A Critical Discourse Analysis of Women’s Silence amongst the Banyakitara

Abstract

The Banyakitara cultures today bring together the Banyankore, Bakiga, Banyoro, and Batooro people of Western Uganda. These are modern era Bantu remnants of the ancient Bunyoro-Kitara kingdom which at the height of its expansion, extended from the Karagwe area in Tanzania to the northern shores of Lake Kyoga. Among the Banyakitara, the women were typically assigned a subordinate status in the home and they in turn were inclined to use their silence for expressing submission, consent, indifference, and objection according to each situation. Based on the foregoing, the overall objective of this qualitative study which is based on conversational interviews was to interpret women’s silence among the Banyakitara, with a focus on the Banyankore- Bakiga. This overall objective was supported by specific ones aimed at investigating the linguistic, cultural, and ideological significance of women’s silence using the Critical Discourse Analysis approach. In the final part, the researcher also applied the African Feminist Framework to gauge whether women’s silence is a projection of the muting of their voices and whether public silence has private outlets within the power relations framing gendered discourse among the Banyakitara