User:Alick
Alick Kadango Bwanali
Alick Bwanali works with the Centre for Language Studies as a language specialist responsible for Chichewa. A holder of a masters degree in applied linguistics, Mr Bwanali hails from Mbuna Village in traditional authority Mazengera's area, in the capital of Malawi, Lilongwe. His mother's and his own first language is Malawi's national language, Chichewa. His father is a Yawo from Mayani in Dedza, hence his Yawo name Kadango Bwanali. He is married to Linda NyaGondwe, a Tumbuka from the Nkhamanga Kingdom, at Borero. Because of his parental and family's linguistic background, he speaks Chichewa, Ciyawo and Citumbuka. Alick did his primary school at the Dzalanyama LEA school in the Dzalanyama range forest reserve, Lilongwe where his father worked with the forest department. He attended Mtendere secondary from 1988 to 1992 before being selected to the University of Malawi Chancellor College in 1992 to pursue a bachelor of education, majoring in English and Linguistics. Upon graduating in 1997, he taught English and Chichewa at Zomba Catholic Secondary School. He joined the Centre for Language Studies on July 1, 1998. He has done a lot of work in translation, dictionary compilation, editing, teaching of Chichewa to non-native speakers, research and language related services. His current area of focus is Health Communication particularly on HIV and AIDS. His recent work in this area includes a research study on the evaluation of HIV and AIDS information, education and communication materials in Malawi. A report is available on request. The findings of the study were disseminated at a Language and HIV and AIDS Conference in January 2008. Mr Bwanali has also facilitated a number of conferences and workshops and published several articles and papers. See CV. He is currently studying for his PhD at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) Trondheim, Norway. His area of focus is Terminography for HIV and AIDS. The focus of his thesis is HIV and AIDS related terminology in Chichewa using indigenous knowledge. This is in response to the growing need for local terms in HIV and AIDS educational campaigns. Studies have revealed that most HIV and AIDS advocacy campaigns face the challenge to educate about HIV and AIDS in languages which are not fully developed to express the necessary scientific and technical information. The study intends to use TypeCraft as documentation tool. This page will periodically give you an update on the progress of the studies. Mr Bwanali's PhD program is funded by the QUOTA Scheme and NUFU.
Spring 2008
I arrived in Trondheim Norway on 17th February 2008. I have been working on improving my proposal which is due end of May 2008. I will take a short course in Lexicography at the University of Aarhus, Denmark from 5th to 7th May. I hope this course will assist me beef up the proposal. Nordling and Malex will support my attendance.
I have been working on Typecraft - added to the development of the Malex TCwiki pages, and I have annotated Chichewa phrases. Annotation hasn't been easy, but I think I am getting there. I need time and patience. Later we will install TC at CLS, so I can spend more time in Malawi with the family.
I expect to return to Malawi in June for summer vacation. I will also collect data and make some ontologies before returning to Trondheim, possibly in September or October 2008.
I must collect as many terms as possible on HIV and AIDS (English and Chichewa) and examine their linguistic characteristics.