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This semantic analysis assumes the overall framework of an extended standard theory of grammar, focusing on the lexicon and making a case for semantic mapping. It assumes Chomsky's (1986) theory that the projection of a verb and its arguments into syntax is determined by its lexical specifications. It further accepts the arguments of Williams (1981), Jackendoff (1983, 1990), Pustejovsky (1988, 1995), and Van Hout (1996) that a generative capability of the lexicon is a useful and highly valued strategy that makes significant generalizations about natural languages. Salone (2000) showed that an event-semantic analysis could contribute to the understanding of syntax and semantics of verbal affixes in Bantu languages. This work highlighted the efficacy of introducing semantic rules of verb-frame alternation and semantic typeshifting in order to maximize the generative capacity of the lexicon, thereby allowing the productivity of these affixes to be apparent. It focused on the semantic relationship between the basic and derived forms of the causative and prepositional or applied forms in Kiswahili. It concludes that regardless of the syntactic framework used, the syntactic processes needed for passive will have to coexist with semantic processes: event-semantic argument interpretation, adjustments to the foci on the verb, typeshifting of events, where needed. (Contains 32 references.) (SM)

This research investigated judgments of language samples produced by bilingual speakers. In the first study, listeners judged whether two language samples produced by bilingual speakers were spoken in the same language or in two different languages. Four bilingual African talkers recorded short passages in Swahili and in their home language (Akan, Haya, Kikuyu, and Luhya). Short sentences or phrases were excerpted from these recordings and assembled as a test recording. The recording contained 32 test items consisting of paired spoken language samples produced by the same talker. Half were same language pairs and half were different language pairs. In the different language pairs, Swahili was always one of the languages. Undergraduate students enrolled in an introduction to linguistics class with no previous experience with African languages served as listeners, judging each test item as containing a same language or different language pair. Overall, listeners made accurate judgments over 70 percent of the time. In the second experiment, listeners made similarity judgments about the same paired language samples. Listeners' evaluations indicated that same language pairs seemed much more similar to them than different language pairs. (Contains 21 references.) (SM)

A study examines the use of Kiswahili as representative of the dynamism of Kenyan society and the degree to which the Kenyan body politic has achieved cohesion. It focuses on a series of urban centers with overlapping spheres of influence, referred to as the urban corridor. The Kenyan situation is viewed through a model provided by chaos theory and its derivative complexity theory. An introductory section explains the relevance of chaos and complexity theories in this context and describes the general demography and language situation of Kenya. The history of the spread of Kiswahili is then chronicled briefly, and current patterns of use are described. The relative positions of English and Kiswahili are also examined, noting factors that affect this relationship. Finally, the state of Kenyan language policy is considered. Contains 12 references. (MSE)

This paper investigates the beliefs about language learning held by 53 first-month university students enrolled in Swahili compared to those of 113 students of French and Spanish. Based in part upon the research design and instrument of Elaine Horwitz (University of Texas-Austin), this paper isolates the results from a larger study of eight languages. The greatest number of students agreed that repeat and practice are important for foreign language learning; overall, there was 30 percent agreement on the statements between the 2 groups of students (Swahili versus French and Spanish). Swahili students reported strongest disagreement with "do not speak until correct," while the other group reported greatest disagreement on "to read in a foreign language, one must know all the words." Overall, statements indicated a more positive response from students of Swahili than from the other students. Findings identify the most strongly rated beliefs, the significant different beliefs for students of Swahili, and the underlying structure of beliefs, and they provide strong evidence that students of Swahili do hold unique beliefs concerning language learning. Actual result data is appended. (Contains 31 references.) (Author/NAV)

Two Swahili dictionaries and two bilingual dictionaries by the same author (one English-Swahili and one Swahili-English) are evaluated for their form and content, with illustrations offered from each. Aspects examined include: the compilation of headwords, including their meanings with relation to basic and extended meanings; treatment of polysemous words; definitions of headwords; grammatical labelling; use of phonetic symbols; and use of illustrations. It is concluded that all three require major revision in order to incorporate many of the principles of dictionary construction discussed here and to be efficient and effective information sources. Contains 13 references. (MSE)

An analysis of applicative constructions in Bantu languages proposes a typology of applicative structures, using examples from Ndendeule and Swahili. First, the basic facts about applicative constructions are presented, including those concerning morphology, meaning, and alternative expressions, and several arguments are posited. Primary objects properties diagnostics are then applied to six different applied objects. Previous typology of applied objects is reviewed and the proposed new typology is outlined. Verb phrase (VP) ellipsis is advanced as evidence of the structure of the VP, and a complex VP structure for applicative constructions is suggested. It is concluded that based on primary object properties, there are three types of applicatives whose prototypes are benefactive, instrumental, and locative. These constituent structures involve two VPs: one VP which contains the theme/patient is embedded in another VP, which contains the applied object. In addition, the applicative morpheme is a predicate head that selects the minimal VP and the applied object. Implications for mapping of the structure are considered briefly. Contains 25 references. (MSE)

The importance of peer collaboration in the classroom while developing a reflective dialog outside of the classroom is explained. A peer is any person with expertise in the language or geographical area that is pertinent to class goals and activities. For example, instructors of French might consider people from France and other Francophone countries as resources. Instructors might involve people in business or non-language education who specialize in history, art, or sociology of a given French-speaking area. In the study described here, the definition of peer collaboration was applied to the instruction of Swahili. Seven graduate students of Swahili at the University of Wisconsin-Madison were recruited to participate in the study. In cooperation with the Wisconsin African studies outreach program, these students arranged classes from elementary to high school levels during 1989-1994. Because the Swahili department has only one teaching assistantship available each year, the students themselves created pre-collegiate programs to gain a teaching experience. After evaluating and pairing the teaching assistants according to teaching experience, TAs were trained to follow a five-step clinical supervision strategy and a reflective one, modeled after Symmes' research (1991). This model of peer collaboration placed the learning responsibility on the teachers and out of the domain of faculty and administrators. The paper describes the steps of the study. A proposed teacher certification in Swahili, data tables, and a middle school Swahili class syllabus are appended. Contains 27 references. (JL)

The promotion of foreign language instruction and learning has been the objective of three national legislative acts: National Defense Education Act, Foreign Language Assistance Act, and National Security Education Act. Following these enactments, the Department of Education and the Department of Defense have dispensed appropriations to meet the objectives of African language programs in curriculum development, teacher training, and instructional strategies. However, marginalization of language instruction exists within the academic community and as a result, not enough African language instructors participate in language professional activities. Beyond the restrictions in pedagogical research and curriculum materials faced by language instructors in general, teachers of African languages face additional limitations, lacking a framework for a national language policy, institutional financial support, and articulation. A reform initiative for African Studies Centers (ASCs) includes five components of change: a mission statement, a set of specific skills, program incentives, improved resources, and an action plan timeline to achieve a viable national African language policy. Suggestions for a national framework for language instruction, for obtaining institutional support, and for developing professionals associations are offered. Sixteen appendices address standards for a professional African language instructor; teacher certification in Arabic, Hausa, Swahili, and Yoruba; and a proposed timeline toward a national plan for African language instructors. (JP)

Since the enactment of the 1958 National Defense Education Act, funded universities have provided African language instruction at the postsecondary level. With an increased interest in the less commonly taught languages (LCT) demonstrated by the 1988 Foreign Language Assistance Act, several African Studies Center universities provide instruction in Swahili at the K-12 level. The role of Swahili instruction in Madison, Wisconsin is an expanding outreach service. This article examines academic and auxiliary Swahili programs available for students from grades 2 through 12 and includes descriptions of instructors, students, class facilities, materials, curriculum goals, and the current status of each program. Instructors of these programs suggested several recommendations for organizers of future African and LCT language programs. A successful LCT program requires the integration of these factors: cooperation of the school/organization administration, enthusiasm of the community and parents, collaboration with other instructors, adequate facilities, sufficient budget, well-planned curriculum and materials, articulation with other feeder programs, and appropriate scheduled class time. Appendices include information about teacher certification in Swahili and Swahili scope and sequence. (Author/JP)

A study investigated the ways in which native and non-native speakers of Kiswahili close conversations. Native speaker data were obtained from observation and field notes, recorded face-to-face interactions, recorded telephone conversations, reconstructed dialogues, and televised plays. Non-native speaker (American) data were drawn from role-play situations, office conversations, and telephone conversations. Analysis of native speaker data showed that Kiswahili closings were elaborate and could extend to over five turns taken. An exchange of goodbyes did not usually signal the end of a conversation, there was no strict ordering of features, and some closing features were linked to the opening of the conversation. Analysis of non-native speaker closings showed that learners performed minimal closings, were often unwilling to reopen a conversation once "goodbyes" had been produced, and rarely used features linking closing to opening. In a comparison with findings on conversational openings, explored in a previous study, it was found that non-native speakers were more proficient at closing than opening a Kiswahili conversation. (MSE)

The history of one morphological pattern in Swahili relative clause structure, in which the relative particle attaches to "-amba," is discussed. First, the patterns of this construction are analyzed and illustrated. The evolution of this formation from an archaic verb is then examined, noting the difficulties in tracing its history through a period of very limited written linguistic data. Patterns of "-amba" use are analyzed in three corpora of early (early 19th century) poetry and six varied modern (20th century) corpora of prose. The function of cultural and language contact in this evolution is assessed, with attention given to the influence of English in particular. A 26-item bibliography is included. (MSE)

A study investigated the production of conventional conversational openings by five advanced learners of Kiswahili with experience in the Kiswahili speaking environment. Native speakers of Kiswahili usually engage in lengthy openings including several phatic inquiries (PIs) and phatic responses (PRs). The number and manner in which the PIs and PRs are produced depend on the age difference of participants. Participants of the same age compete in PI production, resulting in PI/PR and PI/PI overlaps and successive PIs produced by one participant. PIs and PRs are produced at a rapid rate If there is an age difference, the younger participant initiates the opening by producing a respectful greeting form, and the older person produces most of the PIs. The advanced non-native speakers were pragmatically aware of Kiswahili openings and were native-like in the way they engaged in lengthy greetings. However, the learners' openings were produced at a slow pace, resulting in non-overlapping reciprocity with each participant awaiting his turn. Results show variability in learners' performance both across individual learners and across situations. (MSE)

A study investigated how American learners acquire the pragmatics of Kiswahili greetings in a foreign language context. Subjects were 16 beginning, 12 intermediate, and 4 advanced students. After an initial month-long observation period, the following hypotheses were formed: (1) learners do not readily initiate greetings; and (2) most learners may respond to a greeting but may not elaborate. The hypotheses were then tested using data obtained from a series of elicitation tasks using verbal and written role-plays. For each role-play, the number of turns taken in greetings were counted. Results suggest that learners of Kiswahili lack the pragmatics of Kiswahili greetings even though they know the different forms of greetings required. Apparently, most learners regarded the language class and instructors' offices, the settings for the role-play tasks, as no different from other classes or instructors' offices and came to them with the semantic formulas and pragmatics of their native language. In addition, pragmatic performance did not always correlate with grammatical competence; learners at different levels were at different stages of pragmatic development. Further research on creating an environment more conducive to target language use, native speaker greeting behaviors, and individual differences in pragmatic performance is recommended. (MSE)

Despite considerable linguistic diversity in Kenya, the country is increasingly trilingual, with individual Kenyans tending toward varying degrees of proficiency in the vernacular, Swahili, and English. The vernacular is acquired at home and in the neighborhood with co-ethnics in both rural and urban contexts. Swahili is typically learned informally from other nonnative speakers who speak a wide range of varieties of it, but there is a trend toward more formal instruction in school. English is learned within the school system, with English proposed in official policy as the medium of instruction from the fourth year of the system upward. English is used as the standard language of government and business communication. In Africa as a whole there is a tendency among African writers to write in their own languages at the cost of reducing their potential audiences. This tendency will increase vernacular prestige and increase competition with Swahili and English. With increasing literacy in Kenya and heightened pan-African awareness, it is not unlikely that this movement will take a stronger hold there, resulting in enhanced vernacular literacy. (MSE)

The paper being reviewed puts the vernacular in the perspective of the linguistic repertoire of a speech community. It is suggested that the repertoire as a single system should be seen on a societal or individual level rather than on a linguistic level such that various codes are selected by members of the community according to socially determined rules of appropriateness. Labov's work suggests that for purposes of comparing different communities, whether bilingual or monolingual, the term "vernacular" should be restricted to a technical usage, applying only to the first-learned spoken languages of a group of speakers. Research on native New Yorkers' speech, comparative studies of children's speech in Philadelphia and New York, and Benji Wald's own work on the phonology of Swahili are offered to back up the critique. This approach to the vernacular avoids the problem of variability in judgment as to what is the vernacular. A second critique centers on Kachru's discussion of code-mixing. Instead of asking when there would be a new code, as Kachru does, the critique would ask when do we know we have a code in the first place. In addition to Kachru's call for a typology of constraints found across codes, the critique would add an appeal for a typology of constraints to distinguish code-mixing or switching in different multilingual communities. (AMH)

This study compares the English and Swahili language texts used in the primary grades in Kenya and Tanzania in order to ascertain the role of language in determining the content of instruction and to relate the content of these texts to significant characteristics of governmental educational policy and the values underlying them. The introductory section is a general discussion of the political implications of language policies in multilingual nations and the problems resulting from attempts to institute instruction in the mother tongue. The design of the ensuing study is based on two major assumptions: (1) that educational policy and school texts are good indicators of societal "core" values and future orientations; and (2) that salient policy features and values will likely be translated into school texts. Content analysis is used to examine data from four sets of instructional contexts: Kenya/English, Kenya/Swahili, Tanzania/English, and Tanzania/Swahili. The findings are organized around the following broad categories: daily life, Africanization, bases for legitimating knowledge, self-help, egalitarianism, value of education, work emphasis, national integration, rural development, African traditions, and cooperative behavior. The subsequent discussion focuses on cross-national contexts (that is, English medium and Swahili medium perspectives irrespective of national boundaries) and within-nation contexts (relating to salient policy features in each country. Six statistical tables are appended, along with footnotes and a list of government and party official documents and school texts from each country. (TE)

The study of the spontaneous generation of a pidgin by two children, five and six years old, to accommodate their communication needs when neither had fully acquired his native language, is described. The children were an African native of a Swahili-speaking family and an American child living in the African village. The new language created was a mixture of Swahili and English but distinct from both, unintelligible to any but the two, and the primary language for both children for most of their daylight hours for a period of fifteen months. The pidgin is analyzed from the American child's comments on and translations of tape recordings of a variety of interactions. Directions of linguistic change and elaboration typical of creolization were found. The language is described in terms of its elements from Swahili and English, lexical content and development, an ethnographic view of the social context of the pidgin, the village speech community, children's speech community, and functions and uses of the pidgin. Comments are made on verbal play and the process of invention in language, and on the universal characteristics of both children's language and pidgin language. Transcribed conversations and data on specific word use and utterances are used as illustrations. (MSE)

The historical background and the current status of Swahili in Kenya and Tanzania, where it is designated as the national language, and in Uganda, where it has assumed a less prominent role, are described. Major factors contributing to the selection of national languages in the region are presented. The ways both linguistic and sociopolitical features influence a language's viability as the national language, especially in a heavily multilingual, multicultural setting are analyzed. The discussion focuses on the ongoing competition between languages in different domains and the complexity of language choice for individual speakers. Changes occurring in Swahili's internal development and patterns of use are also examined in this context. (MSE)

Reviews the literature on second language medium of instruction and educational achievement in Kenya using classroom data from English, Kiswahili, and mother tongue mathematics lessons and from lessons where code switching occurred. Argues that regardless of the instructional medium, a transmissional model of teaching and learning predominates. Discusses the importance of teacher education programs based on the realities of the local situation. (33 references) (Author/CK)