Sibeko Johannes - Project Coordinator
Email: johanness@mandela.ac.za | @Sibeko_JN
Academic Profile: applang.mandela.ac.za/Profiles/Johannes-Sibeko
Academic background and areas of specialisation
PhD, Master of Arts in Applied Language Studies, Honours Bachelor of Arts, Bachelor of Arts in Language Practice with Sesotho, Post Graduate Certificate in Education.
Areas of specialisation: His research interests have emerged from his teaching experiences and encompass topics such as multilingualism, with a specific focus on translanguaging and signage, as well as the assessment of creative writing, linguistic complexity, and text readability. Presently, he is pursuing his PhD studies at North-West University, engaging in an interdisciplinary project that draws from fields such as linguistics, digital humanities, and corpus linguistics. The ultimate aim of his PhD project is to create a metric for measuring the readability of Sesotho texts."
Primary research interests and areas of expertise within digital humanities
Corpus linguistics, Text readability
Background overview, research, and role within the hub
Johannes is one of the founding members of the Mandela DH Hub. He has been involved in the conceptualisation and development of the hub. He does his research in corpus linguistics and focuses on the development of the lower-resourced languages with a special focus on Sesotho .
Notable publications or research projects related to digital humanities
Journal Papers
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Ngcungca, N., & Sibeko, J. (2024). Unmasking Deception: An Exploratory Study of Viewers’ Attitudes Towards Romantic Betrayal. Journal of the Digital Humanities Association of Southern Africa, 5(1). https://doi.org/10.55492/dhasa.v5i1.5014
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Sibeko, J., & van Zaanen, M. (2024). Introduction to the Special Issue: “Digital Humanities for Inclusion”. Journal of the Digital Humanities Association of Southern Africa, 5(1). https://doi.org/10.55492/dhasa.v5i1.5008
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Sibeko, J. (2024). Harnessing Google Translations to Develop a Readability Corpus for Sesotho: An Exploratory Study. Journal of the Digital Humanities Association of Southern Africa, 5(1). https://doi.org/10.55492/dhasa.v5i1.5010
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Sibeko, J. and Van Zaanen, M. 2023. A data set of final year high school examination texts of South African home and first additional language subjects. Journal of Open Humanities Data, 9(1):9. https://doi.org/10.5334/johd.108
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Sibeko, J. 2023. Using classical readability formulas to measure text readability in Sesotho. Selected papers from the CLARIN Annual Conference 2022. Ed. by Tomaž Erjavec and Maria Eskevich. Linköping. Electronic Conference Proceedings, 198, pp. 120–132. DOI: https://doi.org/10.3384/ecp198012
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Sibeko, J. 2022. Exploring linguistic complexity of English First Additional Language Grade 12 and Grade 11 exam texts. Journal of the Digital Humanities Association of Southern Africa, 4(02): 1-11. https://doi.org/10.55492/dhasa.v4i02.4039
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Sibeko, J., 2021. A comparative analysis of grade 12 English home language and English first additional language linguistic complexity. Per Linguam, 37(2): 50-64. http://dx.doi.org/10.5785/37-2-97
Conference papers
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Sibeko, J. 2023. Developing Sesotho Readability Assessment: Challenges and Solutions. First Workshop on Readability for Low-Resourced Languages (RLRL 2023). 5 September 2023. ONLINE.
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Sibeko, J. and Lemeko, PA. 2023. Developing a Text Readability Corpus using Google Translate for Low-Resourced South African Indigenous Languages. Sol Plaatje University International Language Conference. 6 – 8 September 2023. Kimberley, Northern Cape, South Africa.
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Sibeko, J. and De Clercq, O. 2023. A Corpus-Based List of Frequently Used Words in Sesotho. Proceedings of the fourth workshop of Resources for African Indigenous Languages (RAIL), 2-6 May, Dubrovnik, Croatia. Association for Computational Linguistics.
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Sibeko, J. and Setaka, M. 2023. Evaluating the Sesotho rule-based syllabification system on Sepedi and Setswana words. Proceedings of the fourth workshop of Resources for African Indigenous Languages (RAIL), 2-6 May, Dubrovnik, Croatia. Association for Computational Linguistics.
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Sibeko, J. 2022. In Erjavec, T., and Eskevich, M (eds). CLARIN Annual Conference Proceedings, CLARIN Annual Conference Proceedings, 10-12 October, Prague, Czechia. [PhD student paper]. [ABSTRACT]
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Sibeko, J. and van Zaanen. 2022. Developing a text readability system for Sesotho based on classical readability metrics. Digital Humanities DH2022 conference: Responding to Asian Diversity. July, 25 – 29, 2022. University of Tokyo, Japan. [Short paper]. pp. 571 – 572. see https://dh2022.dhii.asia/dh2022bookofabsts.pdf
Basic Language Resource Kits (BLaRKs)
Contributions to the digital humanities hub
Organising committee member.
Collaboration with other members of the hub or external researchers
Johannes' collaborators include Mmasibidi Setaka and Menno van Zaanen of the South African Centre for Digital Language Resources. He also has international collaborators such as Orphée De Clercq from Ghent University.
Academic achievements, awards, or recognitions you've received in the field of digital humanities
Winner of the Best Paper at the Digital Humanities Association of Southern Africa's 2021 biennial conference.
Membership of any professional associations or organisations related to digital humanities
DHASA
Hundzula
Additional information
Johannes was the main organiser of the DHASA 2023 biennial conference. He was also chair of the LOC for the organising team for the Hundzula workshop for 2024.