The linguistic-cultural impact of the institutional repository of North-West University, South Africa

Abstract

This paper analyses the content of the North West University Institutional Repository (NWU-IR), also known as Boloka - a term that means “to save” in the Setswana language. The paper uses the documents hosted by Boloka to determine her representation of languages and culture. The research methods employed are informetrics and content analysis. It was found that Boloka has scant Setswana language and cultural representation as only 7 out of 21389 (0.033%) documents digitised are in this marginalised language. Its Afrikaans representation was found to be commendable as 4705 out of 21389 (22%) documents are in Afrikaans. The repository has excellent English language representation as more than 77% (16521 out of 21389) of documents digitized are in English. Three non-official languages in South Africa, Dutch (with 91 or 0.43% documents), German (with 14 or 0.07% documents), and French (with 10 or 0.047% documents) have more influence on Boloka than Setswana. Based on the scant Setswana representation, the paper argues that Boloka has minimal impact on this language and culture.