Motivation, Morpho-Phonological Processes in Egesembesa Argot among Ekegusii-Speaking Males of Western Kenya

Abstract

This study was an analysis of the morpho-phonological process that helps achieve secrecy in Egesembesa, an argot among Ekegusii-speaking males of Western Kenya. The study also investigated the motivation of the use of this argot. The objectives of this study were to: find out why Ekegusii male-speakers use Egesembesa instead of Ekegusii; identify the morphological processes that nouns, verbs, adverbs, adjectives undergo to achieve the argot; and identify the phonological structure of nouns, verbs, adverbs, adjectives in Egesembesa. Descriptive design was adopted in this study. The target population was Ekegusii-speaking males of age 15 and above. Purposive sampling and snowballing were the sampling procedures used. The work was based on lexical phonology and structural functionalism theories Questionnaire and tape-recording were the instruments of data collection. The former captured information about motivation for use of the argot and also its morphological form while the latter captured the phonological aspects of the argot. Frequency tables and descriptive analysis were the instruments of data analysis. The following findings emerged: Egesembesa speakers are motivated by social factors to use the argot instead of Ekegusii; Egesembesa is achieved through the processes of infixation, suffixation, vowel transfer, and syllable swop. Other processes are; syllable shift, syllable retention and vi syllable deletion and replacement. The argot distorts Ekegusii phonotactics, hence secrecy is achieved and kept among speakers. This study concluded with a highlight of the morpho-syntactic, phonological, semantic and sociolinguistic significance of the argot. It recommended that, linguists put more interest in research on Ekegusii. Secondly, that pedagogic texts writers for lower primary factor the findings of this research to make them relevant in this (Ekegusii) dynamic linguistic situation.