Triglossia and Swahili-English bilingualism in Tanzania

ABSTRACT The paper addresses itself to the study of the sociological correlates of speech behaviour among bilingual speakers of English and Swahili in Tanzania. Factors influencing language maintenance, code-switching and code-mixing are discussed. Four main phases of language acquisition are considered: the pre-primary school phase, the primary school phase, the secondary-school phase, and the post-secondary school phase. Three languages with both varying and overlapping roles interact, creating a triglossia situation: first the vernacular or mother-tongue of each particular ethno-cultural group; secondly Swahili, the local lingua franca and national language; thirdly English, the predominant language of higher learning and to a certain extent of official and commercial business. The paper also discusses the diglossia relationship between the vernacular and Swahili on the one hand and Swahili and English on the other. The developmental state of the languages is dealt with in terms of socially ‘restricted’ and ‘elaborated’ codes. Urban life tends to impose its own socio-cultural influences on the bilinguals. There is free shifting and mixing between Swahili and English interlocutors, topics and setting. Lastly the paper raises questions of the sociological and linguistic consequences of the multilingual situation. (Multilingualism, diglossia; code-switching; code-mixing; Swahili; English, national language problems.)