Expressing Entreaty. The Use of Kirundi Kinship Terms

Book excerpt: Bachelor Thesis from the year 2012 in the subject Literature - Africa, grade: Bachelor of Arts, University of Burundi (Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences University of Burundi), course: English Language and Literature, language: English, abstract: This is a pragmatic analysis of the Kirundi kinship terminology with the aim of using a linguistic approach to study how Burundians use kinship terms to express entreaty. It has been noted that Kirundi speakers use kinship terms to address their hearers in order to achieve some targets. Thus, kinship terms embody the power of action that is exploited in interpersonal conversation to express entreaty. The study was based on the assumption that Kirundi kinship terms do things in actual communication. Kirundi kinship terms used for entreaty purpose were collected from members of the Kirundi speech community and from available related literature. They were translated into English and classified according to how they are used with regards to the conveyance entreaty. The speech act theory was used to identify the locutionary force (semantics), the illocutionary force (intention) and the perlocutionary force (possible effects) of each contextualized kinship term. The people’s reactions in relation to deeper implications and possible effects of the kinship terms were obtained through a questionnaire and an interview schedule. The findings of the study showed that the respondents (100%) are aware of the pragmatic use of kinship terms and use kinship terms to convey entreaty in their everyday life. When they were asked whether they use kinship terms for entreaty purpose, they all agreed (100%) regardless of their age and sex. It was proved, however, that there is a tendency to replace some terms by foreign language equivalents or religious brotherhood terms. Respondents also expressed their views that kinship terms are honorific words and politeness forms which have the power to arouse one’s addressee grant one’s request. Kirundi kinship terms may, therefore, be taken as one major source of reference to study the ethnopragmatics of Burundians. Kirundi kinship terminology should, thus, be subjected to well balanced analysis and interpretation to avoid unnecessary influences. The analysis of Kinship terms is recommended as a powerful tool for people concerned with sociopragmatics. Moreover, Kirundi Kinship terminology constitutes a wide field for linguists interested in studying the power and effects of language in society.