Natasha Ravyse

Biography

Natasha Ravyse is currently working as Lecturer (Faculty of Humanities) in North-West University, South Africa.

Research Interest

My research career started in 2012 when I completed my honours degree in literature and published an article concerned with the immersive and repulsive effects in A Clockwork Orange, part of which involved my first encounter with fictional sub-cultural language entitled ‘Nadsat: The oscillation between reader immersion and repulsion’ .  I focus on sub-cultural languages and understanding their role and function in society by applying and reconceptualising traditional mainstream language theories.  Currently, for my PhD, I explore issues surrounding linguistic vitality from a sub-cultural perspective. I worked as a high school teacher of English in South Africa and was head of department in a Saturday school as part of a type of NGO.  I started to work at the NWU (VTC) in 2013.  I also work as an independently contracted editor for C-Trans.  Currently, I am a member of UPSET, a research focus area that studies the understanding and processing of languages in complex settings.  I specifically am part of the sub-programme in Multilingualism and Applied Language studies in UPSET.    In 2014, I received my MA in English, for which I received the institutional award for the best MA dissertation at the NWU in 2014 for my work on Fanagalo as a sub-cultural language.  My supervisor, Professor Susan Coetzee-van Rooy was the first receiver of the award for her MA study in 1993.  As stated, I am currently busy with my PhD in Linguistics and Literary Theory.