Revealing the Dynamism Behind Variation: Current Advancement of Swahili Variation Research in a Wider Context of Multilingual Ecology in Africa
4 - Variation in Sheng among Multilingual Preschool Children in Kenya
Friday, June 13, 2025
09:00 - 10:45 GMT
Location: LNB-27B
Presenter(s)
CG
Chege John Githiora
Kenyatta University, Kenya
Presentation Abstract Many Kenyan children acquire Sheng, a local community language (mother tongue), or both before they start formal learning of Standard Swahili (SS) in primary school, where it is taught as a subject alongside English, the official medium of instruction. The multilingual setting is rich in SS input but characterized by many features of non-standard Kenyan Swahili and translanguaging (Githiora 2018). Apparent features of an ‘interlanguage’ described by Selinker (1972) - such as variability, transfer, and developmental ‘errors’ - are readily found in the speech of young learners of SS who also speak Sheng. Others may be systematic features that reflect broader variation seen across the Bantu languages of East Africa (Gibson et al., 2024) and the dynamism of an evolving language rather than a distinct ‘interlanguage.’ In search of direction on this issue, we will collect data to identify these properties in the speech of a small group of preschool children aged (4 - 6 years) from a Nairobi neighborhood and a similar demographic group from a rural speech community. This age group attends ECDE centers or kindergartens, where the primary language of interaction between children, parents, and teachers is KS or Sheng. We will analyze their oral production in spontaneous speech in Sheng, SS, and any additional mother tongue. The results of the analysis will help us understand the creative processes, such as those found in Sheng's morphosyntax of verbal extensions.
.png)
.png)
.png)
.png)
.png)
.png)
.png)