Browsing by Author "Mapunda, Gastor"
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Item An Analysis of Language Use in the Tanzania’s 2010 Pre-election Newspaper Headlines in the Swahili Press(African Review, 2015) Mapunda, Gastor; Keya, Antoni MThe current paper undertakes a discourse analysis of the front page newspaper headlines of two Tanzanian Swahili weekly newspapers, Mzalendo (Patriot) and Mwanahalisi (Unfeigned child) during the 2010 pre-election period with a view to showing how the press headline discourse in different ways constructs social identities and how these in turn act to influence readers’ voting decisions. The data used comes from ten issues of the two newspapers. The analysis is informed by the Faircloughian three-dimensional framework incorporating: text, discursive practice, and social practice. The main finding is that the writers of both newspaper headlines used alike discursive methods such as selection of particular lexical items and syntactic manipulation with the intent of simultaneously vilifying the contestant viewed by the newspaper as the opponent while at the same time endorsing the one it was supporting. It is recommended that the public understands the strategies for them to make informed decisions.Item An Analysis of the Vitality of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of the Ngoni People of Tanzania: Lessons for other Ethnolinguistic Groups(Nordic Journal of African Studies, 2015-12) Mapunda, GastorThe current article looks at the vitality of the intangible cultural heritage of the Ngoni ethnolinguistic group of southern Tanzania to show how a contact situation combined with internal dynamics in the community shape the future of intangible cultural heritage of the group. Using questionnaire, interview and observation methods the findings show that there is insufficient intergeneration transfer. The study does so by studying how intergeneration transfer of values such as language use, knowledge of stories, taboos, dances, sayings, and rituals among the youth is indicative of their level of vitality. Additionally, the ever-increasing contact between Ngoni and Swahili cultures affects the situation and makes the future blurred and hazy. Some aspects of the intangible cultural heritage have been more affected than others, which may suggest their eventual disappearance. In such a situation, documenting such traditional values seems to be the most plausible action before they finally perish altogether.Item BORROWING IN TANZANIAN NGONI LEXICON:SOME SEMANTIC TRENDS IN A LANGUAGE(Language Matters: Studies in the Languages, 2015-09-01) Mapunda, Gastor; Rosendal, ToveThe Tanzanian language Ngoni has interacted for long with Swahili, which is the more prestigious and dominant lingua franca in Tanzania. This language contact situation affects Ngoni, which frequently borrows terms from Swahili, both for concepts which are new to the Ngoni speakers, but also terms which replace existing Ngoni vocabulary. This paper investigates how borrowed words are integrated, based on a framework including semantic generalisation, specialisation and shift. The study is based on fieldwork conducted in the Songea District in the Ruvuma Region of Tanzania, in the three villages of Peramiho, Kilagano and Mhepai. It was found that borrowing was most frequent in the semantic fields ‘modern world’, ‘food and drink’ and ‘clothing and grooming’. Additive borrowing was found to be more frequent than substitutive. Only semantic widening of borrowed terms was attested. However, combined with a tendency of replacement of old Ngoni terms with both Swahili and Ngoni hypernyms, it indicates that speakers’ competence of the language is waning. This loss of competence may additionally be linked to a more general attrition of Ngoni culture and traditions, which may affect language maintenanceItem Complementarity of communicative modes on meaning making in Tanzania’s digital telecom marketing: A social semiotic multimodal perspective(Taylor and Francis, 2022-03-07) Ilonga, Emmanuel; Mapunda, GastorThis article examines the complementarity of the communicative modes for making meaning in digital telecom advertisements. Using a social semiotic multimodal approach in its data analysis, we utilise the metafunction and composition frameworks for the interpretation and discussion. The study shows that advert makers incorporate various modes which represent real-life objects and experiences to promote products and services. The modes establish and reinforce marketing and social relationships between makers and potential customers. In the adverts, visual modes are often elaborated on through texts. In composition, the study shows that advertisers utilise various patterns in organising the modes. The makers also use various compositional properties to indicate the prominence of the modes. In addition, they deploy discrete frames to separate units of information. As such, the combination of all these modes as an integrated system in the digital telecom advertisements enables the makers to negotiate meaning with consumers.Item Contact-induced Language Alternation in Tanzanian Ngoni – An Empirical Study of Frequency and Patterns(2016-03-10) Rosendal, Tove; Mapunda, GastorThe codeswitching pattern is different in rural Tanzania compared to urban agglomerations around the world. Even in very rural areas people in Tanzania are bilingual in Swahili, the national and local lingua franca, and their own first language. The result of this language contact is understudied and has only recently been focused on. This paper presents quantitative and qualitative results of a study of the language Ngoni in contact with Swahili. The study is based on photo elicitations about traditional artefacts and their use in one semi-urban and one remote rural village in Songea District, Ruvuma Region. Codeswitching is the unmarked choice among the Ngoni subsistence farmers in the area, even for old persons living in remote villages. The quantitative results are summed in relation to socio-demographic factors. Additionally, possible social and psycholinguistic factors, such as triggering, are discussed. The results give reason to concern regarding the future of Ngoni.Item Corpus-based Analysis of Academic Writing Errors by First Year Tanzanian University Students: Cases from UDSM, SUA and TUICO(2014-12) Mapunda, Gastor; Mafu, Safari, T.The study looked into errors committed by first year university students in three universities in Tanzania. While errors can be indicative of a developmental stage in the learning of a second language, formal English language learning in Tanzania culminates at the secondary school level and, for some, at the university level. For many at the University level, a related subject is Communication Skills. As such, one would expect students at this level to learn advanced communication skills. Students‘ essays were analyzed, errors identified, and discussed. The findings show that, besides errors in writing skills in terms of the mechanics and logic, there were many other types of errors from improperly learnt structures, language transfer, and unclear expression. It is suggested here that something needs to be done regarding the content of curricula and pedagogical processes both in secondary and tertiary education. Since the errors made were from first year university students, they must have had their origin in secondary and primary schools where the students have come from. We are of the view that, when students come to the university, they should be subjected to screening to identify their communication skills problems so as to expose them to relevant remedial classes.Item CORPUS-BASED ANALYSIS OF ERRORS COMMITTED BY FIRST YEAR TANZANIAN UNIVERSITY STUDENTS IN ACADEMIC WRITING: CASES FROM UDSM, SUA AND TUICO(Journal of Linguistics and Language in Education, 2014-12) Mapunda, Gastor; Mafu, Safari, T.The study looked into errors committed by first year university students in three universities in Tanzania. While errors can be indicative of a developmental stage in the learning of a second language, in Tanzania formal English language learning culminates at the secondary school level, and for some at the university level. For many, at the University level a related subject is Communication Skills. As such one would expect students at this level to learn advanced communication skills. Students’ essays were analyzed and errors identified, and then discussed. The findings show that, besides errors in writing skills in terms of the mechanics and logic, there were many other types of errors from improperly learnt structures, language transfer and unclear expression. It is suggested here that something needs to be done with regard to the content of curricular and pedagogical processes both in secondary and tertiary education. Since the errors made were from first year university students, they must have their origins in secondary and primary schools where they had come from. We are of the view that when students come to the university they should be subjected to screening to identify their communication skills problems.Item Imagined Futures and New Technology: Youths’ Language Attitudes in Songea, Tanzania(Taylor & Francis, 2021-05-07) Mapunda, Gastor; Rosendal, Tovesecondary school students in Songea, Tanzania, with a focus on identity and access to digital technology. The study involved 467 secondary school students aged 14–21 years. The data were collected through questionnaires and interviews. Less than half of the students had access to digital technology. Most of them lacked the required linguistic resources. English, a challenge to most students, and, to some extent, even Swahili, are seen as tools for future possibilities and success. Students invest in learning English and want to go abroad. Lack of resources notwithstanding, students’ decisions to invest in learning a particular language is mostly influenced by imagined possibilities. Structural inequalities and socioeconomic differences impact both language skills and the use of digital tools. Consequently, digital resources using mainly English and difficult Swahili terminology become an exclusion mechanism for many Tanzanian secondary school students.Item ‘Languages don’t have bones, so you can just break them’: rethinking multilingualism in education policy and practice in Africa(Oxford University Press, 2022-06-21) Reilly, C; Bagwasi, MM; Costley, T; Gibson, H; Kula, N; Mapunda, Gastor; Mwansa, JMultilingualism is widespread amongst individuals and communities in African countries. However, language-in-education policies across the continent continue to privilege monolingual approaches to language use in the classroom. In this paper we highlight the colonial origins of these monolingual ideologies and discuss the detrimental effects which arise when learners’ linguistic repertoires are not welcomed within the education system. We draw attention to major themes within education across a range of contexts: policy vagueness, teachers as policy implementers, and the creation and imposition of boundaries. We advocate for a language-in-education approach which brings the outside in, which welcomes individuals’ lived multilingual realities and which values these as resources for learning. We highlight the ways in which translanguaging could represent a positive shift to the way in which multilingual language practices are talked about, and can contribute to decolonising language policy in African contexts. We conclude by calling to action those working on education and policy to ensure that learners and teachers are better supported. We call ultimately for a rethinking of multilingualism.Item Lexical Innovation through Swahilisation of English Lexicon in Online Advertisements(BRILL, 2022-06-24) Mapunda, Gastor; Ilonga, EmmanuelMorpho-phonological nativisation and syntactic applications of Kiswahili loanwords appear throughout telecommunication businesses’ advertisements, as can be collected from such companies’ Facebook pages. Word-by-word and line-by-line coding and analysis reveal a richness in the borrowing process and its implications for the contemporary Kiswahili lexicon. Apparently, nouns are more inclined to be borrowed than words from other grammatical categories, with loanwords from English expanding the meaning of items, and in some cases substituting those items in the lexicon of the receiving language. Phonologically, accommodation of loanwords includes syllabic adjustments, vowel addition, consonant assimilation, and consonant deletion – these and other linguistic strategies play an important role in the nativisation process of ubiquitous items in the online vocabulary familiar to users of the world wide web. Syntactically, loanwords appear in interrogatives, conditionals, and imperatives, as well as in non-sentential constructions. In turn, these borrowings constitute a significant portion of the ongoing nativisation processes that contribute to the future of the Kiswahili lexicon.Item Names of Contemporary Wooden Boats of Coastal East Africa: Origins and Meanings(Taylor & Francis, 2022-04-12) Ichumbaki, EB; Mapunda, Gastor; Cooper, JP; Mark, SR; Mjema, EA; Blue, L; Biginagwa, TJThe coast of eastern Africa, commonly referred to as the Swahili coast, has a rich artisanal heritage of boats — both in their building and use. This iconic history is marked by the presence of various boat types that have historically been used for fishing and transporting people and cargo between coastal settlements (of eastern Africa), the islands of Zanzibar, Pemba, Mafia, Comoros, Madagascar, and other distant parts of the Indian Ocean world. Currently, the sailing boats such as the double-outrigger logboat (ngalawa), various plank-built craft, and several other types, line the shores of Tanzania, Kenya, Mozambique, Somalia and the islands of Zanzibar, Mafia and the Comoros. Some of these boats, almost all locally built, have names, decorations, and engravings. However, the boats’ names, decorations and engravings alongside the conveyed message(s) have remained undocumented. Thus, taking a maritime-heritage perspective, and by focusing on the nineteenth century historic port town of Bagamoyo in Tanzania, this paper documents the boats’ names and the messages they carry.Item Ngoni People's Attitudes towards the Use of Kingoni in Beginner Classes(2013-06) Mapunda, GastorThis paper explores Ngoni people’s attitudes towards the use of Kingoni in teaching beginner classes. The Tanzania educational policy designates Kiswahili as the only language of instruction in public primary schools. The data were collected in Songea Rural District using interviews, a questionnaire and classroom observations. The study is guided by the ethnolinguistic vitality framework, which informs decisions on language attitudes and inclination to language use. The findings show that 77% of the participants wanted Kiswahili to be used, while the rest had different choices, including English. The more disadvantaged groups such as peasants showed more ambivalent attitudes towards the use of Kingoni. The study concludes that parents support the use of Kiswahili and not Kingoni, but this attitude has pedagogical and linguistic implications in that children cannot follow instructions; and that they are denied their right to be taught in a language they know well.Item On the suitability of Swahili for early schooling in remote rural Tanzania: do policy and practice align?(Oxford University Press, 2022-06-21) Mapunda, Gastor; Gibson, HannahThis article explores the use of Swahili for education in Tanzania, focusing on rural areas where Swahili is not the main language of the community. Current language policy mandates Swahili as the exclusive Medium of Instruction at primary level throughout the country. However, findings reported here show that in parts of rural Tanzania, children learn Swahili only after a substantial period of being at school, meaning that Swahili does not support early childhood education nor equality of outcomes. Children experience difficulties with progression in learning and teacher-dominated classes can be observed. The study also finds unequal performance in national examinations based on the language of the community, and a prevalence of grade repetition in some settings. It calls for a policy which appreciates the role of community languages and an approach which sees multilingualism as a resource to be harnessed both inside and outside the classroom.Item Revisiting the English-Swahili debate on Tanzania’s medium of instruction policy at secondary and post-secondary levels of education(Università degli studi di Napoli L'Orientale, 2022-05-18) Mapunda, GastorLike in other African countries, in Tanzania the debate on the medium of instruction has focused on the use of either English or Swahili in secondary and post-secondary education. During British colonialism, the focus of the debate was on ethnic languages, Swahili and English at primary level of education. Swahili was used in lower primary education and English in upper primary, middle, and in secondary education. After independence, pedagogical-cum-nationalist opinions wanted a complete changeover from English to Swahili. In 1967 Swahili replaced English in primary education, and speaking English in public was frowned on. Consequently, mastery of English declined. Swahili was also to replace English in secondary and post-secondary education, but it has not happened until now. Whilst it is true that most children have not mastered English to be able to use it comfortably in their studies, similar problems apply to children in remote rural Tanzania who have not mastered Swahili, especially in beginner classes at the primary level of education. Yet, the problem with Swahili and ethnic languages is never seriously debated. Nevertheless, English still commands symbolic and material value. Using a translanguaging perspective, we find that the merits of English in education outshine its demerits. It is recommended that the debate take a pragmatic-cum-utilitarian angle that multilingualism can unlock opportunities for learners.Item Teacher Questions in Linguistically Constrained Situation: Lessons from Two Primary Schools in Rural Tanzania(2012-07) Mapunda, GastorThis paper investigates the functions of teacher questions in Standard I lessons in two primary schools in Songea Rural District, Tanzania. The data were collected through observation method using a camcorder. In the communities where the schools are located Kiswahili is a second language, and the community uses mainly Kingoni which is an ethnic community language. Using the Initiation-Response-Feedback framework of analysis it has been possible to provide an account of what teacher questions as a teaching strategy achieve, and why sometimes teachers necessarily have to use them. The paper is critical of national language policies that provide statements with generalized assumptions, which often fail to address local linguistic realities. The Tanzania’s national policy on the medium of instruction in public primary schools designates Kiswahili an exclusive role of the medium of instruction, ignoring the fact that Kiswahili is a second language to many people and particularly in remote rural areas of Tanzania. The main finding is that most of the teacher questions in linguistically constrained situation are meant to cover-up silence which is otherwise undesirable in talk. In such situations the immediate pedagogical and practical constraints force teachers to opt for strategies that will conceal silence in the classrooms.Item VARIATION IN DOUBLE OBJECT MARKING IN SWAHILI(2020-06-20) Gibson, H; Mapunda, Gastor; Marten, L; Shah, S; Taji, JThere is a high degree of morphosyntactic microvariation with respect to the number and position of object markers found across Bantu languages. This paper examines variation in object marking in Swahili, against the backdrop of variation in object marking in Bantu more broadly. Verb forms in Standard Swahili are well-known to typically only permit one pre-stem object marker. However, here we show that there are isolated cases of post-verbal marking of objects from both a synchronic and diachronic perspective. The paper focuses on two case studies. Firstly, ‘Old Swahili’ – that is, the language of classical Swahili poetry – where examples of typologically unusual emphatic object marker doubling are found. Secondly, we show that post-verbal object marking is in fact also found in Standard (Modern) Swahili, namely in second person plural marking, in post-verbal locative markers and with non-verbal predication. However, we also show that the relationship between these forms, the Old Swahili paradigm of object marker doubling, and post-verbal object marking in Bantu more widely – in particular post-verbal plural addressee marking – is complexItem What Do My Students Call Me? Nicknaming of Lecturers by Students at the University of Dar es Salaam(2014-06) Mapunda, GastorThis study is an analysis of lecturers’ nicknames given by students at the University of Dar es Salaam, Mwalimu J.K. Nyerere Mlimani Campus, in Tanzania. It focuses on the ways in which less powerful members of a community use nicknames as a way of mobilizing solidarity among themselves and of forming identities of those in authority, as an othering strategy. Tact and care is particularly important to the less powerful members because lack of it may get them into trouble. The Faircloughian three dimensional framework provides a theoretical lens through which the data are discussed. The findings reveal that the more popular nicknames relate to the lecturers’ unacceptable behaviours and level of competence in the subjects they teach. Others have to do with the linguistic mannerisms the lecturers display while they are in the lecture rooms, their dressing, sexual craving and physical appearance. All these lead students to coin nicknames. The findings and the discussion show that it is important for both lecturers and students – indeed for all those who are in superior-subordinate relationships – to reflect upon the social processes they are involved in and change their “behaviours” if such behaviours are unacceptable, for them to co-exist amicably.