Presented in Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in General Linguistics
No Thumbnail Available
Date
2020-06
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
AAU
Abstract
This research is concerned with the linguistic features and the sociolinguistic
functions of the linguistic varieties spoken by two minority groups within the
Gurage, namely the Fedwet (the name of the speakers and the linguistic
variety, mainly used by women who were followers of a former local religious
tradition in Gurage) and the so-called Fuga (a group of handcrafters whose
members are said to be not ―pure‖ Gurage). For both social varieties, the
qualitative approach of data gathering and analysis was used. Primary data
were gathered by elicitation of words, recording of free texts, and interviews.
For each social variety 12 informants participated in the interview and 7 of
them also participated in the elicitation of words and the performance oftexts. The language data analysis is descriptive with frequent examples. The
interview responses were quantified for a descriptive statistical analysis.
It was found that the Fedwet is not a separate language, but an argot created
from the basic language Chaha through different manipulation processes. The
main areas of divergence are changes in the morphophonological and lexical
patterns of Chaha. The functions of Fedwet include the establishment of
secret communication among young girls, to form a specific identity, and
various religious purposes. The motive of using it is related to the social
position of women and the traditional belief system of Gurage.The Fuga social variety, by contrast, is more divergent. It is not an argot; the
data shows that its lexicon is very different from Chaha. However, the Fuga
social variety also follows the general pattern of the Chaha grammar. Like
Fedwet, it is used to form an in-group, i.e. as a marker of a specific group
identity and as a means of secret in-group communication.