Language and Ethnic Identity: More Perspectives from Africa
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Date
2012
Authors
Omondi, Hilda Kebeya
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Macrothink Institute
Abstract
Many studies on bilingual communities have tended to focus on contact between an
official/national language and one or more indigenous languages. In contrast this study
analyzes data from two unofficial indigenous languages in Kenya. From the analyses carried
out, it emerges that when Luo and Luyia languages are in contact there are three possible
outcomes: speech divergence, speech convergence and code switching. The Luo respondents
in this study are found to employ more speech divergence than their Luyia counterparts. As
regards speech convergence, Luyias outscore Luos. Code switching, which is characterized
by very low mean scores in the two ethnic groups, is the least preferred mode of
communication. This paper also establishes that each of the three strategies serves a different
social function. The goal of this paper is therefore to correlate three communication strategies
with ethnicity in order to show how language loyalties interplay with ethnicity in a rural
bilingual speech community in Africa. It is hoped that this research will shed more light on
the relationship between ethnicity and ethnic languages in bilingual speech communities.
Description
Article
Keywords
Speech divergence, Speech convergence, Code-Switching, Ethnicity
Citation
Omondi, H. K. (2012). Language and ethnic identity: More perspectives from Africa. International Journal of Linguistics, 4(3), 755-771.