The Use Of Pronouns In Manifesting Power And Solidarity In Nyakyusa Spoken Discourse

ABSTRACT

This study concerns with the use of pronouns in manifesting power and solidarity in Nyakyusa spoken discourse. The main focus has been to examine the use of Nyakyusa pronouns beyond their referential and deictic functions and especially the way pronouns may be used to manifest power and solidarity among and between interlocutors. The study was guided by two specific objectives which are; to identify Nyakyusa pronouns which are used in spoken discourse and to identify Nyakyusa pronouns which are used in manifesting power and/or solidarity in spoken discourse.

The study is qualitative and participant observation was employed as the main data collection technique, whereas the focused group discussions were used as supplementary data collection techniques to confirm the data collected through participant observation.

The results revealed that, apart from the referential and deictic functions that Nyakyusa pronouns perform, they may also reveal the identity of the people involved in a conversation in a particular context. For example in family meetings the clan heads normally use the first person pronoun singular une „I‟ when talking on behalf of the whole clan whereas, other members of the clan have no right to use une but its plural form uswe „we‟. The use of une reveals the power of the speaker while uswe is the strategy that speakers use to show solidarity with other members of the clan. Moreover, some people especially the elders have right to call somebody using second person pronoun ugwe „you (sing.)‟ while others especially the younger ones have no such right to call the elders ugwe. This suggests that, the use of second person pronoun ugwe may reveal the power of the speaker over the addressee.