develop language applications and migrate African languages into the cyber space. It also aim to impart skills to engage in computational skills, e-lexicography and prepare them to integrate ICT in language studies |
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HLLIC106 |
Trends in Zimbabwean Literature | The module introduces students to topical issues and trends in Zimbabwean literature. This involves the study of Zimbabwean literature(s) across languages, genres and themes in varied socio-historical contexts. Historically, the module starts with the initial encroachment of colonialism, the geo-political and cultural space created by various settler governments, black people’s quest for freedom and the daily struggles to eke a living after independence. It explores the work of various representative writers who have variably reflected on the Zimbabwean people’s experiences and aspirations from the pre-colonial, colonial and post independent periods. The module focuses on significant concepts and themes that are crucial to the everyday lived experiences of the Zimbabwean people based on an understanding of the trajectory of development that Zimbabwe is taking in a globalising world, the challenges confronting the nation and the need to come up with mechanisms for surmounting them. The interface of literature and the nation’s life is amplified by tightly focusing on topical issues like identity construction, nation-state building, contesting discourses of resources ownership and management, gender, HIV and AIDS, child development, male-female relations, the family and development and etcetera. The students are expected to critique these issues and develop their literary products that evaluate the centrality of literature in imagining the diversity of Zimbabwean society. At the end of the module, students are expected to not only be able to critique literary texts considering the salient place of literary production in nation building processes. The ultimate objective is to have students fully appreciate Zimbabwean literature as a comprehensive expression of the nation’s life, its lived experiences as well as its agenda – historically and currently. |
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HLLIC107 |
Language Cognition and perception | The module on Language Cognition and Perception introduces students to fundamental concepts in psycholinguistics and neurolinguistics and current issues in language and perception that undergird the assumption that human language stands out among communication systems both for its level of abstractness and its level of complexity. The module focus on issues of acquisition and processing that give language a special status, as an aspect of cognition that is largely innate (rather than acquired via general learning mechanisms), and largely encapsulated from other aspects of cognition and behavior. In line with psycholinguistics studies this module will focus on the following subdomains of language namely, speech perception, word recognition, word production, sentence processing, and so forth. The module will critically examine the arguments for treating language as a series of special systems. Topics to be covered in cognition include: Attention, memory, concept learning, judgement and decision making and language. The focus will be on understanding basic principles and theories as well as their potential application to real world problems such as language developmnent and memory, speech perception, word recognition, word production and sentence processing. Students will also study the subcategories of linguistics and their relation to each other and influences of non-lingustic aspects of cognition on language acquisition and processing. |
| HLLIC108 | Morpho-Syntax | The module seeks to extend the students’ knowledge and skills pertaining to the linguistic structure of the students’ language majors. Whereas the earlier course focuses on the linguistic structure of the students’ language majors at sound level, the present course looks at the internal anatomy and cohesion of constituent structures in the morphology of the students’ language majors. By the end it lays a preamble into the syntactic elements of the students’ language majors. |
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HLLIC202 |
Indigenous Knowledge and Practices |
This module heightens the students’ awareness about the imperative need to include African indigenous knowledge systems in the design and implementation of research in Africa. African Knowledge or science, and its methods of investigation, cannot be divorced from the African people’s history, cultural context and worldview. Such knowledge has cultural relevance and must be examined for its particular focus. This module, therefore, affirms the suitability of the Afrocentric paradigm in African research and calls for the necessity of an emancipatory and participatory type of research which values indigenous knowledge and peoples. In the predominantly Western-oriented academic circles and investigations, the African voice is either side lined or suppressed because indigenous knowledge and methods are often ignored or not taken seriously. The module gives the awareness that African indigenous ways of knowing and all cultures arising from them are to be respected and valued in their uniqueness. This course is a meaningful and empowering, African-based research quest, that, of necessity, must include African thought and ideas from inception through completion to the implementation of policies arising from the research. |
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HLLIC200 |
Theories of Literature and Criticism |
This module introduces students to some of the most important schools of literary theory and criticism in the 20th Century that have had significant impact on the study of literature. It explores the philosophical framework informing the schools in question as well as its central tenets and main interpretative strategies. It looks in particular for each school’s definition of the nature of the relationship between text and reality, the nature of the relationship between the text and its author (the question of authorship); and the nature of the relationship linking literary theories to each other. The course seeks to explain the basic principles of diverse theories, including the basic principles of literary application, in order to enable to students write their own theoretical interpretations of literature and read with insight what the theorists themselves have written. The course in general, demonstrates how critical theories both argue and overlap with one another, sometimes overturning, and sometimes building on the insights of competing theories. By studying a number of literary theories both African and European, students are reminded that multiple viewpoints are important in order to see the whole picture and to grasp the very process of understanding that underlies human experience, thereby increasing their ability to see both the value and the limitations of every paradigm of conceptualising the world. |
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HLLIC201 |
Sociolinguistics | This module provides an overview of the study of language in its social context. It exposes students to key Sociolinguistic concepts and principles that sets it apart from theoretical linguistics and gives it an interdisciplinary character. Theoretical and methodological aspects of Sociolinguistics will be discussed to provide students with conceptual, analytic and research tools to investigate manifestations of language use and efficacy in human experience and interaction at both micro and macro levels. Students will use these tools to carry out individual and group projects that reflect the intricate connection between language and society and how their relationship allows purposive manipulation linguistic resources for relational, socio-cultural and economic development. Students will be exposed to major debates in African Sociolinguistics relating to the value of diversity, the colonial legacy, hybridity and endogenous innovations and global communicative cultures and practices. The module covers a number of topics which include historical developments and new research findings in Sociolinguistics and their implications to the contemporary society; language variation, its forms, causes and impacts socially, economically and politically; language change and shift, its causes and its impacts ; language choice in multilingual contexts and across various social institutions such as in business, education, in the legal, medical and media sectors as well as factors that influence choice. Language attitudes/language ideologies and their influence on language usage and identity; multilingualism and its implications; minority and indigenous languages and international languages and their benefits, language planning and its implications; language as a resource in socioeconomic development; the value of technology on language behaviour and decisions, among others. It will include issues pertain to language and identity, speech styles in various social context and so forth. |
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HLLIC203 |
Creative Writing | The module is intended to help students to write creatively and build their own works with an understanding of such imperatives as form/content, and ideology. It exposes students to creative writing in genres such as prose, poetry drama and non-fiction. This module introduces the principles of practice-led research. It equips students’ with the skills necessary to create individual creative projects. It is a guide to the models and methods of creative writhing research which is designed to help students formulate their own creative work and develop independent research ideas. It provides methodological approaches to creative practice and it involves an overview of different types of practice-led creativity and research in different disciplines. |
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HLLIC204 |
Lexicography and Terminography | The module capacitates students with lexicographical and terminology development skills that cause the application of effective language solutions to various communicative domains. The module provides students with practical lexicographical skills that include compiling reference works for second and first language learning and language mediation. It also promotes students’ dictionary culture and thereby exposes them to the numerous technical aspects of their languages and how they contribute to the standardisation of the varieties. This leads to the reckoning of languages under study vis-à-vis the broader national language planning goals and language policy crafting by language experts and governments. One of the most prevalent subjects of debate in the discipline is whether a lexicographer is a ‘legislator (prescriptivist)’ or merely a ‘descriptivist’ of linguistic structure and standard language use: the module analyses the different dimensions to this debate and stimulates the students to formulate their own informed arguments thereupon. This module also focuses mainly on the problems of terminological gaps in local languages. It examines such challenges as posed by development and innovation in areas of Information and Technology, specialised field terminology, e.g. legal, medical, botany, foreign culture, etc., and exposes the student to the various types of term development that can be applied as a problem-solving technique to transcend terminology-related problems of translation/ interpretation among others. |
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HLLIC205 |
Professional and Intercultural Communication |
This module introduces students to the principles and theoretical concepts in professional and Intercultural communication. Students will be introduced to intercultural communication, concept of ‘cultural difference’ and its significance for communication, the importance of recognizing cultural variations, cultural context as part of the rhetorical context of any message, mapping ‘difference’ in cultural context. The module will assist students to analyse intercultural interactions at the workplace and to deal with negative perceptions, racism, prejudice, stereotyping, ethnocentrism, and criticism. This module also equips students with professional writing, listening, and thinking skills necessary to make them competent in their job-seeking, job-getting and jobholding needs through Comprehensive Language Enhancement. Students are also equipped with language skills necessary in conflict resolution and negotiation strategies, discussion techniques, politeness strategies, and the effects of cultural differences on conflict resolution and negotiation. The module also equips students with communication strategies and skills necessary for using various communication technologies and social media communication in workplace contexts. This module puts equal emphasis on process and product, giving students the opportunity to develop metacognitive abilities and improve interpersonal and intercultural communication skills. |
| HLLIC206 | Corpus Linguistics | This module seeks to equip students with skills of compiling, developing and managing a corpus in language practice. It seeks develop corpora for all the officially recognised languages to enable the student of language to carry out sophisticated language researches. This growth has brought about radical changes in the way in which languages are studied. This module is concerned with these new approaches in terms of methodologies that enable us to make discoveries about how languages work. |
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HLLIC300 |
Literary Translation | This module aims to introduce students to various strategies and concerns involved in translating literary texts through the study of selected source-language and target-language texts in different genres as well as through practice. It is expected that the students will have done an introductory course in translation, will have a high level of competence in at least two languages and an appreciation of literature and literary techniques. The module integrates theory with practice and prepares students for language entrepreneurship and cultural mediation communication solutions. This module focuses, in addition to most translation strategies, on techniques and general concepts, such as transfer between languages, cultures and contexts, fidelity, precision, inventiveness, on specific skills that fall within the ambit of stylistic and poetic creativity. The objective of this module is to explore and develop these particular sets of skills through intensive practice in literary translation, enabling students to translate literary texts in different language pairs. |
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HLLIC301 |
Rhetoric | Currently, we are living in a contentious time in history. Fundamental disagreements on critical political, social, cultural and economic issues make it essential to learn how to make an argument and analyze the arguments of others. This ability will help you engage in civil discourse and make
effective changes in society. Even outside the political sphere, conveying a convincing message can benefit you throughout your personal, public, and professional lives. This module is an introduction to the theory and practice of rhetoric, the art of persuasive writing and speech. Learners will learn skills to construct and defend compelling arguments, an essential skill in many settings. Selected addresses and writings from prominent speakers and writers will be utilised to explore and analyse rhetorical structure and style. These will include Hitler, Martin Luther King Jn, Nkwame Nkrumah, Robert Gabriel Mugabe etc. Through this analysis, learners will learn how speakers and writers persuade an audience to adopt their point of view. It investigates how language is used to organize, persuade and maintain social groups, construct meanings and identities, coordinate behavior, mediate power, produce change, and create knowledge. Fundamental disagreements on critical social, political academic and professional issues make it essential to learn how to present persuasive and convincing arguments as well as analyze the arguments of others. This ability will help one to engage in civil discourse and make effective changes in society. Even outside the political sphere, conveying a convincing message can benefit one throughout one’s personal, public, and professional life. |
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HLLIC302 |
Language, Literature and Gender |
The aim of the module is to inculcate the skills and practices of reading literary texts from a gender perspective and in their sociocultural and historical context where identities are constructed, perceived and enacted. The starting point of the module will be definition and theories of gender, especially within African contexts. Examining diverse literary texts by writers from Africa and beyond, as well as ideas from various critical thinkers, this module will invite students, as members of a specific culture, to appreciate the meaning(s) of gender and, in so doing, encourage them to think through cultural practices and norms that underpin human relations. Besides the overall thematic concerns, the module correspondingly emphasises how the writers’ stylistic priorities and their own experiences and cultural positioning augment gender discourses. This module will also examine how studies from a variety of different disciplines (including sociology, psychology, philosophy, literature, history, religion etc) have come together to offer pertinent contributions to our developing understanding of gender. Topics that will be covered in the module include patriarchy and its role in regulating genders, gender normativity and gender non-normativity, how literary texts broach gender and gender relations, and how gender can be harnessed towards nation-building. |
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HLLIC303 |
Language Technology | This module exposes students to the interface of language and technology and enables them to develop computer based language tools such as programming packages, interpreting and translating software, corpora and other language applications appropriate for the local context. This module is, therefore, designed to create capacity of recognising and implementing innovative computer aided language solutions to various domains, including teaching and learning, broadcasting, video and filming, audiology and forensic practices. Students will, therefore, benefit from interdisciplinary knowledge that inform both the theory and practice of the module |
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HLLIC304 |
Language and Migration | This module exposes students to the nexus between literature and migration. It explores the literary representations and interpretations of the multidimensional manifestations of different types of inter-territorial human migration, into and out of Zimbabwe. Multi-disciplinary perspectives on the causes, course and effects of migratory tendencies associated with globalization and urbanization, human mobility, transnationalism and multiculturalism will inform the theoretical and methodological approaches used to engage the literature. The module gives students the chance to appreciate how mobility (as it is anchored in literary works), from an entrepreneurial, political, economic, cultural and social standpoint, and for both the source and host countries, has the capacity to fracture and destabilise and, alternatively, to unite, empower and develop both individuals and nations. Using an empirical, heuristic and literary approach, the module asks students to rethink and reconfigure (both theoretically and practically) what migration means and what its practical, local level and national implications are. Students are presented with an opportunity to read ‘Zimbabwe’ and ‘Zimbabwean’ in these times of global cultural fluidities and to, critically, tap into the spaces which migration opens in all spheres of life. Implications on conceptualizing and imagining belonging, nationality, resource ownership and exploitation and human rights will be discussed in the context of both the literary representations and lived experience. |
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HLLIC305 |
Principles of Acquisition | This module is an introduction to the field of language acquisition and socialisation. It focuses on both first and second language acquisition and discusses different factors that influence the acquisition process of linguistic structures – at every level – phonological, lexical, morphosyntactic and conversational. The module further concentrates on the way in which language learners are assisted in becoming members of one or more social groups, which involves a variety of outcomes, including the acquisition of rules, roles, standards, and values across the social, emotional, cognitive and personal domains. It focuses on the exposure to and acquisition of pragmatic meaning and the role of speech as a conveyer of cultural information. The goal of the module’ socialisation strand is two-fold: i) In first language acquisition, the aim is to examine particular interactional practices in different cultural settings, to show how these proceed in situated interaction and how they influence both the development of children’s communicative skills and their ability to think, feel, act, and interact like others in their social world. ii) In second language acquisition, the module seeks to take an interdisciplinary, international perspective, focusing on cross-linguistic and culturally embedded approaches to how learners learn language and culture. |
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HLLICC306 |
Literature, Governance and Development | This module explores the role of literature in matters of governance and development. It begins from the reflection that Zimbabwe, among other African state experience the worst political and economic crises. The official explanation of the crisis has been biased towards external forces at the expense of internal dynamics. This course, therefore, discusses literary texts that thematise the political, economic, social, ideological and humanitarian problems that the colonial legacy bequeathed upon Africa. The module has profound lessons for Southern African imperatives for peace, security, governance and development. The course exploits postcolonial theoretical studies to examine a multidimensional forces that thwart African efforts to make peace and lift itself from poverty. |
| HLLIC400 | Language Planning, Policy and Management | The module introduces and trains students in matters involving language development, use and allocation for general and specialised functions at the various domains, and orients their appreciation of languages as resources for not only communication, but also development and progress. Students should have an appreciation of the critical role of all officially recognised languages in the matrix of national development. This is largely in light of the vast problems that governments have had to find themselves grappling with as a consequence of language-related problems and multilingualism within and across nations. ‘Is multilingualism a resource or a burden?’ What are the challenges that bedevil multilingual language policy implementation? These are some of the key questions the course seeks to address. The module is designed for students who wish to acquire an informed perspective on the relationship between language planning, policy, management, politics of language and language activism in Africa in general and Zimbabwe specifically. The module also aims at making students appreciate that language is a ‘living organism’ that needs ‘nourishment’ so that it continues to survive to ensure the realisation of a multiplicity of benefits for its speakers. Zimbabwe will be taken as the point of departure and central issues regarding the key themes on a local context will be dealt with. Relevant theoretical insights of status, acquisition, corpus and prestige language planning and core concepts will be considered. Examples of other countries will be used to enhance the students’ understanding of the key themes of the module. The module seeks to produce graduates who can provide language-related solutions locally and globally in as far as language planning, policy and management are concerned. |
| HLLIC401 | Editing and Publishing | This module provides editing and publishing entrepreneurial skills and competencies that have potential to produce texts and narratives that empower society. The model adopts a practical and ideologically liberated consciousness that causes students to create literary enterprises and projects that contribute to sociocultural and economic change. To this end, the major goal is to identify and nurture students’ skills and competencies in editing and publishing, as a way of growing a cutting-edge, professional and technology aided editing and publishing value chain informed by the socio-cultural and historical context of the country. The module’s practical bias can produce technical advisors and consultants for the strengthening of Zimbabwe’s publishing industry. Topics covered in the editing component include editing practice in Zimbabwe, various forms of editing which include content, copy, stylistics and structural editing, proof-reading, as well as the development of editing applications, for instance, local languages spell-checks. On the publishing side, the module covers types of publishing including e-publishing, quality control of manuscripts, publishing processes, typesetting, designing and graphics, global trends in publishing, and issues pertaining to copyright and royalties. |
| HLLIC 402 | Onomastics | In this module, students will learn the main techniques of onomastic studies; gain a general knowledge of African naming systems and the kind of information that they give us, and get acquainted with the resources available for studying them. The module gives special focus on the Zimbabwean situation in terms of: naming principles, typologies, meaning, function, usage and significance, in the interactive and socio-cultural, political and economic context. The module exposes students to the link between language and culture in general, and in particular, names as a source for the socio-cultural history of different societies, markers of identity constructions and distortions, repositories of social values, knowledge systems, attitudes and response to existential and experimental reality. In addition, the module inspires students on the practical value of names and naming in organising governance of administrative systems, settlement and land use patterns and developing models for national/social policy and planning. Practical activities such as fieldwork, onomastics collections, mapping and map reading activities, digitalising names and standardising names are also included in the module. Students should, by the end of the module have knowledge and understanding of: basic onomastic principles (especially principles of interpretation) and terminology; essentials of Zimbabwean place-names: languages found in them; their structure; common elements; geographical distribution of groups of names etc. More general qualities encouraged by the module are: logical thought, powers of analysis, literacy, oral expression, teamwork, map-reading, and general knowledge (especially of the history, geography, administrative history and languages of Zimbabwe). The module provides linguistic and interdisciplinary aspects of onomastics that are of special importance, but also the more practical side merits the student’s concern, such as the collection of names, the standardisation of names, and the digitalisation of names. It is of great value for a nation that its names stock is handled with understanding and insight. In this respect it is very important to offer the students onomastics module, not only because of the need for onomastic competence in general, but also in order to prepare the ground for specialisation in this particular field of science. |
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HLLC404 |
Literature and Land within and outside Africa | The module introduces students to the nexus between literature and land issues in the African experience, with cases drawn from Zimbabwe. Focus is on how literary representations and interpretations mirror and problematise how societies and communities deal with issues of land ownership and use and how these impinge on economic, social and political relations. The module will allow students to relate the land as resource discourse to its practical value in sustaining livelihoods, defining and shaping identities, power relations and economies, including international relations, trade and peace pacts; patriotism; constitutionalism; ownership and belongingness within the larger scheme of globalization, nationhood, cultural and ethnic identities, colonialism, cannibalisation of weaker societies, genocide, displacements, domination, slavery, racism and even gender identities. Students will also look at the roles within the domain of empowerment and social control as is the case with depictions of land and masculinities, as well as land and feminization of poverty within respective colonial and postcolonial literary texts. Questions like privatization of land ownership and production, constitutionalism and reparations, land redistribution are explored drawing parallels with different African, Commonwealth, Asian and Latin-American, as well as Caribbean historical experiences. The module encourages students to read land and development issues, including theories of literature, within the respective major movements that couch land issues for self-serving and collective interests within respective communities’ domestic and international relations practices. Students are encouraged to critique land heritages and develop own models using literary depictions, visions, enquiries, attitudes, self-efficacy for collective survival in a globalizing context. |
| HLLCI 405 | Literature, the Environment and Sustainable Livelihoods | The module exposes students to how written and oral Zimbabwean literature engage the relationship between communities and their natural environment. The module looks at texts that portray how society’s worldview, socio-cultural and economic experience interlink with their responses and behaviour on the environment as a socio-cultural and economic and political resource. The module will achieve this by not only reading the canon of classic and contemporary environmental literature to consider how critics read and make sense of this literature, but more importantly, environmental literary texts will be used the basis for creating awareness on responsible environmental exploitation, developing culturally driven environmental management policies and practices that promote sustainable development. This module’s reading of, and thinking about the environment is informed by key theoretical works in Ecocriticism and other relevant critical theories that shed light on the ways in which literature reflects and helps to shape environmental attitudes and awareness in human societies. |
| HLLIC307 | Language, Literature and Advocacy | The module focuses on how language and literature literature are used to facilitate civic engagement and collective action. By determining the awareness and sensitivity that writers are social advocates, this course will look at selected texts and analyse how authors and texts engage with issues of human rights, ethics of community, and civic responsibility. The course enhances the students' understanding of advocacy through introducing them to various literary texts that deal with human rights. The course combines the theoretical and the practical taking literature from the pages of the novels, lines of poetry, film and drama into reality to make students active participants in society. In addition to this, students will do a lot of activities like writing advocacy projects, debating, and reporting. |
| HLLIC 403 | Discourse Studies | Discourse Studies encompass qualitative and interpretive methods of analysing texts- written or spoken language, as well as non-verbal aspects of communication. An analysis of these types of discourse provides an understanding of social groups and how they communicate in different social contexts. This module primarily focuses on the contextual meaning of language. Interpretation of texts rely on the details of the material itself and on contextual knowledge. Focus is on the social aspects of communication and the ways members of social groups use language to achieve desired objectives (e.g. to manage conflict, to create doubt, to influence tastes and attitudes, to evoke emotions, to build trust, to confuse, or to create doubt). This module focuses on the relationship between language use to its social, political, and historical context , cultural conventions in communication, the way beliefs, cultural assumptions, and values are communicated and the purposes and effects of different types of language. The module focuses on entire conversations, texts, or collections of texts not smaller units of language, such as sounds, words, or phrases. Materials that are analysed in this module include, but not limited to, government and business documents, conversations and interviews, books, periodicals, and magazines, marketing material, such as brochures and advertisements, social media posts and comments, websites, and forums among others. |
| HLLIC460 | Project | A student will be required to either write a dissertation on an approved topic addressing certain pertinent issues in the discipline and/or industry, which may be related to any of the modules studied, or to carry out an independent project that is aimed to give solutions to a certain identified problem(s). This may entail developing a model to be used in the teaching/learning of the discipline, developing a software/system to be used by a specific company/organisation to improve efficiency in the management of language-related projects. Where applicable, such projects may be conducted in partnership with selected organisations, and they will be tested for effectiveness, accordingly. Meriting projects will be patented and commercialized as may be necessary. While dissertations will be an individual effort, projects may be carried out in teams of approved partnerships from the same programmes or drawing participants from other specialties. |
| HLLIC406 | Popular Culture | This module exposes students to the intersection of cultural values and the production of cultural meaning and cultural products through popular culture in Zimbabwe. The module conceptualizes and explores popular culture as those political, economic and cultural texts that are not only produced and consumed by society but also reflect, shape and are shaped by people’s lived experiences. Focusing on diverse popular cultural forms such as literature, the internet, social media, film, sport, music, graffiti, painting, sculpture, dance, cartoons, advertising, and also many subcultural movements, such hip hop and dancehall, that ultimately become mainstream, the module uses approaches that are both theoretical and practical in the study of popular culture. These are production, political economy and industry practices; representation and textual analysis; reception and audience studies. Popular cultural texts will be related to complex economic, political, social and global issues and how issues of power, ideology and resistance are interwoven in these cultural practices. The overarching goal of the module is the identification of both benefits and negative effects of popular culture with the sole objective of how the former can be harnessed for national transformation and the latter minimized or eradicated. Theoretically, students will be equipped with an understanding of the world via its mainstream and sub-cultures, an understanding that will enable students to navigate that world, create meaning out of it and position themselves in it as creators and consumers of meaning and culture. Practically, students who study this module will contribute to the growth of popular culture in Zimbabwe through research, working in the popular culture industry and also as producers of the popular culture themselves (writers, musicians, dancers, painters, among others). With popular cultural production and consumption driving the 4th Industrial Revolution, this module is geared to equip students with knowledge and skills that will position them within that revolution and thus make practical contributions to the development of popular culture and its economic benefits to Zimbabwe. |
| HLLIC407 | Children’s Literature | The module Children’s Literature in practice will introduce learners to the world of children’s literature in various forms such as oral, written, visual, digital, and then select cases from Zimbabwe. The module will enable learners to interact with texts from different cultural and historical periods and appreciate how writers and performers in these periods imagined children. This module seeks to equip learners with skills of adapting and customising children’s literature in the digital space. Various techniques for adapting the literature for television and radio production will be tested. The module covers, among other things, the following issues; Introduction to children’s literature; Varieties of children’s literature and the analysis; Practice in children’s literature, digitilisation of children’s literature and Children’s literature in the digital era. |
| HLLIC410 | GIS Language Mapping | This module seeks to train students to develop language maps which are indispensable in language planning, policy and management. The module integrates GIS and language studies to produce a student how can use GIS skills to advance frontiers of knowledge in applied language studies. This module will equip students with skills to develop maps delineating language and dialect boundaries, i.e. isoglosses. It will also complement their skills need to trace language relatedness. |
