French in urban Lubumbashi Swahili: Codeswitching, borrowing, or both?

• Autores: Marjolein Gysels
• Localización: Journal of multilingual and multicultural development, ISSN 0143-4632, Vol. 13, Nº. 1-2, 1992, págs. 41-55
• Idioma: inglés
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• Resumen

  • Contact phenomena are prominent in Lubumbashi Swahili and they belong to the core of the language. As such they are exploited creatively and they mean an important enrichment in the communicative tools available. The aim of this paper is to investigate the motives for the integration of French elements into Lubumbashi Swahili. Focusing on the mechanisms through which these elements are inserted, I argue that the mixing process is carefully regulated and controlled to serve several communicative functions. Fabian (1982) already found that loans are employed as stylistic devices. Here, I observe that they can also function grammatically. From this perspective, looking at the way these insertions are finally applied, two distinct mixed variants which serve different linguistic and social functions are discussed.