| dc.description.abstract | This study is a stylistic investigation of the relationship between the portrayal of
women and the linguistic style used in contemporary Kipsigis songs. It sought to
confirm Schultz' (2000:82) contention that language reflects the thoughts,
attitudes, and culture of the people who use the language. An analysis of the
linguistic style used in contemporary Kipsigis songs lays bare the portraits hidden
in songs by offering an account of the ideologies and attitudes masked in language.
The lexical choices made and the syntactic organization of the language is key to
arriving at the intended and implied meanings contained in language. The lexical
choices identified in the study included foreign words, neologism, euphemism and
other lexical items which were deemed necessary in pointing to the context of the
messages needed in unraveling the meanings in the utterance. Other stylistic
devices like figurative language, rhetorical questions, dialogue, commentary, and
speech acts like imperatives and direct speech have also been employed by
smgers.
To explicate the style employed in the songs for the portrayal of women, the
Relevance theoretical notions of comprehension procedure, the cognitive and
communicative principle, and context enabled the researcher to arrive at the
singers' intended and implied meanings of the songs from which different portraits
of the women were accessed. A Relevance theoretic analysis of style revealed that
in the four contemporary Kipsigis songs, women are portrayed as subordinate to
the man, defenseless, passive, and voiceless individuals who have to work for and
under a man. The songs sung by men portrayed women as sex objects meant to
satisfy the man's desires.
The positive images of women that feature in the songs are those of dutiful,
respectful and hardworking women who sacrifice and suffer to provide and protect
their families.
Our findings reveal that different styles in Kipsigis contemporary songs use the
Relevance theoretic notions of explicatures and implicatures through which
various portraits of women can be accessed. These two notions enable the hearer
to derive the intended meanings and also a range of other implications the speaker
may not have intended to endorse but is implied in the utterance. Many of the
portraits of women revealed by the present study have been derived from
implicatures. | en_US |
