The Usage of Kiswahili in Blog Discourse and the Effect on Its Development

Abstract

Online communication is rapidly changing how language is being used. With the increasing number of social networks people are engaging in various discourses using various languages. Kiswahili is one of the languages being used in blog discourse. This paper discusses the usage of Kiswahili in blog discourse and the effect on its development. This study uses Critical Discourse Analysis to analyze language used in the discourse so as to reveal the strategies used to frame the content of message. Data was collected by visiting four blogs and then texts written in Kiswahili were selected from the blogs. Data was then subjected to textual analysis. The analysis showed that bloggers used non-standard abbreviations, non-standard words, code mixed and switched, did not adhere to grammatical and spelling rules in the discourse. This had positive and negative effect on the development of Kiswahili.