Swahili Speakers Research Articles

Morpho-semantic analysis of contemporary Swahili speakers’ linguistic innovations on microloan names

Morpho-semantic analysis of contemporary Swahili speakers’ linguistic innovations on microloan names

Semantic Analysis of Swahili Action Verb “To cut”: A Natural Semantic Metalanguage Approach

This research paper aims to analyze the Swahili action verb “to cut” within the framework of Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM) theory. The study also seeks to identify other Swahili verbs that share similar semantic correlations. No research has been conducted on the verb “to cut” using the NSM model in Swahili. Therefore, this research is crucial in bridging the gap in the existing literature. Swahili holds a significant position as one of the official languages in Kenya, alongside English, making it prevalent in the region. To achieve the research objectives, a qualitative-descriptive research design methodology was employed. Native Swahili speakers were involved in the study, and selected texts were utilized as data sources. Through self-examination and careful analysis, a total of 22 Swahili verbs were identified to have comparable semantic correlates to the verb “to cut.” These verbs include kata, tahirisha, pogoa, tema, katisha, nyofoa, chuna, vunja, kuhasiwa, tenganisha, nyoa, keketa, chanja, punguza, fyeka, pasua, chana, chinja, katika, gawanya, chomoa, and ng’oa. The findings of this study reveal that the Swahili word for “cutting” is derived from the original meaning of “doing” or “happening.” In this context, X represents the agent, Y represents the patient, and Z represents the instrument used in the action of cutting. By exploring the semantic relationships of the verb “to cut” and identifying other verbs that share similar patterns, this research sheds light on the versatility and richness of the Swahili language verbs.

Analysis of Congratulation Strategies by Swahili Speakers in Response to Happy Occasions on Facebook Status Updates

This study investigated congratulatory comments posted on Facebook pages in response to H.E Samia Suluhu Hassan’s historic inauguration as the first female president of the United Republic of Tanzania, to determine strategies used by Kiswahili Facebook users to express their congratulations. Case study design was applied in this study. Data was collected through documentary review, where a sum of 200 congratulatory responses were extracted from selected Facebook accounts. The data were then coded based on Elwood’s (2004) congratulatory framework to obtain frequency and percentage of each strategy. The results showed five strategies for expressing congratulations, arranged from the most frequent to the least frequent: Illocutionary force indicating devices, religious expressions, offers of good wishes, speakers’ expression of their faith to the addressee and expressing encouragement. It is recommended that speakers should be familiar with how to express their congratulations to others based on the addressee’s cultural context as utterances used to express congratulations may differ from one culture to another. Failure to congratulate other people when they have delightful occasion is interpreted as being jealous and uncooperative.

The Dearth of Interaction about Taboo Themes between Swahili Males and Females: Is it Emanating from the Differences in Euphemisms Choice?

Swahili speakers confirm the presence of little interaction between males and females about taboo themes irrespective of the age of the interlocutors. The tendency is speculatively attributed to religion and patriarchy in society. However, a plausible cause, such as the difference in language use between males and females, had not been investigated before the current study. Consequently, the present study compared euphemism usage between Swahili male and female speakers on sex, sexual subjects, and other taboo subjects to correlate the communication tendencies and the amount of communication between the two genders. The tested null hypothesis was, “There is no significant difference in euphemism usage between male and female Swahili speakers." The t-test was based on data from 192 males and 192 females. The finding indicates that only three out of eleven taboo topics had gender-based discrepancies in the use of euphemisms among Swahili speakers. The result implies that the speech differences between males and females are not responsible for the shortfall of interaction about sensitive topics among Swahili speakers. In this regard, further correlational tests are suggested to establish the actual cause of this phenomenon which affects the welfare of society

Swahili language and literature as resources for Indian Ocean studies

AbstractIn this contribution, our common point of convergence as an anthropologist and a literary scholar is to see Swahili language, literature and other texts as interwoven with the depth, scope, and complex dynamics of human experience and social life on the East Africa coast, with its long history of Islam. This includes prominently a view as to how this relates or is integral to the larger Indian Ocean world. Swahili language and its genres have been shaped in relation to, and in context of, transregional interaction with other languages and traditions that carry influence, and significance for the coastal residents. Ideas, thoughts, arguments and verse are taken on, adapted, mediated and disseminated flexibly by Swahili speakers through language repertoires and (mostly poetic) genres in changing media. These range from oral performances and handwritten manuscripts to booklets, CD recordings, radio programs and social media platforms.

Metaphorical Construction of Marriage among Kenyan Swahili Speakers

This study investigates how Kenyans conceptualize marriage. It employs Metaphor Identification Procedure in identifying metaphors on marriage as they are used by Kenyan Swahili speakers. Data for this research is drawn from “Mawaidha na Bi. Msafwari” a programme aired on Citizen TV (a Kenyan TV station) every Saturday evening after the seven o’clock news. The metaphors are then subjected to analysis using The Conceptual Metaphor Theory. The study concludes that marriage is construed in different ways by Kenyan Swahili speakers, it is conceptualized as a house, an eatery, a prison, a school, a journey, a road, a body, a government/ kingdom, a garden, a war, a relationship and as a baby. The various conceptualizations by Kenyans determine their attitudes and general orientation towards marriage.

Reimagining Linguistic Heritage: Or How Mother Tongue Speakers Re‐Create Their Language

In this article, I engage the “language as heritage” trope to critically examine a popular belief that underlies it: the idea that a shared language primordially connects an individual to a group of people, a homogenous culture and a particular territory—the notion of the ethnolinguistic group. Judith T. Irvine has long urged linguistic anthropologists to problematize the linguistic side of these classifications, to recognize the ideologies that shape both scholarly language descriptions and speakers’ own interactional practices (often in response to those official depictions). Here, I take on this challenge by considering both the contrived colonial standardization process of East Africa’s Swahili language, and contemporary Swahili speakers’ creative resistances to scholarly descriptions of “their” linguistic heritage. Orthographic and interactional practices from speakers of KiAmu, a Swahili vernacular spoken in coastal Kenya, illustrate how speakers creatively attempt to make their vernacular more “like itself.” Rejecting (post)colonial perspectives of Swahili as a distinctly “African” language, they are reimagining their linguistic heritage and its associated belongings to appeal to alternative identities and histories, that have hybridity and transoceanic interconnectivity at their core.

The Role of Age and Exposure in English Vowel Perception and Production among Native Swahili Speakers

Vowel perceptual studies in Foreign Language Acquisition (FLA) settings where L1 is dominant are generally scarce. The aim of this study, therefore, is to explore the role of the age and exposure factors in the perception and production of English vowels [ɑ-ɜ; æ-ɑ; i-ɪ] by the native Swahili speakers whose exposure to the English language is through formal instruction in a predominantly FLA situation. The participants (n=40) were classified into two groups: Young learners and adult learners. Using Flege’s Speech Learning Model (SLM), we administered a vowel perception test, and a vowel production exercise. The results confirm that adult learners have an edge over younger learners whereby the former exhibited greater accuracy in determining vowel contrasts and production than the latter. Although both groups shared common difficulties in discriminating the vowel sounds, adult learners had recourse to their prolonged exposure and ingeniously used previously acquired knowledge and skills in sentence structure and meaning to aid discrimination in comparison to the younger learners. Finally, the study supports the SLM contention that adults retain capacities to acquire L1 to perceive the properties of L2 speech sounds and establish new phonetic categories.

Greatness is Like a Rubbish Hole: Social Frictions and Global Connections in the Early-Swahili World

This essay examines the tensions and uncertainties that developed out of the Swahili coast's interactions with the premodern Indian Ocean world. While mostanalyses of this period focus on East Africa's emerging cosmopolitanism—such as the formation of Islamic port cities—scholars have generally overlooked Swahili speakers' struggles over the social, religious, and economic changes brought by early moments of maritime connectivity. Employing evidence from historical linguistics, this essay shows that from the late-first millennium, Swahili speakers developed new ideas about patronage and status. They also created a lexical repertoire that expressed their apprehensions about rapid changes in social and economic life, including vocabulary to gossip with and abuse leaders and fellow town residents. Using this language evidence, this essay illuminates the frictions that Swahili speakers faced in their early encounters within Indian Ocean networks to demonstrate both the opportunities and the challenges born out of global interconnections.

The pragmatic functions of the marker sawa in spoken Swahili

This study examines the pragmatic functions of the marker sawa in spoken Swahili. The data have been obtained from informal conversations made by Swahili speakers in informal social settings. These settings include “vijiwe vya kahawa” (setting of informal conversations created around people drinking coffee) and “vijiwe vya mamantilie” (setting of informal conversations created around women preparing and selling food on the streets). The analysis of the data, performed within the framework of the contextualization theory (Gumperz 1982), shows that, apart from its basic connotation of agreement, the marker sawa conveys other meanings, depending on these very contexts of communication, and therefore acquires also various pragmatic functions. The pragmatic functions identified in this work include: to show that the speaker agrees with what has been said but on a condition (I agree, but…), as a receipt marker, as a tag-positioned-comprehension check, as an answer to the question showing that the speaker has understood what has been said (Yes, I understand), as a continuer, as a negative releasing marker, and as a gap filler. Interestingly, the study shows also that intonation and other paralinguistic features (like gestures) play a role in determining the pragmatic functions of this marker. The article concludes that the pragmatic markers in spoken Swahili are rich in meanings and are used to show speakers’ attitudes and emotions, therefore manifesting a deep and meaningful interconnection between the language and its contextualized experience.

Dhima za Kipragmatiki za Kialami Pragmatiki ‘ah’ katika Mazungumzo ya Kiswahili

This study examines the pragmatic functions of the pragmatic markers ah in spoken Kiswahili. The data has been obtained from informal conversations made by Swahili speakers in informal social settings. These include ‘vijiwe vya kahawa’ (setting of informal conversations created around people drinking coffee) and ‘vijiwe vya mamantilie’ (setting of informal conversations around women preparing and selling food on the streets). Using Conversation Analysis (Sacks, 1962) and Contextualization Theory (Gumpers, 1982), the results show that the pragmatic marker ah conveys different meanings depending on context of use and hence has various pragmatic functions. Among the pragmatic functions identified in this article are; to be used as gap filler (the interlocutor is thinking about what to say), is used to start the conversation, is used to disagree with what the other interlocutor has said, to show that the speaker has changed from the state of not knowing to the state of knowing (Now I get you) and to show exclamation. Interestingly, also, the study shows that intonation and other paralinguistic features (like gestures) play a role in determining the pragmatic functions of this marker. Generally, this article concludes that pragmatic markers in spoken Kiswahili are rich in meanings. Therefore, they are wealthy to be investigated.

The production of Norwegian tones by multilingual non-native speakers

Aim and objectives/purpose/research questions: The aim of this study is to examine the extent to which multilingual second language (L2) speakers of Norwegian manage to produce lexical pitch accents (L*H¯ or H*LH¯) as expected in natural spontaneous speech. Using native speech as a reference, we analyse realizations of multilingual speakers whose respective dominant languages are Lingala, a lexical tone language, and Swahili, a non-tonal language with fixed stress, and hypothesize that this difference might be reflected in the speakers’ competence in the East Norwegian tone system. Design/methodology/approach: We examined a corpus of spontaneous speech produced by eight L2 speakers and two native speakers of East Norwegian. Acoustic analysis was performed to collect fundamental frequency (f0) contours of 60 accentual phrases per speaker. Data and analysis: For LH and HLH tonal patterns, measuring points were defined for quantitative evaluation of f0 values. Relevant aspects investigated were (a) pattern consistency, (b) f0 dynamic range and (c) rate of f0 change. Pattern consistency data were statistically evaluated using chi-square testing. The dynamic range and rate of f0 change data were explored through to linear mixed effects models. Findings/conclusions: We found no really substantial differences between the speaker groups in the parameters we examined, neither between the L2 speakers and the Norwegian natives nor between the Lingala and Swahili speakers. Originality and significance/implications: This study is a contribution to the scarcely explored area of L2 acquisition of tones. It is concerned with languages that have received little or no attention in the field: Norwegian, Lingala and Swahili. Participants are multilinguals who have extensive language learning experience. Further, the study is based on a corpus of spontaneous speech.

Production and reproduction of Japanese pitch-accent by German, Italian, Vietnam, and Swahili speakers

Japanese pitch accent is lexically distinctive. JFL learners should know the position of the accent to pronounce the words correctly, which is said to be very difficult. In our experiment, we investigate the effectiveness of showing the accent mark to help learners’ pronunciations. We compared the ability of perception, production and reproduction of pitch accent by JFLs of four different languages. 42 Japanese words were presented on a PC screen and 30 subjects participated in three tasks of the experiments. Task 1 was to pronounce the words without any suggestion, task 2 was to imitate the model pronunciation with seeing the accent marks. Task 3 was to pronounce by just seeing the accent marks. The results of task 1 show the percentage of correct accent position was only around 40%, but it rose up to around 90 % in task 2 and fell again in task 3 but still significantly higher than in task 1. The results of task 1 showed different patterns of phonetic interference, task 2 showed that the subjects could ...

Constructing social norms: The pragmatics of multimodal quotation boundaries in spoken Swahili

The article examines the pragmatic meaning of direct quotation boundaries in Swahili. The application of conversation and discourse analysis to naturally occurring talk in media settings reveals that by avoiding reporting verbs, speakers manage to create an imagined participant framework involving co-present participants in a hypothetical dialog between ‘me’ and ‘you,’ which becomes an appropriate context for imperative verbs. In Searlean terms, these imperative verbs have a twofold function, namely the function of bald directives and of indirect representative speech acts. Speakers employ multimodal resources to signal to co-participants the pragmatic value of these speech acts. The coordinated use of verbally unframed quotations with imperative verbs proves to be a strategy with which Swahili speakers display their epistemic authority. By so doing, Swahili speakers are able to represent a personal stance as a societal moral norm and to contribute to the construction of social normativity through media discourse.

Assessment of speech in neurological disorders: Development of a Swahili screening test

Assessments for acquired motor-speech disorders that look at movements of the articulators would appear at first glance to be universal. This may be true for the most basic non-speech aspects of movement. We argue that assessments for speech motor control must be attuned to language-specific variables to be fully valid. We describe the rationale for, and development of a motor-speech-disorder screening test for Swahili speakers which includes impairment measures as well as measures of intelligibility and speech-voice naturalness. We further describe its initial validation in terms of content validity, feasibility of administration and scoring without requirements for lengthy training and technical expertise and application to groups of people with and without Parkinson's disease in Tanzania. Results indicate that the protocol is ready to use in so far as it is acceptable to users (clinicians, patients), is feasible to use, shows good interrater reliability, and is capable of differentiating performance in healthy speakers and those whose speech is disordered. We highlight needs for further development, including issues around training, development of local norms for healthy speakers and for speakers with a variety of neurological disturbances, and extension of the tool to cover culturally valid assessment of impact of communication disorders.

The ethnic label Zinjibari: Politics and language choice implications among Swahili speakers in Oman

The ethnic label Zinjibari in Omani society has various connotations that depend on who is using the term and about whom it is being used. Through participant observation and within the context of ethnolinguistic identity theory, this qualitative study aims to demonstrate how the label Zinjibari can function as an outgroup or ingroup label, as a mark of solidarity, as a term of prestige or as a slur. It is also proposed that these different connotations influence language choice among Oman’s Swahili speakers.

The limitations of language and nationality as prime markers of African Diaspora identities in the State of Victoria1

This paper suggests that African migrants in Australia are often seen as a homogenous group of people with very little if any difference among them. The popular line of thinking about who Africans are appears to go like this: because they all look alike (by virtue of the colour of their skin), originate from the same continent (Africa) and are presumed to be speakers of perceived ‘standard’ African languages, then their behaviours, their needs, their attitudes and the things they are capable of doing (or not capable of doing) are the same. Language and country of origin are the two major taxonomies often used to classify different groups of African communities in Australia. The premise of this paper is that defining African identities in terms language and country of origin is defective in the sense that it is mimicry of identity categories invented by colonial and postcolonial regimes in Africa. Such generic terms as ‘African migrants’, ‘Sudanese refugees’, ‘Ethiopian community’, ‘Amharic community’, ‘Swahili speakers’, ‘Dinka community’, etc., are not exhaustive and precise enough because they overshadow more salient micro‐level forms of diversity within what are presumed to be homogenous groups of people.

Swahili gestures: comments (vielezi) and exclamations (viingizi)

In this paper a number of gestures used by Kenya coastal Swahili speakers is described. We describe gestures that are associated with speech in various ways ranging from some requiring speech as they are performed to others referred to via verbs or phrases which are performed non-verbally. We attempt to place the verbal-dependent gestures on a continuum of verbal—non-verbal communication. We also describe verbally-independent gestures and gesturally independent speech forms that function similarly in discourse.