Zimbabwe's 2002 presidential election shall remain a fertile field of study for scholars in various areas of enquiry including rhetoric, the art of persuasive communication. The main reason for this is that the election generated so much controversy and interest, both locally and internationally. It is also true to say that this election attracted much more attention than ever before because of the emergence of a vibrant opposition party that offered the stiffest challenge to the incumbent president since the attainment of independence in 1980.The attention of scholars in rhetoric is drawn by the huge volume of rhetorical discourse produced in this election whose aim was to persuade voters to vote for a particular presidential candidate. It is the aim of this paper to examine the role negative advertising or persuasive attack played during the campaign period leading to the March 2002 presidential election. It provides a qualitative rhetorical analysis of major negative advertisements that were frequently used by the main contending parties, the ruling ZANU (PF) party and the opposition party, the MDC, in order to discredit the opponent. The researcher used mainly the print media as sources of the adverts that are analysed in this paper. The study shows that both negative candidate theme and issue (policy) theme advertisements were meant to induce negative images of the presidential candidates in the voters' minds. The central theme in the ruling party's negative advertising was that the opposition party leader was a sell-out or a stooge of imperialists who wanted to reverse the gains of the liberation war. On the other hand, the opposition party's negative advertising held the incumbent responsible for the socio-economic and political quagmire the country was in. The article argues that the sponsors of these advertisements believed that attack advertising played a significant role in influencing candidate choice.

This study investigated tertiary lecturers' and students' perceptions and preferences on the provision of Corrective Feedback (CF) in the English as a Second Language (ESL) classroom at the Namibia University of Science and Technology. The study focused on students' speaking and writing skills in the Language in Practice English course. The findings revealed that both lecturers and students perceive CF as an essential aspect of developing ESL productive skills. Both lecturers and students were of the perception that CF is more focused on English grammar than form. Students preferred more correction than their lecturers provided. Both lecturers and students concurred that metalinguistic feedback is the best practice for CF in English. The contribution this study made is the ten-stage Intervention Model that works towards the effectiveness of ESL CF at tertiary level in Namibia. The model recommends that lecturers should carefully scrutinise the specific ESL target language features; practise a variety of suitable CF techniques; and cater for individual students' specific needs and preferences in learning English as a Second Language at tertiary level. Keywords: corrective feedback; perceptions; preferences; intervention model Significance of the studyError correction and provision of feedback are important aspects of L2 teaching and learning, because making errors is actually inevitable in the language learning process. The major focus of this paper is to present the ten-stage Intervention Model that is proposed for the effectiveness of English as a Second Language (henceforth ESL) Corrective Feedback (henceforth CF). The purpose of the study was to seek answers to the following research questions: 1) How do ESL lecturers and students perceive CF at tertiary level? 2) How do ESL tertiary level students respond to the CF provided to their errors? 3) What do ESL lecturers and students prefer as far as error treatment practice is concerned and why? 4) How can ESL students' errors be treated to promote the correct use of the English language? It is therefore imperative to first look at how the findings respond to these research questions before the presentation of the Intervention Model. Findings of the StudyThe findings revealed that CF for both speaking and writing skills is perceived by both lecturers and students as an essential aspect of developing ESL productive skills. Generally reporting, half the number of ESL lecturer participants in the present study reported to be confident with how they deal with their students' errors, while the other half showed that they sometimes hesitate and experience trouble with correcting errors of their students. Otherwise, the results illustrated that, overall, CF for both spoken and written errors takes place one way or another, in the ESL class.

<p><em>This paper explored the application of hedges and boosters in all ten theses of the Master of Arts in English Studies submitted and examined at the University of Namibia between 2014 and 2015. A mixed research approach was chosen because of the descriptive nature of this study. This method also gave an in-depth understanding of issues such as why research writers prefer some types of hedging and boosting devices over the others, and why some theses chapters have certain types of hedges and boosters. The study only examined three chapters of the theses: the Introduction, Discussion, and Conclusion. Hyland’s (2004) taxonomy of hedges and boosters was used to analyse the types of hedges and boosters used. Kaplan’s (1997) Contrastive Rhetoric Theory was used to explain how researchers use hedges and boosters to express their uncertainties and certainties respectively. The study revealed that writers prefer Type 3 of hedges and boosters in all the three chapters. It further revealed that there is an unequal distribution of hedges and boosters among writers. Finally, the paper concluded that the preference of Type 3 may have been caused by the fact that since Type 3 does not have boosting devices writers find it less threatening to employ it in order to conform to the accepted academic writing style. The unequal distribution may also suggest that writers in academic discourse are not proficient in the English language.</em></p>

Reading Morrison’s The Bluest Eye, Tar Baby, Paradise and A Mercy through the lens of Bakhtin reveals identity construction as a dialogic endeavour. While this method may be necessary for character development, it serves the further purpose of making an ethical case for the self’s responsibility to others. This paper considers key theoretical instruments, as enabled by Bakhtin, in relation to Morrison’s treatment of naming and other character constructing elements. It is ultimately Morrison’s construction of identity as dialogical which enables the argument that Morrison’s fiction offers an ethics in the interest of the other. Writing about the marginalised, the abused and the voiceless reveals Morrison’s oeuvre is unmistakably an ongoing engagement with the injustice of slavery and its political, economic, social and psychological aftermath. The relevance of this article lies in its analysis of Morrison’s fiction as an antidote which challenges the self’s “self-interest”, which is at the heart of injustice. This study’s primary contribution is in articulating Morrison’s portrayal of the self’s identity construction as an inescapable dialogism that forms the foundation to a philosophy that promotes greater humaneness, given the other is not separate from the self, but in fact, integral to the self.

No abstract