Intercultural Relations

Rosalie Finlayson was born in Grahamstown on July 13, 1943. During her formative years in the Eastern Cape , she acquired a communicative competence in Xhosa. She matriculated at the Victoria Girls' High School in Grahamstown, where she was head girl in 1961. Her studies at the University of Cape Town were influenced by her earlier language competency and interest in the field of African Studies in general and African Languages in particular. She augmented her Xhosa (isiXhosa) competency with courses in Southern Sotho (Sesotho), Zulu (isiZulu), Venda (Tshivenda) and Karanga (ChiKaranga).

Her years of doctoral study at the University of London ' s School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), also included Bemba (ChiBemba), Tswana (Setswana), Northern Sotho (Sesotho sa Leboa), Zezuru (ChiZezuru) and Swahili (KiSwahili).

Her post-doctoral research has focussed on the role of language in society (sociolinguistics) as well as on comparative language studies. More recently she has jointly coordinated a Literary Competition for the Pan South African Language Board (PanSALB) as well as coordinating a project aimed at establishing a Who's Who of African Language Scholars and a Database on Training and Development for the Association of African Universities (AAU).

She is also the convenor of a Task Team directed by Unisa's Council to address multilingualism at Unisa. As Deputy Chairperson of the Pan South African Language Board, she serves on the Minister of Arts, Culture, Science and Technology's Advisory Board on Human Language Technologies. She is also on a National Research Foundation (NRF) Advisory Committee on Research Capacity Development as part of the Historically Black University Programme.

She also serves on the Ministry of Education's Task Team to advise on the Development of Indigenous African Languages as Mediums of Instruction in Higher Education. She has been evaluated as an established researcher by the NRF at level C2 in the evaluation and rating process. She received a UNISA Chairperson of Council Award for Excellence in the category outstanding scholar in 2003.

She is married to Ken and they have two daughters, Suzanne who is a specialist general practitioner and Katherine who works for an international investment bank.