My field of study is social semiotics.
My main research interests include orality, indigenous knowledge(s), toponymic inscriptions, orality and the linguistic landscape of sparsely populated areas.
The Broken String
The Broken String is a documentary film that offers a somber reflection of past and current injustices endured by the Bushman in South Africa. The film’s name is repurposed from the title of a poem by Dia!kwain (David Hoesar) who was a /Xam speaking Bushman. The poem is an expression of pain and emptiness following a loss.
The film skilfully weaves the testimonies of! Aru |’Khuisi Piet Berendse and Hans Springbok with Dia!kwain’s poem. In this film, researcher, Lorato Mokwena conversates with !Aru|’Khuisi Piet Berendse and Hans Springbok about the multi-layered oppression endured by the Bushman during Apartheid.
The Routledge Handbook of Language and the Global South/s
This Handbook centers on language(s) in the Global South/s and the many ways in which both “language” and the “Global South” are conceptualized, theorized, practiced, and reshaped.
Blurring the boundaries between ‘urban’ and ‘rural’
The paper focuses on how residents in rural environments draw on a hybrid repertoire of rural and urban spatial markers and strategies in producing oral route directions and inventing oral street names.
Modified road traffic signs in the South African Linguistic Landscape
Drawing on the linguistic landscape material of modified road traffic signs in different areas of South Africa, the article illustrates how modified traffic road signs continue to have situated contextual meanings regardless of altered physical placement or content.
“As long as I understand the customers, I will answer them…”
This book chapter aims to explore the extent to which a multicultural and multinational institution such as the tuckshop and its de facto linguistic landscape language policy challenges the notion of languages as neatly boxed objects.
Commodification of African languages
This article shows how indigenous African languages and localised English are entangled as commodities – whether used independently or in hybridised form – for the sale of various goods and services.
Birds and Bees, the ‘R’ word and Zuma’s penis.
This article explores the online censorship strategies used by SowetanLive readers in the comments section.
Lorato Mokwena 