The study sought to identify and describe the articulation and phonological impairments in the speech of 6-14 year old learners of English as a second language in primary school with cerebral palsy. Further the study also established the linguistic interventions employed by the teachers to assist the learners affected by articulation and phonological impairments as a result of cerebral palsy. Optimality theory was used to account for the impairments through mapping of competence and performan...
The study sought to identify and describe the articulation and phonological impairments in the speech of 6-14 year old learners of English as a second language in primary school with cerebral palsy. Further the study also established the linguistic interventions employed by the teachers to assist the learners affected by articulation and phonological impairments as a result of cerebral palsy. Optimality theory was used to account for the impairments through mapping of competence and performan...
Abstract/Overview This article describes vowel length in Olusuba. The objective of this study is to investigate sources of vowel length in Olusuba. Data for this study was collected from a secondary source: Dholuo translation of Olusuba. A word list was generated and presented to native speakers of Olusuba who were instructed to read it loud while being recorded. The recorded data was then played back for phonetic transcription. Using a descriptive research design and basing on data gener...
Abstract/Overview Vowel hiatus is a prohibited configuration of vowels in many languages of the world. This study is established to examine strategies used to resolve vowel hiatus in Olusuba, a Bantu language spoken in parts of Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda, within the framework of Optimality Theory (OT). The work describes two vowel processes used as hiatus resolution strategies in Olusuba. Well-formedness of data obtained in this study are analysed using OT. The theory explains how constra...
Abstract/Overview Scientific writing especially doctoral dissertation writing commands a high level of objectivity, room for new knowledge, and involvement of the reader. This is manifested in the way the writers demonstrate commitment and detachment to the claims they make and how they position writer-reader relations. Commitment and detachment in a writer’s claims are linguistically shown by the use of interactional metadiscoursal markers. Interactional metadiscourse markers are, ther...
Abstract/Overview Bantu languages are known for their agglutinative nature and complex verbal morphology. A single verbal complex has several affixes including the subject markers (SMs) and object markers (OMs). The precise status of the SMs and OMs in Bantu remains unresolved. These markers have been analysed as agreement markers in some languages while in others, they are analysed as incorporated pronominals and in other languages as clitics. The objective of this paper is to determine ...
Abstract/Overview A developed nation is a knowledgeable nation in educational, social, political, economic and cultural spheres. For individuals to develop educationally, socially, politically, economically and culturally, they need to interact with government agencies that disseminate related policies. Effective interaction and communication of related policies occurs through language and effective communication is achieved through a language that the communicants understand best. Theref...
Abstract/Overview The verbal complex in Bantu languages is an important unit in the syntactic structure. The verbal word in Bantu, in particular, EkeGusii, has a structure which accommodates affixation of a variety of morphemes as prefixes and suffixes before the final vowel (Bresnan & Mchombo, 1987; Sozinho & Mbiavanga, 2008; Iorio, 2015; Sikuku, 2013; Ondondo, 2015 among others). Notable among these are the Subject Marker (SM) and the Object Marker (OM). The SM and OM represent their co...
Abstract/Overview Oral skills in English are taught and examined in Kenyan secondary schools with the purpose of developing fluency and accuracy in speech communication. However, majority of students do not attain intelligibility at the close of their study. Oral skills are examined in paper one of the English language exam though in written form. In 2016 the students scored a mean of 29.15 in the paper. In 2017, the students scored 25.89 indicating a decline of 3.26 points. This shows th...
Abstract/Overview The phrase is a significant unit of analysis in the grammar of any language. It is not only studied at the syntactic level but also at other levels of analysis-phonology, morphology, semantics, and pragmatics. Different types of phrases have been identified and described in the grammar of English and other languages. However, the noun and verb phrases are the most important and widely described phrases given that the structure of many languages revolves around the noun a...
Abstract/Overview As a result of the necessity to revitalize languages that have shown clear signs of endangerment, several proposals have been put forward by various studies (Paulston, 1994; Yamamoto, 1998; Landweer, 1998; Crystal, 2000; Hinton and Hale, 2001; Tsunoda, 2005; UNESCO, 2003; and Grenoble and Whaley, 2006), all of which appear to agree with Fishman (1991) on the centrality of the community whose language is endangered in leading the advocacy for the revival. Some other studi...
Abstract/Overview There seems to be no end to the debate about whether textese positively or negatively affects writing skills of high school learners of English. For instance, Carrington (2005:171) observes that “text messaging „infects‟ Standard English…leading to lower scores on written examinations”. Plester, Wood and Joshi (2009) similarly found evidence that text literacy is positively associated with Standard English literacy. However, Crystal (2008:157) does not just dis...
Abstract/Overview For over two decades now, linguists, educators and anthropologists have directed their efforts at researching about factors that occasion and result from language shift (Trudgill, 1991; Fishman 1991, 2001, Crystal, 2000; Edwards, 1992; Sasse, 1992; Landweer, 2000; Crawford, 1995; Blair and Freeden, 1995; Dorian, 1981, 1989; Brenzinger et. al. 2003; Paulston, 1994; and Lewis, 2006). However, since the formulation of the Graded Intergenerational Disruption Scale (GIDS) by ...