Linguistic naturalization of the English premier league football discourse by Radio jambo, Kenya

Cameron (2001) argues that linguistic forms can be manipulated to suit context and serve intended purposes. Although there is evidence of widespread coverage of proceedings of the English Premier League ( EPL) by media in Kenya and Kenyan football fans‟ deep interest in the EPL, few studies analysing how the Kenyan media presents the proceedings in the EPL have been done. This study focuses on linguistic features employed by Radio Jambo presenters in their presentation of the EPL discourse that naturalize and conventionalize the EPL through context-dependent lexical choices and their syntactic forms. The objectives of the study were to analyse the lexical choices and syntactic forms used in reference to social actors, phenomena and actions in the EPL by Radio Jambo presenters, describe the discoursal characteristics from the Kenyan context attributed to the social actors, phenomena and actions, analyze arguments in the discourse and explain the perspectives from which the references, attributions and argumentations are expressed. The study adopted a theoretical framework based on Ruth Wodak‟s strand of Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) which posits that discourse can neither be produced nor understood without context. It adopted a case study design in which Radio Jambo was the case for the study.The data was collected by compiling a corpus from the sample texts on Radio Jambo‟s “sports homestretch” programme between September and November 2010. The population for the study was sixty „sports homestretch‟ programmes on the Radio station of which six (ten percent) formed the sample. The first programme that formed the population was randomly picked on 1st September 2010, and then the sample was systematically formed by picking on the tenth programme on 14th September 2010 as the first sample, and then every tenth programme thereafter up to the sixtieth. The programmes were tape recorded, translated from Kiswahili to English, using equivalence theory of translation, and transcribed for analysis. Radio Jambo was purposively sampled for the study. The data was analysed qualitatively and findings presented in textual discussion. The findings reveal that the real reason behind the EPL talks was to establish and sustain the listeners‟ interest in the radio station. The study enlightens the consumers of the talks in particular, and media in general, to be aware of linguistic strategies used by the latter to ensure the former‟s interest