Gender Construction And Stereotyping In Zanzibar Kiswahili Naming System: A Case Study Of Zanzibar Swahili Community

ABSTRACT

This study is about gender construction and stereotyping in Zanzibar Kiswahili naming system. The study aimed at investigating the nature of naming system and how the community constructs and stereotypes gender through naming system in Zanzibar. The study was guided by three specific objectives which were to examine the nature of Zanzibar Swahili naming system, to investigate how the community constructs gender through naming system and to investigate how the community fosters gender stereotyping through naming system in Zanzibar Swahili community. This study was guided by the onomastic theory which deals with anthroponymy concerned with human names including personal names, surnames and sobriquet. The research used a combination of qualitative and quantitative approaches in the collection and analysis of data. The instruments of data collection were questionnaires and interviews. The study revealed that Kiswahili naming system as one of the cultural social roles has direct relationship with gender in that there are specific personal names commonly used only for males and other personal names commonly used only for females. The study also revealed that there is direct relationship between naming system and gender construction because naming system in Kiswahili constructs personal names with language specific affixes that identify the gender of the bearer. Furthermore, the findings exposed that Zanzibar Swahili community fosters gender stereotyping through Kiswahili naming system by the common uses of personal names that indicate strength, perfectness and wisdom for males only while for females, personal names show poverty, weakness, cowardness, less wisdom and beauty.