The dynamics of language use among rural and urban Kenyan youths

This dissertation investigates perceptions about language use patterns, choices and attitudes among Kenyan youths. To fully understand how the youths' language practices are carried out and to facilitate a better understanding of the phenomena of language maintenance and shift in Kenya, the study also incorporates adults' language practices from four different regions in Kenya. The research sites chosen include two rural areas of Kakamega and Kangundo and two cosmopolitan cities of Mombasa and Nairobi---thus allowing for a fairly up to date comparative study both in terms of sample and region.;Through the use of mixed methods of data collection and a sociolinguistic eclectic theoretical framework, the study analyzes domain based data and provides the reader with a trajectory of language use practices in both rural and urban Kenya. By triangulating methods and strategies, the rich data that were gathered allow for an account of the multifaceted linguistic phenomena that include the evolving urban variety of Sheng that now claims its own niche in the fast growing Kenyan urban linguistic market. Since the study focuses on language attitudes as well as language use patterns in both rural and urban areas, it offers the reader a better understanding of the state of language shift and maintenance among Kenyans who speak major Kenyan indigenous languages. It is hoped that the findings of this study will be informative to both policy makers and researchers who might be motivated to undertake more empirical studies that aim at highlighting the status of the marginalized indigenous languages.;Although in pervasive multilingual societies such as Kenya language use could be viewed as domain specific, there is always contestation between the dominant and local language ideologies. To unveil how such competing ideologies play out in the language practices of the youths and adults, the study investigates and reports on their subjective perceptions as well as language attitudes largely drawn from school settings where dominant language policies are reproduced but often challenged by local ideologies that propagate the indigenous languages. Similarly, the study investigates the place of Sheng and shows that just like the marginalized indigenous languages, Sheng is a legitimate media of communication among the Kenyan urban youths in the Kenyan linguistic market.;Although indigenous languages do not hold prestigious status in formal domains, I show that they, including Sheng, are viewed as being legitimate by their speakers in the informal domains. In the end I argue that while English is indisputably dominant in the official domains it is not embraced as a Kenyan identity marker. The findings of this study further demonstrate that on one hand, the Kenyan participants that were investigated have attachment to their indigenous languages because of emotional and cultural reasons, but that they also recognize the importance of English as an instrumental language in official domains and outside the Kenyan speech community. Finally, I argue that in the current Kenyan language situation there is no adequate evidence to suggest the presence of eminent language shift especially in the rural areas. In the urban areas, Sheng serves as a middle ground between the official and the indigenous languages for the youths. However, the vitality and robustness of the local languages which enhance stable multilingualism will depend on the kind of multilingual language policies that are pursued.