The inevitability of linguistic change: The motivation of borrowing English terms by Shona speakers
Europeans brought new concepts, ideas and technologies with them that had not existed before colonialism in Zimbabwe. This led Shona and other indigenous languages (such as Ndebele, Venda, Nambya, Kalanga) to absorb a substantial new vocabulary into their lexicons. Speakers of these languages have b...
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Taylor and Francis Ltd.
2021
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| Online Access: | https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/02572117.2020.1733825 http://hdl.handle.net/11408/4257 |
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| author | Gumbo, Lettiah Mutasa, Davie E |
| author_facet | Gumbo, Lettiah Mutasa, Davie E |
| author_sort | Gumbo, Lettiah |
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| description | Europeans brought new concepts, ideas and technologies with them that had not existed before colonialism in Zimbabwe. This led Shona and other indigenous languages (such as Ndebele, Venda, Nambya, Kalanga) to absorb a substantial new vocabulary into their lexicons. Speakers of these languages have been creating terms to cope with the new concepts through various strategies. This article aims at studying the motivation of Shona speakers to prefer borrowed words where both Shona and the English terms are available. Results of the research for this study show that Shona speakers seem to prefer English loanwords owing to issues such as prestige and elitism, shortness and precision, explicitness, expressiveness, currency of term, gap-filling and language modernisation. In addition, an unfavourable language policy in Zimbabwe helps to promote the use of English in all spheres of life, thereby undermining the development of Shona. This study is qualitative in nature, and it adopts a descriptive approach in analysing the data gathered through structured and oral interviews, questionnaires and secondary sources. The major contribution of this study is the illustration of how borrowing can be used to benefit the indigenous language development initiatives and to help language policy planners in Zimbabwe. |
| format | Article |
| id | ir-11408-4257 |
| institution | My University |
| language | English |
| publishDate | 2021 |
| publisher | Taylor and Francis Ltd. |
| record_format | dspace |
| spelling | ir-11408-42572022-06-27T13:49:06Z The inevitability of linguistic change: The motivation of borrowing English terms by Shona speakers Gumbo, Lettiah Mutasa, Davie E linguistic change borrowing English terms Shona speakers Europeans brought new concepts, ideas and technologies with them that had not existed before colonialism in Zimbabwe. This led Shona and other indigenous languages (such as Ndebele, Venda, Nambya, Kalanga) to absorb a substantial new vocabulary into their lexicons. Speakers of these languages have been creating terms to cope with the new concepts through various strategies. This article aims at studying the motivation of Shona speakers to prefer borrowed words where both Shona and the English terms are available. Results of the research for this study show that Shona speakers seem to prefer English loanwords owing to issues such as prestige and elitism, shortness and precision, explicitness, expressiveness, currency of term, gap-filling and language modernisation. In addition, an unfavourable language policy in Zimbabwe helps to promote the use of English in all spheres of life, thereby undermining the development of Shona. This study is qualitative in nature, and it adopts a descriptive approach in analysing the data gathered through structured and oral interviews, questionnaires and secondary sources. The major contribution of this study is the illustration of how borrowing can be used to benefit the indigenous language development initiatives and to help language policy planners in Zimbabwe. 2021-05-27T09:36:41Z 2021-05-27T09:36:41Z 2020 Article 2305-1159 https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/02572117.2020.1733825 http://hdl.handle.net/11408/4257 en South African Journal of African Languages;Vol.40 ; No.1 open Taylor and Francis Ltd. |
| spellingShingle | linguistic change borrowing English terms Shona speakers Gumbo, Lettiah Mutasa, Davie E The inevitability of linguistic change: The motivation of borrowing English terms by Shona speakers |
| title | The inevitability of linguistic change: The motivation of borrowing English terms by Shona speakers |
| title_full | The inevitability of linguistic change: The motivation of borrowing English terms by Shona speakers |
| title_fullStr | The inevitability of linguistic change: The motivation of borrowing English terms by Shona speakers |
| title_full_unstemmed | The inevitability of linguistic change: The motivation of borrowing English terms by Shona speakers |
| title_short | The inevitability of linguistic change: The motivation of borrowing English terms by Shona speakers |
| title_sort | inevitability of linguistic change: the motivation of borrowing english terms by shona speakers |
| topic | linguistic change borrowing English terms Shona speakers |
| url | https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/02572117.2020.1733825 http://hdl.handle.net/11408/4257 |
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