{"title":"Borrowed Discourse-Pragmatic Features in Kenyan English","authors":"Loveluck Muro, F. Unuabonah","doi":"10.1080/10228195.2022.2099959","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"Abstract This article explores five discourse-pragmatic features—si, sijui, eish, kumbe, and kweli—which are borrowed from African languages into Kenyan English, in order to examine their sources, meanings, frequencies, spelling adaptation, collocational patterns, positioning, syntactic distribution, and discourse-pragmatic functions. The data, which are extracted from the Kenyan components of the International Corpus of English-East Africa and the Global Web-based English corpus, are analysed quantitatively and qualitatively, from a postcolonial corpus pragmatic framework. The results show that the borrowed discourse-pragmatic features are infrequent, orthographically stable, favour clause-initial position, and rarely co-occur with other discourse-pragmatic features. Si, sijui, and kweli are pragmatic markers used to request confirmation of shared knowledge, indicate uncertainty, and emphasise the truth value in a proposition, respectively. Eish and kumbe are interjections which are mainly used to express emotions of irritation and surprise, respectively. This study extends the research on the discourse-pragmatic features of Kenyan English.","PeriodicalId":43882,"journal":{"name":"Language Matters","volume":" ","pages":"3 - 22"},"PeriodicalIF":0.5000,"publicationDate":"2022-05-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"2","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Language Matters","FirstCategoryId":"98","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1080/10228195.2022.2099959","RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"0","JCRName":"LANGUAGE & LINGUISTICS","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 2
Abstract
Abstract This article explores five discourse-pragmatic features—si, sijui, eish, kumbe, and kweli—which are borrowed from African languages into Kenyan English, in order to examine their sources, meanings, frequencies, spelling adaptation, collocational patterns, positioning, syntactic distribution, and discourse-pragmatic functions. The data, which are extracted from the Kenyan components of the International Corpus of English-East Africa and the Global Web-based English corpus, are analysed quantitatively and qualitatively, from a postcolonial corpus pragmatic framework. The results show that the borrowed discourse-pragmatic features are infrequent, orthographically stable, favour clause-initial position, and rarely co-occur with other discourse-pragmatic features. Si, sijui, and kweli are pragmatic markers used to request confirmation of shared knowledge, indicate uncertainty, and emphasise the truth value in a proposition, respectively. Eish and kumbe are interjections which are mainly used to express emotions of irritation and surprise, respectively. This study extends the research on the discourse-pragmatic features of Kenyan English.
期刊介绍：
The purpose of Language Matters is to provide a journal of international standing with a unique African flavour focusing on multilingualism in Africa. Although the journal contributes to the language debate on all African languages, sub-Saharan Africa and issues related to multilingualism in the southern African context are the journal’s specific domains. The journal seeks to promote the dissemination of ideas, points of view, teaching strategies and research on different aspects of African languages, providing a forum for discussion on the whole spectrum of language usage and debate in Africa. The journal endorses a multidisciplinary approach to the study of language and welcomes contributions not only from sociolinguists, psycholinguists and the like, but also from educationalists, language practitioners, computer analysts, engineers or scholars with a genuine interest in and contribution to the study of language. All contributions are critically reviewed by at least two referees. Although the general focus remains on multilingualism and related issues, one of the three issues of Language Matters published each year is a special thematic edition on Language Politics in Africa. These special issues embrace a wide spectrum of language matters of current relevance in Southern Africa.
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