| dc.description.abstract | Previous studies indicate that artists generally create abstract art forms that are mostly not comprehensible to the audience. Artists normally use commonplace lexicon in novel ways in their bid to communicate with their audiences. Comprehending song lyrics, like any other art form, largely depends on how the lyrics are used in conveying the intended meaning and how the audience interprete the words. Chances of intended meaning being achieved in the lyrical diction used by individual artists may cause comprehension challenges, for instance, to the audiences of Kenya‟s hip hop music. Hence, there‟s a possibility that as language use in songs develops, some words expand in meaning and subsequently affect the Swahili language. Therefore, meanings of the swahili words in Kenyan hip-hop music can possibly cause communication breakdown to the music listeners. This study therefore undertook a lexico-semantic analysis of Kiswahili words in Kenya‟s present generation music by Nonini and Juacali. This study‟s objectives were: to identify Swahili words that seemed to have different meanings and analyze their meanings as used in the songs, evaluate the perceptual effect of the semantic broadening on Kiswahili and establishing ambiguity in communication from the expanded meaning of the selected Swahili words used in the songs. Ludwig Wittgenstein‟s theory of meaning as use, a theoretical framework that was further developed by Ken Turner (2011) was used to analyze the data collected.This study‟s population comprised 16 key informants who are teachers of language from the departments of linguistics and Kiswahili in Maseno University, 180 members of CHAKIMA and 66 songs sung by Nonini and Juacali. 5 songs were purposively sampled while 27 discussants were simple randomly sampled from CHAKIMA for focus group discussions and 6 key informants for interviews. Data was collected using interviews, extraction and focus group discussions. Data analysis was qualitative involving identification, codification and interpretation of patterns, themes and a table. The findings indicate that there are more meanings of the Swahili words as used in the songs which were different from the dictionary meanings hence evidencing semantic expansion. Meaning expansion grows and develops the Swahili language but also interfering with its use, spread, direction and sustainability. There was ambiguity in communication emanating from the new meanings of the words as used in the songs. This study is expected to contribute to knowledge by looking at Swahili language in the context of present generation songs and subsequent vocabulary development with regard to meaning, growth and maintenance of language comprehension will be enhanced. | en_US |
