Author: Mieke Hofmeyr
Ms Andiswa Bukula is the isiXhosa Researcher for SADiLaR. As a researcher, she is passionate about her field of research and works towards a better future for the isiXhosa language in a digital learning space.
She is currently working on two articles. One with Dr. Roald Eiselen on the use of Named Entity Recognizers in the isiXhosa. The second article which she will be submitting for the writing retreat in June, is with a colleague from UNISA, Mlamli Diko, which will be looking at the representation of female characters in the isiXhosa drama book, Indlala inamanyala.
“I recently resubmitted a final copy of an abstract that was accepted for the “Disrupting Digital Monolingualism” workshop in June at Kings College which will now be a virtual workshop taking place on the 17th and 26th of June,” says Ms Bukula.
One of the areas of research that is particularly interesting to her is the influence that multilingualism has on the quality of Higher Education. She says that it is important to her to try to see and find ways in which South African indigenous languages could be developed so that they are in a better standard for better research opportunities.
On the topic of Digital Humanties Ms Bukula believes the following:
“Digital Humanities in Africa will allow for more collaborations across borders and not limit the type of research that is done within the African context.”
She further says that Digital Humanities related projects will assist with the preservation of African text, which can be also digitized and used in digital research and projects.
