Linguistic Role in the Promotion of Development Discourse in the Six Self Help Groups in the Meru Speech Community

Abstract

This article examines linguistic role in the promotion of development discourse. Data is drawn from six self-help groups in Meru namely: Firstly, youth. The UN, defines 'youth', as those persons between the ages of 15 and 24 years. In Africa youth refers to persons aged between 15 years and 35 years and were the ones studied in this study. Secondly, middle age.Middle age is the period of age beyond young adulthood but before the onset of old age. This study defined middle age as years between 36 years and 55 years. Finally, elders or old age. Most Britons define old age as starting at 59 years. The present study defined old age as years between 55 years and above. The respondents were selected using the judgmental sampling procedure. Langer’s social ground work theory studied the analysis of data in the study. The findings of the study were elicited using tape recorded interviews on some selected development topics that helped to illustrate the linguistic role in the promotion of the development discourse. The data for the study was represented both qualitatively and quantitatively. The findings of the study show the role of linguistic in promotion of development discourse. The educated respondents scored the highest percentages on development discourse topics whose original language of communicating them is English while semi-educated respondents scored highest scores on topics that required knowledge on the involvement of the respondents on the cultural life of community which is communicated from generations to generations orally in first language. The paper gives insight on how the linguistic codes spoken by an individual promotes development discourse and the practical method of the application of social ground work theory in development discourse study.

Keywords: development discourse, linguistic codes, linguistic role, self-help groups, social ground theory