An Investigation Of Sociolinguistic Situation Of Zaramo Language: A Case Study Of Kisarawe District

ABSTRACT

The study intended to investigate the sociolinguistic situation of the Zaramo language. The main focus of the study was to assess the intergenerational transmission of Zaramo language from elders to the youth, to examine the trends of Zaramo existing domains of language use where Zaramo language is highly expected to be used and to explore the attitude of Zaramo speakers towards their language so as to understand if they are proud of their language or they feel ashamed of it and they don‟t want to be identified with Zaramo culture. Different techniques were employed in the whole process of data collection such techniques included questionnaires, sociolinguistic interviews and observation. Also the study employed both qualitative and quantitative approaches to data analysis The study revealed that Zaramo language has ceased to be used in some of the important domains such as traditional ceremonies; also the attitude of the youths towards their language is not much positive compared to that of the elders. Transmission of Zaramo ethnic community language to the next generation is very low hence the presence of very few numbers of new speakers of Zaramo language. Moreover, the study identified that people have ceased to use Zaramo language as it is not the language of prestige, education and employment. The researcher recommended that researches be conducted on ECL,s so as to ensure the existence of ethnic community languages, otherwise they will slowly disappear and people will lose their cultural heritage and identities.