Sociolinguistic Study

Sociolinguistic Study
of the Jargon used

by Secondary
Schools Pupils:
The Case of Buye
JOSUÉ NIYOKWIZIGIRWA
Sociolinguistic Study
of the Jargon used
by Secondary
Schools Pupils:
The Case of Buye
GALDA VERLAG 2017

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Originally presented as the author’s thesis (Licencié): University of Burundi, Bujumbura 2017
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D E D I C AT I O N
To my late grandfather and my grandmother Muhitira Marie;

To my parents Ntawuyamara Wilson and Bayadonde Valérie for their
pre-directional love and all my brothers and sisters;
To all my uncles and all my aunts;
To Mrs Nona Doris Inman and to the family of Bishop Amos Gatama ;
To all my friends, my former classmates and relatives;
I warmly dedicate this work.
Niyokwizigirwa Josué
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I f the present work has some qualities, it is due to a contribution

of a number of people to whom I wish to extend my sincere and
heartfelt gratitude.
First and foremost, I owe my deep gratitude to my supervisor, Herménégilde
Rwantabagu who kindly accepted to supervise my work. I highly appreciate his
constructive criticisms and useful suggestions. Despite his academic duties, he
showed enough availability from the very first draft up to the completion of
this work.
My sincere and profound gratitude goes to my former teachers in general
and particularly the lecturers at the Institute for Applied Pedagogy in the
English and Kirundi Department. In addition, my thanks go to the Buye Lycée
pupils for the productive assistance and cooperation in my data collection.
Furthermore, I owe more gratitude than I can express to my parents Wilson
Ntawuyamara and Valerie Bayadonde for their basic education, I am who
am I because of them. I cannot forget to thank the family of Jean de Dieu
Nduwimana and Estella Nsengiyumva for their first hospitality, to Pastor Joel
Ngatia Gatama to have hosted me in Kenya, together with Innocent Manariyo,
they have sacrificed their time to provide with me moral support and advice
while conducting this research, to name but few.
Last but not least, I cannot get which words to use to thank the family of
Michel Barutwanayo and Euphrasie Niyonzima, Appolinaire Hatungimana and
Mrs Inman Doris Nona for their financial, moral support and encouragement.
They sacrificed what they have for my sake, may God reward them. My final
and special thanks go towards my brothers and sisters, uncles and aunts and
all who have given me a hand in one or another way, may God bless them.
LIST OF ACRONYMS
A N D A B B R E V IAT I O N S
B.A - Bachelor of Arts

MIT - Massachusetts Institute of Technology
SOGRAMABU - Socité des Grands Mangeurs de BUYE
TBT - Twirande Bishobotse Twitahire or Twuzuze
Bishobotse Twitahire
CONTENTS
Dedication v
Acknowledgements vii
List of Acronyms and Abbreviations ix
1 G E N E R A L I N T R O DU C T IO N
I.1. Background to the study ...................................................................... 1
I.2. Statement of the problem...................................................................... 2
I.3. Aim of the study..................................................................................... 3
I.4. Motivation of the study......................................................................... 3
I.5. Significance of the study....................................................................... 3
I.6. Research questions................................................................................ 4
I.7. Research hypotheses.............................................................................. 4
I.8. Scope and delimitation ........................................................................ 5
I.9. Definition of key terms......................................................................... 5
I.10. Structure of the work........................................................................... 7

xii . contents
2 R EV I EW O F R E L AT E D L I T E R AT U R E
II.0. Introduction.......................................................................................... 9
I.1.1. Jargon............................................................................................... 9
II.1.2. Why the use of jargon................................................................ 12
II.2. Slang..................................................................................................... 13
II.3. Sociolinguistics................................................................................... 14
II.3.1. Language Varieties...................................................................... 16
II.3.2. Language and society................................................................. 16
II.3.3. Speech Community.................................................................... 17
II.3.4. Style.............................................................................................. 18
II.3.5. Register........................................................................................ 19
II.4. Code Mixing and Code Switching................................................... 19
II.5.Word meaning..................................................................................... 20
II.6. Conclusion.......................................................................................... 23
3 R E SE A R C H M E T HO D O L O G Y
III.0. Introduction...................................................................................... 25
III.1. Research area .................................................................................... 25
III.2. Population and sampling................................................................. 25

III.2.1. Choice of the informants......................................................... 25
III.2.2. Sampling procedure.................................................................. 26
III.3. Research Instrument: Written Questionnaire............................... 26
III.4. Data collection procedure............................................................... 27

contents . xiii
III.4.1. Pilot study.................................................................................. 27

III.4.2. Field study.................................................................................. 27
III.5. Encountered difficulties................................................................... 28
III.6. Data analysis procedure .................................................................. 28
III.7.Conclusion ......................................................................................... 29
4 DATA P R E SE N TAT IO N , A NA LYSI S A N D F I N D I N G S
IV.0 Introduction........................................................................................ 31
IV.1. Data Presentation.............................................................................. 31
IV.2. Data analysis ..................................................................................... 46

IV.2.0. Introduction............................................................................... 46
IV.2.1. Process of Word Formation...................................................... 47
IV.2.1.1. Affixation ...................................................................... 47
IV.2.1.2.Coinage........................................................................... 48
IV.2.1.3. Borrowing...................................................................... 49
IV.2.1.4. Compounding............................................................... 49
IV.2.1.5. Clipping......................................................................... 50
IV.2.1.6. Acronyms...................................................................... 51
IV.2.1.7. Echoism......................................................................... 51
IV.2.1.8. Reduplication................................................................ 51
IV.2.1.9. Neosemanticism (Semantic Shift) ............................. 52
IV.2.1.10. Code-mixing .............................................................. 53
IV.2.1.12. Analysis of words according to their
morphological origin................................................. 53
IV.2.2 Analysis of jargon on the semantic level................................. 54
IV.2.2.3 Semantic features of the jargon .................................. 55
IV.2.3.2. Polysemy ....................................................................... 55
IV.2.3.3. Antonymy...................................................................... 55
IV.2.4. A stylistic view of the jargon.................................................... 56
xiv . contents
IV.2.4.1. Metaphor ...................................................................... 56

IV.2.4.2. Hyperbole...................................................................... 57
IV.2.4.3. Euphemism................................................................... 57
IV.2.4.4. Metonymy..................................................................... 58
IV.2.4.5. Antithesis ...................................................................... 58
IV.3. Findings.............................................................................................. 58
IV.4. Conclusion ........................................................................................ 61
5 G E N E R A L C O N C LU SIO N A N D R E C OM M E N DAT IO N
References.................................................................................................... 65
A P P E N D IC E S
Research Questionnaire............................................................................. 69
1
GENERAL INTRODUCTION
I.1. Background to the study
E very human being is normally created in a way that he needs

to be together with others and this cooperation cannot be
achieved without communication. While communicating people exchange
their ideas, express their feelings, give opinions, greet each other…. This
communication is enabled by the use of language which can be considered as a
paramount important tool of communication without which life is impossible.
However, we discover that language is a complex and a dynamic
phenomenon. To support this assertion, Francis (1983, p.15) says:
No languages spoken by more than a very small number of people is

homogeneous and when the changes occur, they characteristically
affect the speech of only a part of the population of the total
language community.
When people live together in the same community and that they come from
different places, there must be some nuance in the way they speak depending
upon the origins of the people who compose the society. He continues saying
that there are innovations by some speakers. They then create new items due
to many factors. Even though those innovations take place, few people come
to realize it.
In this regard, Francis (1983, p.15) says that: “Some speakers will adopt an
innovation, others will either not be aware of it or reject it”. However, language
is not independent, it is influenced by a number of factors such as the society
in which it is used. The study of the relationships between language and society
is labelled as sociolinguistics and some studies have been carried out thereon.
2 . general introduction
As far as sociolinguistic research in Burundi is concerned, there are some

works that have been conducted on different communities but the community of
Buye Lycée pupils is still unexplored. This is what the present study attempts to do.
About the sociolinguistic situation, Buye Lycée pupils’ community is not
different from that of the other schools with whom they share the same status.
There are mainly four languages which are mainly used in their everyday life
interactions. Those languages are Kirundi, French, English, and Kiswahili. The
Kirundi language is generally used by all Buye Lycée pupils because it is their
mother tongue. However, it presents slight differences in their way of using it.
Another language is French whose status is twofold: it is a teaching language serving
as medium of instruction of a school subject and the language of administration.
Another language used at that school is Kiswahili due to the proximity of
this school to the city of Ngozi where Kiswahili is often used especially in areas
where Muslims reside. In addition, there are some pupils who spent some years
in Tanzania refugee camp. There is finally English which is gaining too much
importance on the linguistic landscape of the Buye Lycée pupils. They use it most
of the time either in or out of class because this language as it is officially used in
the east African community, they strive to increase knowledge of it.
The linguistic diversity at BUYE Lycée has, as logical consequence, an
exceptional intra and intercode mixing. Words and expressions are used
in a mixed way as far as the four languages are concerned. Even within the
same language, words and expressions from different registers co-occur in an
unusual way, which makes this jargon lively.
I.2. Statement of the problem
The pupils of BUYE Lycée as other social groups must interact. Furthermore
they have a way of communicating which is not intelligible except among
the users. In other words, they have a linguistic code in which they convey a
message that cannot be interpreted by outsiders which make difficult to the
authorities in disciplining them.
The present study sets out to describe the way BUYE Lycée pupils use
jargon and the meaning attributed to the words and expressions they use in
this jargon to help the school authorities to be aware of the language used
so that they can take it into consideration in educating them. In addition, it
examines how the message conveyed through those words and expressions
hinders their understanding by hearers who have appropriately acquired the
usual meaning of those words and expressions.
sociolinguistic study of the jargon . 3
I.3. Aim of the study
The present study aims at discovering and analyzing the jargon used at
BUYE Lycée. It intends to first identify them and then analyze the different
mechanisms underlying them. This analysis concerns the various areas of life
at the above mentioned school. In this respect, the changes in meaning that
words undergo are revealed to be more social rather than linguistic.
Therefore, this study attempts to show to what extent a social group like
BUYE Lycée pupils has its own way of using language, which consequently
impedes communication. That is, their intended meaning cannot be
understood by outsiders. In short, this work displays words and expressions,
and their meaning which does not enable people, especially outsiders, to
master the social group’s use of words and expressions. Finally, a corpus of
words and expressions, and their meanings are to be found in this study.
I.4. Motivation of the study
The motivation to undertake a sociolinguistic study of the jargon used by

Buye Lycée pupils widely arose from various studies on sociolinguistics by many
scholars read. In fact, the boarding schools community like other communities
use jargon. They might have a reason which makes them creating a special
language; they might also be some strategies involved in new language creation.
Therefore, it is important to undertake a sociolinguistic study on Buye Lycée
so that we can find out what is the reason that make them creating the jargon
and strategies used in creating this new language. This work will enable the
authorities to discipline the pupils and will help them discovering their needs.
Though some works have been conducted on different schools, Buye Lycée,
to my knowledge, has not so far been explored in terms of language use. It
was therefore high time that the jargon which vehicles the boarding life at that
school underwent a close study.
I.5. Significance of the study
Linguistics has tended to concentrate on the language of printed

documents and neglect the spoken language. Even though some works have
been conducted on spoken language, this work is going to be part of them
and be answer to this challenge. Here, the spoken language proves to have
its place and a wider one for it is much more used in communication rather
than the written form. In addition, this study opens new possibilities for
further research not only in language, but also in some other domains such as
sociology, anthropology, and other social sciences.
The assumption being that language is the vehicle of social life and that
jargon has penetrated the spoken language at Buye Lycée, this study mainly
comes in to reveal social realities fashioned by the use of jargon. To this effect,
Burling (1973, p.53) says:
By our language, we define the groups to which we belong. We define

certain people as inside group and we leave others out. Language
comes to be an accurate map of the sociological divisions of a society.
Furthermore, the researcher expects that this research will give some
information to readers who are interested in studying about jargons used by
scholars or any other group and will stimulate further researchers in this area
as those available in this are not sufficient.
I.6. Research questions
The researcher; to carry out this study; is guided by the following research
questions:
1. Why do Buye Lycée pupils create their own jargon?

2. Are there any strategies involved in Buye Lycée pupils’ jargon
creation?
3. Are all words and expressions used by pupils of Buye Lycée
understood by outsiders?
I.7. Research hypotheses
The questions that this study intends to answer give forth the following
hypotheses:
1. The pupils of Buye Lycée create their jargon in order to hide

their secrets to outsiders.
2. There are different strategies involved in Buye Lycée pupils’

jargon creation.
3. The words and expressions used by Buye Lycée pupils presents
some particular features that no outsider can understand them.
I.8. Scope and delimitation
This work puts an emphasis on sociolinguistics. It focuses on the context that

may have an influence on a variety of the language used by a peculiar group. Our
main concern in this study was particularly restricted to the verbal expressions and
words in Kirundi language as used in Buye Lycée pupils’ discussions and dialogue
during school year 2016-2017. However, some examples were also drawn from
other languages such as Kiswahili, French, as well as English.
The study examined the special words and expressions used in dormitories,
refectory, playground, to name but a few. This is because such areas were found
to be settings where those words and expressions were much more used.
I.9. Definition of key terms
1. Slang:
Specialized language of social group; sometimes used to make what is said

unintelligible to those who are not members of the group.
According to the Webster’s Third new Intermediate Dictionary, a slang is a
non-standard vocabulary made of words and senses characterized primarily
by connotations of extreme informality and usually a currency not limited to
particular and composed typically of coinages or arbitrary changed words,
clipped or shortened forms, extravagant, forced or facetious figures of speech
or verbal novelties usually experiencing quick popularity and relatively rapid
decline into disuse.
2. Jargon
According to the New Oxford Dictionary of English, a jargon is ‘special

words or expressions used by a particular profession or group that are difficult for
others to understand’. In the present study jargon refers to words like “Akamva”
which means in Buye Lycée pupils’language “a meal”, “Imvura” (which means

literally the rain) which stands for “an authority” in the pupils’ language.
3. Pidgin:
It is a variety of language specially created for the purpose of communicating

with other group, and not used by any community for communication among
themselves. Hudson (1981, p.61)
4. Language change:
The fact that language undergoes transformations in time and space.

English for example has undergone changes which moved it from old English
up to modern English.within a period of time, researchers kept on innovating.
They threw away some words and replace them with new words.
5. Denotative meaning:
What a word or expression originally means.for example, in pupils’ jargon

“gutema” means denotatively “to cut off ”.
6. Connotative meaning:
The second meaning of a word or expression; the literary meaning. For

example, at Buye Lycée, “gukunja” has ceased to mean “to bend” and currently
means “to caress”. The former is the denotative meaning whereas the latter is
the connotative one.
7. Sociolinguistics:
It is a branch of linguistics which studies those properties of language and

languages which require reference to social, including contextual factors in
their explanation as Dawnes (1984, p.53) defines it.
8. Code
For Richards et al. (1985, p.45), it is a term used to refer to a language, speech
variety or dialect. In this present study, the code refers to the jargon used by
Buye Lycée pupils. That is the way they communicate within themselves and
let others out.
9. Code-mixing
It is the use of morphemes from different languages within a single word,

according to Dawnes (1984:64).as illustration, there is word like “dofudu”
(the chief of food) which results from the combination of two languages such
as French (de) and English (food). This word means in the pupils’ jargon
(someone who likes much food).
10. Multilingualism
It refers to the state of a linguistic community in which more than two

languages are in contact with the result that two or more codes can be used in
the same interaction .In this study ,multilingualism refers to the ability to use
Kirundi ,the superstrate language and the substrate ones such as Kiswahili,
French and English.
I.10. Structure of the work
This work is about sociolinguistic study. It has five chapters such as General
introduction, Literature review, Research methodology and data presentation,
analysis and findings. The first chapter says in general how the work is to
be conducted. The research hypotheses on which the work was based were
elaborated. The second deals with review of literature of different researchers
and scholars about sociolinguistics.
The third chapter deals with methodology used to collect the data and
analysis procedures. It also says problems encountered by the researcher in
carrying out this research. The fourth chapter is about presenting the data from
the field and their analysis. It also deals with findings where hypotheses have
to be verified. As far as the last chapter is concerned, the general conclusions
and recommendations have to be dealt with.
2
REVIEW OF
R E L AT E D L I T E R AT U R E
II.0. Introduction
T his chapter deals with different views of scholars and other

researchers about the use of jargon. It also aims at showing
how some writers and scholars comment on the issues related to language
in society and language varieties in general and the place of jargon in the
language in particular.
I.1.1. Jargon
The Merriam Webster’s dictionary defines jargon as “an often more or less
secret vocabulary and idioms peculiar to a particular group”. An informal
non-standard vocabulary made typically of coinages, arbitrary changes of
words and extravagant, forced, or facetious figures of speech.
The Webster’s Third New Dictionary defines it as “the technical terminology
of characteristic idiom of specialists or workers in a particular activity or area
of knowledge.”
The Oxford Advanced Learners’ Dictionary defines it as “words or expressions
developed for use within a particular group, hard for the outsiders.”
Olivier Harindintwari (2009, p.9) postulates that: a jargon is a special
language created by members of a given social or professional group for their
specific purposes, either to mark their identity or to exclude outsiders. In respect
of this statement, Gaeng (1971, p.177) argues that:
10 . review of related literature
Jargon generally refers to the specialized and technical vocabulary

of those engaged in a particular trade or profession or that of any
other specialized group (such as ski-club). It does not purport
to deliberately unintelligible and obscure to the non-initiates .It
is shop-talk. But because it consists of many words that are not
familiar to the average speaker, the term jargon has often been used
to designate unintelligible speech.
Pupils of Buye Lycée use special language because they are engaged in a
particular occupation and they are in a boarding school. So, those who do not
belong to this community find their language unintelligible.
According to Fromkin and Rodman (1978, p.282), “jargon is words used
to describe the special terms of a professional or trade group. Practically
every conceivable science, profession, trade, and occupation has its own set
of words, some of which are considered to be “slang” and others “technical,”
depending on the status of the people using these “in” words. Such words are
sometimes called jargon or argot”.
As for a boarding school pupils like those of Buye Lycée, they have some
words and expressions that they use and which might not be found in other
boarding schools. That is for instance “Urumogi” which literally means “a
hemp” refers in their jargon to an “avocado”
Fromkin and Rodman also say: “many jargon terms pass into the standard
language. Jargon spread from a narrow group until it is used and understood
by a large segment of the population, similar to slang. Eventually, it may lose its
special status as either jargon or slang and gain entrance into the respectable
circle of formal usage.” For this, the pupils of Buye use some words that can
be understood by others pupils from other school. Words like “Kubaga” which
means in their jargon “to cheat”; “akamva” which means “the meal” can be
understood by other pupils.
Richards et al (1985, p.151) define a jargon as a speech or writing containing
specialized words or constructions. For example: the jargon of law, medical
jargon, etc.
Jargon (language) is vocabulary used by a special group or occupational
class, usually only partially understood by outsiders. The special vocabulary
of medicine, law, banking, science and technology, education, military affairs,
sports, and the entertainment world all fall under the heading of jargon
(Encarta 2006).
Redmond (in Encarta 2006) also explains that some writers reserve the
term jargon for technical language. In general, however, slang is more casual
and acceptable to outsiders than jargon. Slang and cant are more vivid than
jargon, with a greater turnover in vocabulary.
Jargon is an indispensable means of communication within its own sphere,
but it is criticized when used unnecessarily in everyday contexts, or to impress,
intimidate, or confuse outsiders (Encarta 2006). Jargon is terminology which
is especially defined in relationship to a specific activity, profession, or group
(Wikipedia).
Jargon is technical language used and developed by people who participate
in a special field, a group, profession / culture, especially when the words
and phrases are not understood / used by other people. Every occupation or
specialized field has its own vocabulary.
As a conclusion , jargons differ from one group to another as Wardhaugh
(1977, p.220) points out when he says that “people as soldiers ,dentists,
mechanics, yachtsmen and skiers, criminals and pickpockets ,all use special
words.” Buye Lycée pupils use technical words which are peculiar to them.for
example,to go in the toilet is known in their jargon as “kwurira indege” literaly
means “to go in airplane”, “gukamura” “to dry up” stands for to urinate.
The diversity of the jargon from society to society incited many Burundian
researchers to carry out different studies on the sociolinguistic phenomenon
that is “jargon”. Indeed, some works have been produced in this area. Bazira
(1984) wrote about the language used in politics and agro pastoral domains
and realized that these disciplines use their own jargon.
In his study on jargon used by university students, Kabura (1984) found a
language mixture which characterizes the university students’ jargon. At the
sociological level, he found that students create their special vocabulary for
marking the difference from the outsiders. For Hatungimana (1996), jargon
changes from time to time. He tried to show the relation between language
and people living together, and sharing the same duties.
For Niyungeko (1997),his research was carried out on jargon used in the
secondary schools of Bujumbura municipality. He was interested in semantic
change and found that the form of the word remained intact but the initial
meaning changed. Mureke (1998) on his side carried out research on the jargon
used by prisoners of Mpimba prison while Bigirimana (2001) did his study on
the special language used by the junior seminary pupils, Nsanzumukiza(2013)
worked on the jargon used by the pupils at Lycée Tora.
All the researchers above show how every social group has its own language
with a particular social meaning and that persons that have the same interest
share a special medium of communication which is only peculiar to them.

In this connection, Harindintwari (2009, p.11) says that: “Drivers, university
pupils, prostitutes, tailors, prisoners, soldiers and secondary pupils, each have
their own ways of expressing ideas that are peculiar to them. In other words,
people who share the same occupation have a common language which is
different to the outsiders because they do not share the same background
knowledge within the in-group people. That is people who use jargon.”
II.1.2. Why the use of jargon
There must be an objective when a given group uses jargon. A group decides
to use jargon while intending to hide secrets or realities from outsiders. That is
to say that they want to keep confidential their things. It goes without saying
that the pupils of Buye Lycée use jargon to keep their things hidden and safe
from the understanding not only the surrounding environment but also the
authority who runs their school. So jargon maintains group identity. With
regard to this statement, Hanckard (1967, p.68) states that “it is common
knowledge that pupils have a language that is quite peculiar to them and that
is not understood very well outside the pupil society.” It is understandable
that Buye Lycée use jargon to impede communication to outsiders and to
distinguish themselves to the surrounding environment.
According to Wardhaugh (1985, p.124), “speakers employ certain linguistic
forms for no other purpose than trying to identify with a particular group”. In
addition to this, Gumperz (1971, p.43) points out that “special parlances are
used to maintain group identity.”
However, Partridge (1979, p.62) distinguishes fifteen reasons behind the
use of the jargon:
1. For the fun of it;

2. As exercise in wit and ingenuity or in humor;
3. To be different;
4. To be picturesque;
5. To be unmistakably arresting;
6. To escape from cliché;
7. To enrich language;
8. To add concreteness to speech;
9. To reduce seriousness;
10. To be colloquial;
11. For ease of social intercourse;

12. To reduce intimacy;
13. To show that one belongs;
14. To exclude others;
15. To be secret.
II.2. Slang
Jargon and slang are normally used as synonyms as we saw it while talking
about jargon.
Fromkin and Rodman (1978, p. 282) state that, “slang may not be used
in formal papers or situations, but is widely used in speech. They also state
that one linguist has defined slang as “one of those things that everybody can
recognize and nobody can define. The use of slang, or colloquial language,
introduces many new words into the language, by recombining old words into
new meaning.”
Words like “agasima” which means literaly “cement” and means in pupils’
jargon “a toilet”, “akamva” “unknown initial meaning” but means “the meal”
in pupils’ jargon can be recognized but cannot be defined in relation to their
origin. The pupils use them while speaking but cannot use them in formal
writing or while addressing themselves to the authorities.
Redmond (in Encarta 2006) adds that slang is informal, nonstandard words
and phrases, generally shorter than the expressions of ordinary colloquial
speech, and typically formed. The special in-group speech of young people
and of members of distinct ethnic groups is generally called slang, especially
when it is understood by outsiders.
Slang is a kind of language occurring chiefly in casual and playful
speech, made up typically of short lived coinages and figures of speech that
are deliberately used in place of standard terms for added raciness, humor,
irreverence or other effect (www.thefreedictionary.com/slang ).
Slang is highly informal language that is outside of conventional or
standard usage and consists of both coined words and phrases and of new or
extended meanings attached to established terms. Slang develops from the
attempt to find fresh and vigorous, colorful, pungent or humorous expression,
and generally either passes into disuse or comes to have a more or less formal
status (Webster’s New World Dictionary).
Susanto (2012, p.15) states “that slang can be called informal or
nonstandard language that is used to communicate by certain communities in

certain situations such as in informal and friendly conversation. The language
they use is influenced by their profession, community, age, hobby, social
position, etc.”
He continues saying that slang often suggests that the person utilizing
the words or phrases is familiar with the hearer group or subgroup and slang
can be considered as a distinguishing factor in group identity. In order for
an expression to become slang, it must be widely accepted and adopted
by member of the subculture or group. Slang has no society boundaries or
limitations as it can exist in all cultures and classes of society as well as in all
languages.
Briefly, jargon and slang are used synonymously and are both special
types of language. The main difference between jargon and slang is, jargon is
terminology that is used in relation to a specific activity, profession, group, or
event whereas slang is the use of informal words and expressions that are not
considered standard in the speaker’s dialect or language. In addition, slang is
only used in the spoken language and cannot be used in a professional context.
Jargon on its side, can be used in both written and spoken professional context.
II.2. Sociolinguistics
The definition of sociolinguistics is too broad that many linguists have

never found the same definitions about it. But some researchers regard
sociolinguistics as sociology of language.
Hudson (1981, p. 1) defines sociolinguistics as the study of language in
relation to society. It is similar to the meaning of sociology of language that
“the study of society in relation to the language”. Sociolinguistics has become a
recognized part of most courses at university level on ‘linguistics’ or ‘language’,
and is indeed one of the main growth points in the study of language, from the
point of view of both teaching and research.
Sociolinguistics is the study of the effect of any and all aspects of society,
including cultural norms, expectations, and context, on the way language is
used, and the effects of language use on society. It also studies how language
varieties differ between groups separated by certain social variables, e.g.,
ethnicity, religion, status, gender, level of education, age, etc., and how creation
and adherence to these rules is used to categorize individuals in social or
socioeconomic classes. As the usage of a language varies from place to place
(dialect), language usage varies among social classes, and it is these sociolects
that sociolinguistics studies. (Wikipedia)
Downes (1984, p. 19) says that “sociolinguistics is a branch of linguistics
which studies those properties of language which require social explanation.
The social explanations are of two main types: first, they involve large-scale
social settings. Second, they involve small-scale conversational settings”.
The conclusion of Wisniewski (in Finch 1998, p.26 and Yule 1996, p.30),
says: “sociolinguistics is a quickly developing branch of linguistics which
investigates the individual and social variation of language. Just as regional
variation of language can give a lot of information about the place the speaker
is from, social variation tells about the roles fulfilled by a given speaker within
one community, or country”.
According to Wisniewski there are numerous factors influencing the way
people speak which are investigated by sociolinguistics:
• Social class: the position of the speaker in the society, measured

by the level of education, parental background, profession and
their effect on syntax and lexis used by the speaker;
• Social context: the register of the language used depending on
changing situations, formal language in formal meetings and
informal meetings with friends for example;
• Geographical origin: slight differences in pronunciation
between speakers that point at the geographical region which
the speakers come from;
• Ethnicity: differences between the use of a given language by
its native speakers and other ethnic groups;
• Nationality: clearly visible in the case of the English language:
British English differs from American English, or Canadian
English;
• Gender: differences in patterns of language use between men
and women, such as quantity of speech, intonation patterns;
• Age: the influence of age of the speaker on the use of vocabulary
and grammar complexity. The basic usage of language is as a
means of communication. An important factor influencing the
way of formulating sentences in communication is according
to sociolinguists, the social class of the speakers that is to
mean that social structure may influence or determine the
linguistic structure and behavior.
II.3.1. Language Varieties
In every society, human beings communicate. They use language to achieve

this goal. Within a language the researcher can see that there can be some
changes. Therefore language is described as a non-static phenomenon. It
varies from one user to another.
On this argument, Akmajian, et al (1981, p. 177) say “no human language
can be said to be fixed, uniform, unvarying: all languages, as far as anyone
knows, show internal variation in that actual usage varies from speaker to
speaker.
Hudson (1981, p. 25) also states that “the defining the characteristic of
each variety is the relevant relation to society – in other words, by whom, and
when, the items concerned are used.”
Hudson (1981, p.24) concludes that: “what makes one variety of language
different from another is the linguistic items that it includes, so we may define
a variety of language as a set of linguistic items with similar social distribution.
A variety may be much larger than a lay ‘language’, including a number of
different languages.”
Languages constantly undergo changes, resulting in the development of
different varieties of the language. In sociolinguistics a variety, also called a
dialect, is a form of a language used by speakers of that language (Wikipedia).
Language varieties different from standard language that is taught in school,
these are jargon, pidgin, creoles, slang, dialect and other. These varieties have
their own vocabulary, grammatical rules and the way to pronounce words.
II.3.2. Language and society
All over the world, every society has its own language which is developed to
help people in communication. In fact, language is taken not only as the most
important tool of communication but also as means through which human
beings can be distinguished from other beings. Therefore, human beings can
formulate words, sentences, and phrases through vocal sounds to express
their ideas and feelings.
As Brown (1954, p.13) says: “No animal thinks and no animal talks except
man. Language and thought are inseparable, words without thoughts are dead
sounds; thoughts without words are nothing.to think is to speak low; to speak
is to think loudly. The word is the thought incarnate”.
In fact, Kabera (2009,p.13), states: “men distinguish themselves from

animals in many ways such as “featherless bipeds” as toolmakers, as the
unique possessors of a soul but maybe it is language that most clearly sets us
apart”. He continues saying that animals do not communicate by using words
and expressions as human beings but they cry, hoot, bleats, and coo, and to
some degree, these noises accomplish the same purposes as a human being’s
language. They attract mate, call infants, warn of a danger or cry in pain. These
animal noises are more likely human cries, screams, sighs, and grunts than
they are like language.
Language alone has an inherently meaningless sets of sounds, which can be
used to form a vast vocabulary, and language alone is productive of an infinite
number of topics.
Moreover, Burling (1970, p.199) goes on by saying that: “On the average,
the better speakers probably had bigger brains, and perhaps this is why the
human brain has doubled in size in the course of the million or so years.”
On this view, one can suggest that the unique character of the human brain
and the trait that distinguishes it most clearly from other mammalian brains
is its ability to produce language. It is profitable to speculate just on how our
brain fulfills this task, but cannot doubt that our ability to speak and the ways
in which human vocal communication differs from that of our nearest non-
human relatives rest squarely upon our biological organization.
II.3.3. Speech Community
Speech community refers to a group of people either living together or

scattered but use the same language or a dialect of language.
In respect to this argument, Hudson (1981, p. 25) states that: “the term
speech community is widely used by sociolinguistics to refer to a community
based on language, but linguistic community is also used with the same
meaning. If speech communities can be delimited, then they can be studied,
and it may be impossible to find interesting differences between communities
which correlate with differences in their language.”
Lyons as quoted by Hudson (1981, p. 25), says “speech community is all
the people who use a given language (or dialect)”. According to Hockett as
quoted by Hudson (1981, p. 26), “each language defines a speech community:
the whole set of people who communicate with each other, either directly or
indirectly, via the common language”.
Gumperz as quoted by Hudson (1981, p. 26),says “the speech community:

any human aggregate characterized by regular and frequent interaction by
means of a shared body of verbal signs and set off from similar aggregates by
significant differences in language use”.
Hudson quoted by Bloomfield (1981, p. 26) states that “a speech
community is a group of people who interact by means of speech”. The same
Hudson cited by Labov (1981, p. 27) says that “the speech community is not
defined by any marked agreement in the use of language elements, so much
as by participation in a set of shared norms, these norms may be observed in
overt types of evaluative behavior, and by the uniformity of abstract patterns
of variation which are invariant in respect to particular levels of usage”. Speech
community is a concept in sociolinguistics that describes a more or less
discrete group of people who use language in a unique and mutually accepted
way among themselves (Wikipedia).
Speech community is a group with a shared language: a group that includes
all the speakers of a single language or dialect. They may be widely dispersed
geographically (Encarta Dictionary Tools).
Speech communities can be members of a profession with a specialized jargon,
distinct social groups like high school pupils or hip hop fans, or even tight-knit
groups like families and friends. Members of speech communities will often
develop slang or jargon to serve the group’s special purposes and priorities.
II.3.4. Style
Language varies not only according to the social characteristics of the speakers
such as occupation, sex, social class, etc. But language may also vary according to
the social context in which an individual finds himself. This means that someone
may use different linguistic varieties according to people he or she is addressing
and for different aims and so forth. This is what is called style shifting.
In respect, Fromkin and Rodman (1978, p. 271), says: “… your language is
“spoken differently” in the different parts of the world; dialects are a common
phenomenon. But you may not be aware that you speak two or more “dialect”
of your language. When you are out with your friends, you talk one way; when
you go on a job interview, you talk differently. These “situations dialect” are
called style”.
People change their language in different situations. In formal
communication such as in a meeting, people use standard language and
informal communication (talking with friends), people use non-standard
language. Other features of style include the use of dialogue, the language of
advertising, politics, religion, individual authors, etc. In other words, they all
have ‘place’ or are said to use a particular ‘style’.
II.3.5. Register
“The term register is widely used in sociolinguistics to refer as ‘varieties

according to use’, in contact with dialects, defined as ‘varieties according to
user’ ” Hudson (1981, p.48).
In Wikipedia, registers are associated with particular situations, purposes,
or levels of formality. A register (sometimes called a style) is a variety of
language used in particular social setting. In linguistics, a register is a variety
of a language used for a particular purpose or in a particular social setting.
According to Comrie (in Encarta 2006) in addition to language varieties
defined in terms of social groups, there are language varieties called registers
that are defined by social situation. In a formal situation, for example, a person
might say, “You are requested to leave,” whereas in an informal situation the
same person might say, “Get out!” Register differences can affect pronunciation,
grammar, and vocabulary.
“The term of register was first used by the linguist Thomas Bertram Reid in
1956, and brought into general currency in the 1960s by a group of linguists
who wanted to distinguish between variations in language according to the
user (defined by variables such as social background, geography, sex and age),
and variations according to use, “in the sense that each speaker has a range
of varieties and choices between them at different times”. Register as language
variation defined by use not user”.
Halliday as quoted by Hudson (1981, p. 49), says “register distinguishes three
general types of dimension: field is concerned with the purpose and subject –
matter of the communication; mode refers to means by which communication
takes place – notably, by speech or writing; and tenor depends on the relations
between participants. Field refers to ‘why’ and ‘what’ a communication takes
place, mode refers to ‘how’ and tenor refers to ‘whom’ ”.
II.4. Code Mixing and Code Switching
Code-mixing refers to the mixing of two or more languages or language

varieties in speech (Wikipedia).
Code-switching is a linguistics term denoting the concurrent use of more

than one language, or language variety, in conversation. Multilingualism is
a situation in which people speak more than one language - sometimes use
elements of multiple languages in conversing with each other. Thus, code
switching is the syntactically and phonologically appropriate use of more than
one linguistic variety (Wikipedia).
Base on Hudson (1981, p. 62), “situational code switching is the situation
type will predict which variety a speaker will employ. Whether a speaker
situationally code switched or not further depends on the orientation of value
of the particular subgroup of the community to which he belongs”. While,
“metaphorical code switching is the use of the variety alludes to the social
values it encodes, but is otherwise inappropriate to the situation in which it is
uttered” (Hudson 1981, p. 64).
Code mixing may occur within multilingual setting where speakers share
more than one language in a sentence. Nearly all bilingual children produce
utterances that combine two or more languages in a speech. It happened
because children may have limited vocabulary, they may know a word in one
language but not in another.
The term code-switching emphasizes a multilingual speaker’s movement
from one grammatical system to another. Speakers practice code-switching
when they are each fluent in both languages. Code-switching is understood as
the socially and grammatically appropriate use of multiple varieties.
As illustration, code mixing is shown is words like “dofudu” which
is combination of French “de” and English “food”. This words stands for
someone who likes so much food in pupils’ jargon. As far as code switching is
concerned, Buye Lycée pupils can use French, Kirundi and English either in
writing or in speaking. They can master the grammatical rules of any language
among those while communicating.
II.5.Word meaning
The word meaning has been a widely discussed issue by many scholars and
researchers, yet it has been difficult to define it precisely. It is, in other words,
a complex and ambiguous notion. Some linguists attempted to describe it
and it is from here that some divergences arise. In this connection, Barber
(1962, p.242) states that “the use of the word meaning involves on the one
hand, relationship between language and the real word, between the signaling
system and the things that refers to or stands for.”

Besides, he distinguishes two kinds of meanings such as “Referential
meaning” which is detected by observing how language is used in actual
situations and this is how a child discovers the meaning of words and
sentences when it learns its mother tongue. There is also another meaning
according to Barber “Formal meaning” which is the ability of the item to carry
the information and depends on the other items that it can be contrasted in
the system”
For Allan (1986, p.75) as quoted by Manariyo (2004, p.18), “There are three
kinds of meanings: sense, the property of meaning in abstract categories such
as sentences, lexeme, morpheme; denotation, the use of sense in speaking of
some particular words, that is the people, things, places, events, states within
it; and utterance meanings, what is hearer H rationally determines that the
speaker S intends his meaning to convey.”
According to Leech (1974, p.9-23), there exists seven types of meaning.
First of all, he says that there is conceptual meaning which is the central
factor in linguistic communication and therefore it is integral to the essential
functioning of language. Secondly, there is connotative meaning which
consists of additional meaning that a word or phrase has beyond its central
meaning such as emotions and attitudes to which the word or phrase refers to.
Thirdly, Leech (1974), distinguishes social and effective meaning and
it refers to the meaning which a piece of language conveys about the social
circumstances of its use. The fourth meaning is an affective one which is
assigned to what is communicated of the feelings and attitudes of the speaker
/writer.
Reflected and collocative meaning is the fifth type of meaning. This meaning
is referred to the meaning which arises in case of multiple conceptual meanings,
when one sense of a word forms part of our response to another sense; the
associations a word acquires on account of the meanings of words which tend
to occur in its environment. Then, he points out associative meaning as the
sixth form of meaning where he says that it is what is communicated by the
way in which a speaker or writer uses the approximate statistical techniques.
Finally, he points out a thematic meaning as a message communicated after
being ordered, focused and emphasized.
Based on these comments, no one can ignore the pertinence of the question
of meaning among scholars. We can realize that to know the meaning of words
or expression is not an easy task as it seems to be. On this issue, Wardhaugh
(1985, p.104) says that:
In order to understand fully any bit of conversation, we must

ask ourselves a set of questions about it. We need to know who
is talking to whom. We must be concerned with the where and
when the utterance, that is, its location in place and time. We must
examine the content of what is said and the precise manner in
which that content is communicated.
In this same way, Verma and Krishnaswamy (1989, p.20) say that: “the
meaning of utterance does not depend entirely on its form; it also depends
on its function in setting. The meaning of what is said depends on who says
it to whom, when, where, and with what effect. In other words, the context of
situation in which an utterance is said is very important in deciding its overall
meaning.”
Leech (1974, p.23) adds that when we speak, we use language. This is done
with particular intention of the speaker towards the hearer… He keeps on
saying that many abuses or mistakes in communication involve the confusion
of different functions that any language has. Therefore, he distinguishes five
different functions of any language:
1. To convey information(Informational)
2. To express the speaker’s or writer’s feelings or attitudes
(Expressive)
3. To direct or influence the behavior or attitudes of others
(Directive)
4. To create an artistic effect ( Aesthetic)
5. To maintain social bonds ( Phatic)
For the hearer to get proper meaning of a word, expression or message,

he needs to combine denotative and connotative notions as the meaning of
a concept or object can be revealed connotatively or denotatively. For this,
Richards et al. (1985) and Leech (1974) converged on the idea of connotative
meaning by saying that: “it is that first meaning that a person gets from a
word.” For denotative meaning, Richard et al defines it as “that part of the
meaning of a word or phrase that relates it to phenomena in the real world
or in a fictional or possible world.” They go on saying that: “the denotative
meaning is often equated with referential and with cognitive meaning and
conceptual meaning.”
II.6. Conclusion
To sum up, what has been said in this chapter is related to what has been
discussed by many writers and scholars on jargon. The place that jargon
occupies in the language was considered, language in general and language in
society particularly has also been talked about, Speech community is mostly
defined as the linguistic community. We finally talked about the word meaning
in which we saw how complex it is, that it is difficult to get its precise meaning.
In fact, jargons are words and expressions that are created to make the
communication easier for people that are met in one places but originate
in different societies. The language is created for specific purpose which is
communicating within themselves. But when they are out of the group, they
speak normal language that they had before meeting others. For the pupils of
Buye Lycée, members of this community originates in different places. When
they get together it is difficult to understand each other while communicating
reason why they create other expressions which can unite them.
Jargon and slang are used synonymously but they differ in a way that slang
goes beyond the society boundaries and be understandable by outsiders but
jargon is peculiar to a small group.
Language changes in time and space. When we try to analyze the words used
today in Kirundi we find some new words that an old man cannot understand.
It also changes in space, for example if you say “yaziye” in northern part of
Burundi they will laugh at you saying that it is not Kirundi but in southern
part of Burundi it means “he/she has come”.
The third chapter deals with methodology used in collecting data and
procedures in analyzing them.
3
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
III.0. Introduction
T he third chapter deals with methodology which describes

the procedures that were followed during the investigation.
Then, it aims at showing the method used in collecting the data for this study
and the way they were processed and analyzed, and obstacles the researcher
underwent during his work. In order to obtain clear and valid results, the
following methods for data collection were used upon which findings and
conclusion were based.
III.1. Research area
Geographically speaking, Buye Lycée is one of secondary schools which

is in the Northern part of Burundi. It is located within Mwumba commune
in Ngozi province. It is surrounded by Nyamurenza commune, Busiga
commune, Ngozi commune and the south province of Rwanda. This school is
a mixed boarding school, it has two sections such as Modern Arts and Science
Section. It has senior level and junior level which is the fundamental school.
Buye Lycée has 600 pupils made of 380 pupils of boarding school (270 boys
and 110 girls); and 220 day school pupils (100 boys and 120 girls).
III.2. Population and sampling
III.2.1. Choice of the informants
The informants were chosen from the two sections (modern arts and
science section) of the senior level pupils of Buye Lycée because the other level
26 . research methodology
was the basic school which was still new to that school. The choice of those
two sections aimed at providing diversity of informants. We investigated girls
and boys to get various answers.
III.2.2. Sampling procedure
Normally, the ideal of the researcher was to get answers from the whole
population so as to get full information while collecting data. But to get access to
each one of all pupils was not possible. Therefore, it was necessary for the researcher
to reduce the size of the population and make a more reasonable sample. In this
respect, the simple random sampling was made since it was judged to be useful.
Here every unit had equal chance to be selected. The research was
conducted in different classes of senior level because they had been studying
at Buye Lycée for at least two years. The researcher did not proceed with the
pupils of basic school because the headmaster said that no one was allowed to
investigate on them.
The number of classes that the study concerned was six. Then the researcher
decided to take ten pupils per class to hand questionnaire to in four classes (1st and
2nd modern Arts and Science) but for the class of third modern Arts and science,
he decided to hand questionnaire to five pupils per class considering how long
they have been at this school. This was done so, because majority of them were
newly oriented to the school which means that they were not yet aware of the
language used. The number of informants was fifty ( 30 boys and 20 girls)
This study is an analysis of a particular language used by pupils at Buye
Lycée. In addition to the pilot study, a wide range of information on which the
formulated research questions were tested was gathered from, with a constructed
questionnaire seeking all the words and expressions that pupils use in their jargon
was made up. The method used for this study was to give them a well elaborated
questionnaire. The information provided by the pupils were additional to the one
got during pilot study, which proved the existence of special words and expressions
used by Buye Lycée pupils in everyday life language.
III.3. Research Instrument: Written Questionnaire
After conducting the pilot study and having realized that the pupils of Buye
Lycée use words and expressions peculiar to them, the researcher elaborated
a questionnaire which was designed to cover all possible areas. The types
of questions were varied from open-ended to close-ended ones. The open-
ended questions were made to get views and some basic information about
words and expressions used at Buye Lycée and its influence. The closed-ended
questions targeted pupils to provide factors and strategies that are taken into
account before creating new words and expressions.
III.4. Data collection procedure
III.4.1. Pilot study
It is through this level of research that every investigator should check the
availability of sufficient data and the adequacy of the subject matter. Then, a
pilot study is the act of checking the possibility of research and questioning its
practicality so as to decide on the adequacy of the subject matter. In this case,
this kind of study tests the validity of instruments on a small scale before it is
largely introduced.
As far as the research is concerned, the pilot study was done at Buye Lycée.
Few questions were randomly prepared and directed to whoever wanted to
answer them in order to check the adequacy of the research topic. Five pupils
answered this questions. What the researcher noticed from the result of the
pilot study was that Buye Lycée pupils are cooperative. From few questions
directed to them, the researcher got around thirty words and expressions
used in their special language. It is in this perspective that the questions to be
responded were finalized.
III.4.2. Field study
After conducting the pilot study to check adequacy of the topic, the
researcher elaborated a questionnaire that covered all domains of use.
During this field study, fifty pupils have been investigated and more than two
hundred words and expressions in addition the ones resulted from in the
pilot study were collected. This pilot study confirmed that Buye Lycée pupils’
language was full of words and expressions unintelligible to intruders. It
was high time to conduct a field study in order to identify all words used by
those pupils.
28 . research methodology
III.5. Encountered difficulties
In any scientific work, the researcher may encounter some difficulties

before achieving his objective. The obstacle that the researcher met during
the time he spent at Buye Lycée, was that the pupils first refused to give him a
time justifying that they were busy preparing tests and exams of the first term.
Besides, after self-introduction, some pupils were afraid to give information
for fear that these would be revealed to their authorities.
There was also a problem of translation from their jargon into English
because some of their words and expressions were the results of Buye Lycée
pupils’ innovations. Then, it was somehow difficult to translate the neologisms
as they have their meaning only within a social context.
III.6. Data analysis procedure
The questionnaire was elaborated to achieve the researcher’s goals, since

the questions were seeking opinions and views of pupils on how they use their
language, how and why new words and expressions are formed.
The list of words and expressions that the researcher collected proved to be
fit for a linguistic analysis because it can be stretched on a large sociolinguistic
scale as far as the word formation processes are concerned. However, some
collected data were judged less important in the analysis because some of those
words had kept the initial meaning. Therefore, the first stage was the selection
of the data which the researcher judged to be important for the analysis. The
data analysis was divided into three main sections. The first section consisted
of the presentation of data according to their domains of use.
The second section on its side dealt with linguistic mechanisms informants
resort to in order to create their special words and expressions. Such
mechanisms include reduplication, acronym, borrowing, compounding,
coinage, neosemanticism, affixation (prefix and suffix), clipping.
The third and last step was to deal with meaning in pupils’ jargon. This step
is concerned with the identification of the ordinal or initial meaning of words
and expressions and gives their corresponding social meaning the pupils
‘jargon. The notion of style was tackled as well. Each word or expression was
provided with meaning in the pupils’ jargon. The analysis was made through
a number of aspects such as linguistic mechanisms of the word-formation
processes and the semantic aspects that words and expressions being used in
jargon have.
III.7.Conclusion
In summary, the third chapter dealt with methods used in collecting data
and how it was analyzed. It also talked about how the researcher chose the
informants and difficulties that were encountered. The pilot study helped to
test the research instrument before the field study of the subject matter. The
following chapter concerns with data presentation, analysis and findings.
4
D ATA P R E S E N TAT I O N ,
A NA LYS I S A N D F I N D I N G S
IV.0 Introduction
A s the title revealed it, the fourth chapter aimed at presenting

and analyzing the data collected from field. The researcher
talked about his findings where he verified whether the hypotheses fixed in
first chapter were valid or not. Finally he drew a conclusion.
IV.1. Data Presentation
As far as presentation of data is concerned, the words and expressions

collected from field are the following:
Section I
Table1: Classification of words according to domain of use
No Words and expressions Origin of the words Original meaning Social meaning
1 Gusenya Kirundi To go look for wood To go to the kitchen to ask for food
2 Kuvoma Kirundi To fetch water To go to the kitchen to ask for food
3 Lancer une mission French To start a mission To go to the kitchen to ask for food
4 Kuja muyambere Kirundi To attend first mess in church To go to the refectory before others
5 Gutonda oroje French To be lined at off-side (in football) To go to the refectory before others
6 Gushora Kirundi To take something to the market To go to the refectory before others
7 First round English First round To go to the refectory before others
8 Gutema Kirundi To cut off To eat other pupils’ food deliberately
9 Kuravaja French To ravage To eat other pupils’ food deliberately
10 Dofudu English Food’s chief Who likes food very much
11 Kiboko Swahili Hippopotamus Who likes food very much
32 . data presentation, analysis and findings
12 SOGRAMABU French The group of pupils engaged in eating a lot The group of pupils engaged in eating a lot
13 Gupafura Unknown Unknown To eat from others’ plates
14 Satuntutwiwe Kirundi A selfish person A selfish person
15 Umunoko Kirundi The way of refusing something to someone A selfish person
by a facial sign
16 Ntibubegwa Kirundi Whose cassava bread cannot be eaten A selfish person
17 Nobifu Kiswahili With no conflicts A socially good person
18 Umujama Kiswahili A friend A socially good person
19 Maniga English Nigga Who prays a lot
20 Masere French Sister Who prays a lot
21 Inyegu Kirundi Devoted (to God) Who prays a lot
22 Umusengayi Kirundi Who prays a lot Who prays a lot
23 Vedette French Star or spotlight Who prays a lot
24 Pasitori English Pastor Who prays a lot
25 Kwitegurira ubusaseredoti French To prepare oneself for priesthood To pray a lot
26 Gutwaza ibitabo Imana Kirundi To help God carrying books To pray a lot
27 Guhaba Kirundi To die of envy To pray a lot
28 Gutera ijava French To throw javelin To vomit
29 Gukura amazi munyama Kirundi To take water out of meat To urinate
30 Gukamura Kirundi To dry something up To urinate
31 Kurasa impongo Kirundi To shoot an antelope To urinate
32 Kuririmba Kirundi To sing To urinate
33 Kurya ivyumba Kirundi To eat rooms To have sexual intercourse
34 Guca Kirundi To cut off To have sexual intercourse
35 Gupanika English To panic To study hard
36 Dopompo French The pomp’s chief Someone who studies hard
37 Inzuku Unknown Unknown Someone who studies hard
38 Umutunyi Kirundi Someone who is concentrated on a given Someone who studies hard
task
39 Gushora Kirundi To take things to the market To get up early to study
40 Kubaga Kirundi To butcher or slaughter To cheat
41 Kwiyibutsa Kirundi To remind oneself To cheat

42 Gukwega Kirundi To pull To cheat
43 Gutega mine French To mine (military) To cheat
44 Kuzuminga English To zoom To cheat
45 Kunyobwa Kirundi To be drunk by someone To fail the first session
46 Gutaha amarembe Kirundi To go home in peace To fail the first session
47 Gutemuka Kirundi To be cut To fail the first session
48 Kukinyonga Kirundi To ride it (the last place) To fail the first session
49 Kugira kumutoto Kirundi To move on banana leaves To fail in first session

50 Kuronka icuma Kirundi To get an iron To succeed after the first session
51 Gutaha ingande Unknown Unknown To succeed after the first session
52 Gutaha inkoko Kirundi To go home early in the morning To succeed after the first session
53 Kuva mumenyo y’ingwe Kirundi To escape from panther’s teeth To succeed after second session
54 Gucika kw’icumu Kirundi To escape from the spear To succeed after second session
55 Kukivako (icobo) Kirundi To risk to die To succeed after second session
56 Gucimba Kiswahili To simulate To be deliberately absent in class
57 Gukarota French to feign To be deliberately absent in class
58 Kwicungera Kirundi To protect oneself To be deliberately absent in class
59 Kugira ubudahangarwa Kirundi To have immunity To be deliberately absent in class
60 Kwiranda French To get discouraged To be discouraged before the end of the
year
61 Gusokora Kirundi To pull one thing among many other To be discouraged before the end of the
things year
62 Gupororonja French To work beyond the requested time To study until very late in the night
63 Gucika Kirundi To be cut off or to escape To study until very late in the night
64 Kubokora Unknown Unknown To sleep in class
65 Kubukonjiga French To conjugate it (bed sheet ) To sleep in class
66 Kubusingiza Kinyarwanda To praise (bed sheets) To sleep in class
67 Marmote French An animal that sleeps along period Someone who sleeps in class
without waking up
68 Guteteza Kirundi To toast very dry maize To fetch water
69 Kubizura French To kiss To kiss lovingly a boy or a girl
70 Kurya ibikonda Kirundi To eat saliva To kiss lovingly a boy or a girl
71 Gukunja Kiswahili To bend To caress
72 Kurya umukunjo Kiswahili To eat a bend To caress
TERMS RELATED TO MUTUAL ESTIMATION

73 Imbabwe French A kind chimpanzee Hutu
74 Abashalimo French The straws Tutsi
75 Abasangwabutaka Kirundi The first land owners Twa
76 Incoke Kiswahili A tired person A very intelligent pupil
77 Injeni French Super intelligent A very intelligent pupil
78 Ikimonita English Monitor A very intelligent pupil
79 Ikimoteri French Big engine A very intelligent pupil
80 Igisipreme French Supreme A very intelligent pupil
81 Indobo Kirundi A basket A stupid pupil

82 Ikinyangateur unknown Unknown A stupid pupil
83 Itente Unknown Unknown A stupid pupil
84 Mathias French Name of a person A stupid pupil
85 Igishwi Kirundi An impolite A stupid pupil
86 Ikibunene Kiswahili An oversized person Someone who is very fat
87 Econome French Someone who is in charge of the wealth of Someone who is very fat
the school
88 Nyamunini Kinyarwanda Someone who is very fat Someone who is very fat
89 Dogisosi French Sauce’s chief Someone who is very fat
90 Ikigonde Kirundi Who is not dynamic Someone who is physically weak
91 Magara y’urwembe Kirundi As strong as a razor Someone who is physically weak
92 Nzopfejo Kirundi I die tomorrow Someone who is physically weak
93 Duti Kirundi Twigs Someone who is physically weak
94 Gongohi Unknown Unknown Someone who is physically strong

95 Giti Kiswahili A chair Someone who is physically strong
96 Ijeya French Giant Someone who is physically strong
97 Ikinyati Kirundi A trap to catch an animal in the family of A beautiful girl
mice
98 Ikiyo Kiswahili A mirror A beautiful girl
99 Idori Unknown Unknown A beautiful girl
100 Icuki Kirundi Honey A beautiful girl
101 Ikizungezi Kinyarwanda A very pretty girl A beautiful girl
102 Yanutse Kirundi She has stunk An ugly girl
103 Igisabuni Kiswahili A soap An ugly girl
104 Imoshi French An ugly girl An ugly girl
105 Impiringi Unknown Unknown An ugly girl
106 Washishwe Kirundi Unpleasable An ugly girl
107 Runyenyeri Kirundi A star An ugly girl
108 Zuba Kiswahili A Sun A light-skinned person
109 Kiziba Kirundi Paddles look-like A light-skinned person
110 Muzungu Kiswahili A white A light-skinned person
111 Niga English Nigga A dark-skinned person
112 Igikara Kinyarwanda Black A dark-skinned person
113 Mwarabu French An Arabic person A dark-skinned person
114 Kiwi Kiswahili Black A dark-skinned person
115 Rufyiri Kirundi Black A dark-skinned person
116 Nzovu Kirundi Elephant A very short person
117 Ikibuto Kirundi Walnut of a fruit A very short person
118 Igikuri Kirundi A short person A very short person
119 Gasongo Kirundi A tall person A very tall person
120 Nyamurenge Kinyarwanda Congolese tribe A very tall person
121 Kijoga Unknown Unknown A very tall person
122 Songwesi Unknown Unknown A very tall person
123 Proche de la terre French Close to earth A very tall person
124 Gashinge Kirundi A needle A very thin person

125 Duti Kirundi Twigs A very thin person
126 Girafe French Giraffe A very thin person
127 Ducure-dent French To forge a tooth A very thin person
128 Yaraheze Kirundi He/ She is finished A very thin person
129 Spaghetti French A kind of rice A very thin person
130 Cent kilos French Hundred kilos A very thin person
131 Ikimamabebe French Mom of a baby A very big person
132 Muduga Kirundi A car A very big person
133 Sanforme French Formless A very big person
134 Indegwedegwe Unknown Unknown A very big person
135 Ikijora Unknown Unknown A coward person
136 Umucowi Unknown Unknown A coward person
137 Barumwete Kirundi A courageous person A brave person
138 Umuniga English A nigga A brave person

139 Kireko Kirundi Someone who is careless A brave person
140 Umudekayi Unknown Someone who is careless A brave person
141 Umwerenda Kirundi A righteous A brave person
142 Skirt runner English Who loves very much girls Who loves very much girls
143 Ishuri ya Lycée French Bull of the Lycée Who loves very much girls
144 Dogere English The chief of girls Who loves very much girls
145 Mukunzi Kirundi Beloved Who loves very much girls
146 Dovyumba French The chief of rooms Who loves very much girls
147 Dokigarama French Chief of Kigarama (one place in Ngozi Who loves very much girls
town )
148 Ikinyita Kirundi A portion of beef Who loves very much girls
149 Imburakimazi Kirundi Useless person A boy spoiling much money on girls
150 Gutanga care English To give care to someone A boy spoiling much money on girls
151 Umuhonzi Kirundi Who gives things to gain the heart of a girl A boy spoiling much money on girls
152 Vyaranse Kirundi No longer possible A boy spoiling much money on girls
153 Bisesagu Kirundi A spoiler A boy spoiling much money on girls
154 Bitangindya Kirundi The one giving food A boy spoiling much money on girls
155 Impabe Kirundi An envious person A boy spoiling much money on girls
156 Umucorayi Kiswahili The one who gives something to others in A boy spoiling much money on girls
need
157 Umucomayi Kiswahili Unknown A girl who likes boys giving her things to
eat or to drink
158 Vyarakunze Kirundi It has been possible A girl who likes boys giving her things to
eat or to drink
159 Umwana wiwe Kirundi His kid His girlfriend
160 Ikirato ciwe Kirundi His shoe His girlfriend
TERMS RELATED TO DESCRIPTION OF AUTHORITIES BEHAVIOR OR ACTIVITIES
161 Umutivuruga Kiswahili Peaceful person A kind teacher
162 Namavuta Kirundi He / she is oil or lotion A kind teacher
163 Umujama Kiswahili A friend A kind teacher
164 Umuvyeyi Kirundi A parent A kind teacher
165 Umuzungu Kiswahili A white person A kind teacher
166 Umwami Kirundi A king A kind teacher
167 Umujama Kiswahili A friend A rigorous teacher
168 Igikashi Kirundi A bitter banana A rigorous teacher
169 Imvyeyi Kirundi A female cow that gave birth at least once A teacher giving good marks
170 Umutama Kirundi An old man A teacher giving good marks
171 Papapoints French Father of marks A teacher giving good marks
172 Umustari English A famous person A teacher giving good marks
173 Super English Super A teacher giving good marks
174 Umugome Kinyarwanda An unkind person A teacher giving low marks
175 Ndyabana Kirundi Who eats kids A teacher giving low marks
176 Umubaya Kiswahili A bad person A teacher giving low marks
177 Umucwezi Unknown Unknown A teacher giving low marks
178 Yipfuze ikirago Kirundi He covered himself with a nap A teacher giving low marks
179 Bikoti English Who always puts on dirty clothes and Someone who dresses badly (for a teacher)
worn out coats
180 Madirisha Kirundi Windows Someone who dresses badly (for a teacher)
181 Umuscience French A scientist Someone who dresses badly (for a teacher)
182 Kuvika Kirundi To put leaves in a bucket full of water to To dress well (for a teacher)
avoid it from splashing down
183 Gutera stire English To put on new fashion style clothes To dress well (for a teacher)
184 Aridistenga French He / she distinguishes himself To dress well (for a teacher)
185 Ari kuri hit English He is on success A teacher who dresses up well
186 Yaduhereje Kirundi He has given us something A teacher who dresses up well
187 Arica Kirundi He kills A teacher who dresses up well
188 Guca kumazi Kirundi To put to an end the mourning period A teacher who dresses up well
189 Yanize imihimbiri Kirundi He slit useless persons’ throats A teacher who dresses up well
190 Ikidegede Unknown Unknown A teacher liking to chat with pupils
especially in private
191 Yaguze parcel French He bought a plot A teacher liking to chat with pupils
192 Baju Unknown Unknown A teacher liking to chat with pupils
193 Arahwera Kirundi He is about to die A teacher liking to chat with pupils
194 Goliath Unknown Name from the bible To be in love with a pupil when you are a
teacher
WORDS AND EXPRESSIONS RELATED TO FOOD AND DRINKS
195 Uwera Kirundi A white Rice
196 Agafyisi Kirundi Hyena Rice
197 Amagi y’ibimonyo Kirundi The eggs of a kind of insects Rice
198 Intete Kirundi Cereal Rice
199 Iwari Kiswahili Rice Rice
200 Umuwence Unknown Unknown Rice
201 Umurayise English Rice Rice
202 Taramusini Unknown A kind of tablets Beans
203 Amaharage Kiswahili Beans Beans
204 Zéro élément nutritive French With no nutritive elements Cassava bread
205 Ibumba Kirundi Argil Cassava bread
206 Amagari Kishwahili Bread Cassava bread
207 Igishwiku Unknown Unknown Cassava bread
208 Amaradio English Radios Potatoes
209 Ingwende Unknown Unknown Sweet potatoes
210 Isake y’umukwe Kirundi A chicken reserved to son in law Sweet potatoes
211 Amatoke Ugandan Bananas Bananas
212 Ikigwena Kirundi A place where palm trees are cropped Palm oil
213 Ibirungo Kirundi Spices Palm oil
214 Ikigazi Kirundi Palm tree Palm oil
215 Umunyota Kirundi Ash Salt

216 Imbuko Kirundi Poison Salt
217 Akabiryosha Kirundi Which gives tastiness to the food Salt
218 Ikigwena cinshi Kirundi Unknown Food with much oil
219 Ibisanzwi French Without oil Food with little or no oil
220 Ikiziba Kirundi Puddle Food with little or no oil
221 Imvumba Kirundi A kind of herbs Food with little or no oil
222 Zisumvya co (female sex) Kirundi They are better than a female sex Delicious food
223 Agakosoye Kirundi A corrected meal Delicious food
224 Injanga Kirundi Small fish Delicious food
225 Ubudende Kirundi A little quantity Insufficient food
226 Bantemye Kirundi They have cut me off Insufficient food
227 Nyamugigima Kirundi Earthquake Insufficient food
228 Imontanye French The mountain Much food
229 Indege Kiswahili Airplane Much food
230 Kwiha indege Kirundi To give oneself an airplane To serve oneself with no consideration for
others
231 Gushoza Kirundi To have a drink after eating To lack water after eating
232 Kwimosha Kirundi To have a haircut to get drunk
233 Kwica umuzungu Kiswahili To kill a white person To get drunk
234 Kinyota Kirundi Someone who is always thirsty Someone who likes alcoholic drinks
235 Kuribaba Kirundi To make it spicy To drink alcoholic drinks
236 Kuja ihoro Kiswahili To be in an excessive happiness To get drunk
237 Guhura nicaka Kinyarwanda To meet thirsty To get thirsty
238 Kubura nyabarongo Kinyarwanda To miss a Rwandan river called Nyabarongo To get thirsty
239 Kwaka Kirundi To burn To get thirsty
240 Kumeneka urushatsi Kirundi To have hair broken To get thirsty
241 Kwumuka Kirundi To be dried up To get thirsty
242 Kiramenye Kirundi It breaks me To be hungry
243 Gupfa Kirundi To die To be hungry
244 Kanse Kirundi It refused To be hungry
245 Nahiye Kirundi I am burnt To be hungry

246 Gutabuka Kirundi To be torn up To be hungry
247 Kwumva umuyaga Kirundi To feel wind To be hungry
248 Uburundi bwose burahaze Kirundi The whole Burundi is fed up To be feed up
249 Kubogora Kirundi To redress To be fed up
250 Gufumura Kirundi To punch To be fed up
251 Gufutura Arabic The dinner of Muslims during fasting To be fed up
period
252 Gusanya Kiswahili To overload To be fed up
OTHER EXPRESSIONS
253 Agasima French Cement Toilet
254 Ikiyayuramutwe Kirundi A drug A name of a girl according to boys
255 Agatore Kirundi An admirable person A name of a girl according to boys
256 Urubaju Unknown Unknown A name of boy according to girls
257 Gukwega umwagazi Kirundi To pull a lamb To eat cassava bread
258 Umwagazi Kirundi A lamb A piece of cassava bread
259 Imvura Kirundi Rain A supervisor or headmaster
260 Kundege Kiswahili On the airplane The table of school representatives
261 Imbwa Kirundi A dog Shoes for sport
262 Guhaba Kirundi To die of envy To do sports
Umuyungwe Unknown Unknown A new comer in boarding school
263
264 Gusiga Kirundi To paint To mix food with an avocado
265 Urumogi Kirundi Hemp An avocado
266 Impene Kirundi A goat An avocado
267 Cachez vos testicules French Hide your testicles Warning to hide what is forbidden
268 Kigarama Kirundi A name of place in Ngozi town It is a place, at Buye Lycée, where lovers
meet the very late before going to bed
269 Ikizu c’acamahoro Kirundi A house of peace Refectory
270 Ikigwanisho Kirundi A weapon Spoon
271 Kurya ibipfutso Kirundi To eat covers To eat bread
272 Agasametre French A hundred meters Diarrhea
273 Kwitiza French To use others’ things without their To steal something
permission
274 Kuribwa n’iryinyo Kirundi To have a toothache To be sexually attracted or to be in erection
Section II
Table 2
The option relating to the reason why pupils prefer to use jargon Informants %
instead of ordinary language
Because I want to distinguish myself from others 10 20
Because it sounds good to me 6 12
Because I have found it as it is and then adopted it 4 8
Because I want impede communication towards outsiders and 30 60
thereby communicate freely with my friends
Other reasons 0 0
Total 50 100
Section III
Table3
The strategy involved in jargon creation Participants %
A word is given a new meaning 14 28
A word is modified, that is, shortened or lengthened 5 10
Two words are joined to produce a single form 0 0
We invent totally new words 21 42
By fusion of two words into one 4 8
From the initial letters of a set of other words 0
By adding affixes to the existing words 6 12
IV. 2. Data analysis
IV.2.0. Introduction
It has been mentioned that the final aim of this work is to display the real
world of the pupils at Buye Lycée through the analysis of the various words
and expressions which constitute their jargon. In fact, after a careful collection
of the data, the researcher came up with more than two hundreds words and
expressions that are used by Buye Lycée pupils that were analyzed accordingly.
Therefore, the present jargon as a social phenomenon, is made of words and
expressions from conventional languages such as Kirundi, English, Kiswahili,
French, Kinyarwanda and others with totally unknown origin. Linguistic
modes, which the speakers of the jargon resort to in order to enrich their
medium of communication that is, jargon, are shown in this chapter.
In this perspective, morphology is the first branch to look at since it deals

with the internal structures of words and the study of the ways in which new
words are formed and created. The second step is, as far as semantic change
is concerned, focused on the analysis and interpretation of the semantic
aspect of the data. The semantic analysis is tackled under two components,
that is, the meaning words and expressions used in this jargon has and the
style which is of great importance in the study of language. Thus, Polysemy,
Synonymy, and Antonyms have found their place. In coping with stylistics,
Hyperbole, Euphemism, Metonym, etc. are noticeable in this jargon as means
of transmitting thoughts among pupils of Buye Lycée. Last, there will be
classification of words used in this jargon according to morphological domain.
IV.2.1. Process of Word Formation
The Process of word formation is a process in which a new word is coined

by removing a real or imagined affix from an existing word (Encarta 2006).
Yule (1985, p. 51), “… you can very quickly understand a new word in your
language and cope with the use of different forms of that new word. This
ability must derive in part from the fact that there is a lot of regularity in the
word formation processes in your language”.
The following linguistic mechanisms are used by the pupils at Buye Lycée
in the creation of their jargon: affixation (suffixation, prefixation) infixation,
coinage, borrowing, compounding, reduplication, clipping, echoism,
Neosemanticism (shift of meaning), code mixing.
IV.2.1.1. Affixation
Suffixation and prefixation fall into the affixation process which stands for
the way in which one can add a prefix at the beginning and/or a suffix at the
end to change the meaning.
Prefixation consists of adding a prefix in front of a basic word with or
without a change of word class. Word like “kuravaja” has “ku-” as an infinitive
prefix which denotes the state of the verb. Thus “kuravaja” means “to destroy”.
This prefix is added on a borrowed word from French (ravager) which means
in the pupils’ jargon “to eat deliberately food without considering others”.
Another example is the noun “ikimonita” it has been added the prefixes “i-”
and “-ki-” which means in the pupils’ jargon “an intelligent pupil”. We can also
add that this noun is a borrowed word from English but made as a noun in the
pupils’ jargon by adding prefixes. The word was a noun before those prefixes
and remained the same after the addition of the prefixes.
As far as suffixation is concerned, it is a process whereby a suffix is added
after the base. Consider a word like “gusenga” when added to it a suffix “-yi”,
there is a new word which is formed “umusengayi” this means in pupils’ jargon
“a name given to someone who exaggerates in prayers”. Another example is
the word “kuzuma” which is a borrowed from English (to zoom) on which is
added suffix “*ing” and becomes “kuzuminga”; this means in pupils’ jargon “to
cheat by looking at classmate’s sheet”.
Infixation refers to the way a word is put between the augment and the
stem. Word like “kukinyonga” which originally means “to ride it”, the pronoun
“-ki-” expresses the word a bell that will be made to produce sound. The
same word means in the pupils’ jargon “to signal a meal time”. Word like
“kubwinjira” meaning to go to bed, the pronoun “-bu-” replaces the bed in
which one enters.
IV.2.1.2.Coinage
This word-formation consists of inventing words that originated anywhere

in different languages. It is difficult even impossible to identify who invented
them. In this study there are lexical innovations of this kind of words and
some, if not all, of which have been naturalized to be Kirundi words.
Examples:
a. Gupafura (unknown)
This word looks like a Kirundi one because it presents the same
constituents as a recognized verb in Kirundi. The word stands
for “to eat deliberately on others food”.
b. Ikinyangatere (unknown):
This word sounds like a noun.It also has all constituents as a
Kirundi noun does. It stands for “a stupid pupil”.
c. Umucwezi (unknown)
This word also looks like a Kirundi one. It stands for “a teacher
who gives bad marks”.
d. Igiswiku (unknown)
It also sounds like noun as it has in common constituents with
a Kirundi word. It means in pupils’ jargon “cassava bread”.
Etc.
IV.2.1.3. Borrowing
Fromkin and Rodman quoted by Susanto (in academia.edu 2012), states that
“Borrowing as the process by which one language or dialect takes and incorporates
some linguistics element from another. Most of words in language are borrowed.
Every language usually consists of native words and nonnative words. And finally
it is called “loan word”, which is borrowed from other language”.
Many social groups use this process to form new words which are finally
integrated in the language. The borrowed words may or may not be related to
those referred to. The borrowing process is therefore enriching the vocabulary
of a given language by bringing in and adapting words from another language
or by forming new words on the other language’s model. Some of borrowed
words are domesticated while others are used in their original states.
Examples:
Words which have been domesticated:
• Ikimoteri with French origin (moteur) which means an

intelligent pupil.
• Kubuconjiga which have French origin (conjuguer quelque
chose) which means to sleep in class
• Umujama which originated in Kiswahili (jama) it means a
kind teacher
• Ikizungezi originated from Kinyarwanda which means a very
beautiful girl
• Kuravaja originated from French (ravager) which means to
serve food without considering others
• Etc.
Words which are pronounced like their original counterparts:

“Lancer une mission” which means in pupils’ jargon “to go in the kitchen to ask
for food”; “cachez vos testicules” which refers to“warning to hide what is forbidden
at school” in pupils’ jargon; ‘sanforme’ stands for “an ugly girl” in pupils’ jargon
and cent kilos stands for “a thin person” in Buye Lycée pupils’ jargon , etc.
IV.2.1.4. Compounding
There is a joining of two or more separate words to produce a single form.

This combining process, technically known as compounding, is very common
in languages such as “bookcase”, “fingerprint”, “waterfall”, “long-haired” and

“wallpaper”. As far as the jargon of Buye Lycée pupils is concerned, this word-
formation process has a remarkable place.
Examples: a. Ntibubegwa
This word is formed by an association of three different Kirundi morphemes
which are namely:
• Nti- : (prefix showing negation)

• bu- ( infix standing for a piece of cassava bread)
• kubega (to cut a bit of cassava bread when someone is eating)
• u-: (suffix that indicates passive voice)
In this jargon it means an unsociable pupil

b. Ndyabana
This word is made of two Kirundi words (verb and noun):
• Ndya (kurya: to eat) conjugated in simple present with the

first person singular
• Abana (children), plural noun
This word refers to a teacher giving bad marks in the pupils’ jargon
c. Ikiyayuramutwe
This word is made of Kirundi words of the kinds of a verb and noun.
Kuyayura(to incite) + umutwe(a head). It stands for a qualification of boys to
a girl. Boys call ladies as such in Buye Lycée pupils’ jargon but it is originally
known in Kirundi as “a drug”.
IV.2.1.5. Clipping
Clipping means cutting off the beginning or the end of a word, or both,
leaving a part to stand for the whole. For examples: laboratory becomes
lab, gymnastic becomes gym, examination becomes exam, and influenza
becomes flu. In Buye Lycée pupils’ jargon, clipping is identified in the word
“ibisanzwi”. It is a borrowed word from French “sans huile”. It was supposed to
be “ibisanzwire” but due to the clipping process, the word became “ibisanzwi”.
There are also words like, “refe” for refectory, “blem” for problem and “annif ”
for anniversary. The researcher noticed that this process is not frequent in
Buye Lycée pupils ‘jargon.
IV.2.1.6. Acronyms
Some new words are formed from the initial letters of a set of other words.
An acronym is a word formed from the initials or beginning segments of a
succession of words. Acronyms often consist of capital letters, as MP (Military
Police or Member of Parliament), UNESCO (United Nations Educational,
Scientific and Cultural Organization), and radar (radio detecting and
ranging). As illustration in the jargon of Buye Lycée pupils, there is an example
of “SOGRAMABU” (sociéte des grands mangeurs du Buye Lycée), this word
is formed from initials of French words. It stands for “great eater’s group”
which are the pupils that like food so much in the Lycée. Another example
is “TBT” (Twirande bishobotse twitahire) or (twuzuze bishobotse twitahire)
which stand for respectively ‘let us surrender and go home or let us succeed in
all courses and go home’, they are formed from Kirundi words. Those “TBT”
groups are seen in third term where pupils are in different categories such as
those who lost hope to succeed, those who trust their success and those who
are still fighting for success.
IV.2.1.7. Echoism
Echoism is the formation of words whose sound suggests their meaning,

like hiss and peewee. The meaning is usually a sound, either natural like the
roar of a waterfall or artificial like the clang of a bell. But the meaning may also
be the creature that produces the sound, like bobwhite. Examples: moan, click,
murmur, quack, thunder, whisper, lisp, chickadee, bobolink. In literary study
it’s called onomatopoeia.
Echoism is a process by which the sound of a vowel changes to imitate the
sound of a preceding vowel (in Encarta 2006). In Buye Lycée pupils’ jargon,
for instance, the word “kuririmba” stands for to urinate. We can say that it
imitates the sound produced while urinating.
IV.2.1.8. Reduplication
Reduplication is the process of forming a new word by doubling a morpheme,

usually with a change of vowel or initial consonant, as in “tiptop”, “pooh-pooh”,
“hanky-panky”. Reduplication is repeating a vowel, syllable, or word in order
to create a new linguistic element or word such as “wishywashy” or “goody-
goody” (Encarta Dictionary 2006). Examples illustrating are “indegwedegwe”
which means someone who is physically strong, “ikidegedege” which means

a teacher that likes to chat with pupils in private. In fact, examples illustrating
this process are very few in Buye Lycée pupils’ jargon.
IV.2.1.9. Neosemanticism (Semantic Shift)
Neosemanticism is a process whereby words or groups of words already

in the language acquire fresh meanings by being used in new situations or
for different referential purposes. This is certainly one of universal ways of
extending the vocabulary of a language (Olesen and Whittaker 1968, Algeo
1980, Maurer and High 1980, Sornig 1981, Eble 1989).
In fact, this is a dominant jargon formation process in youth communities.
Pupils are always fond of revitalizing old words with new meanings. Hence,
there are possibilities that words which originally bear neutral or formal usage
can move into the realm of jargon or vice versa. This process is very much
favored, since youngsters need not make a new jargon expression altogether,
but use an old word with new semantic content.
Semantic shift can go towards two different directions i.e. generalization
and specification (Poston 1964, Partridge 1970, Algeo 1980, Sornig1981, Eble
1996). In generalization, “terms acquire wider ranges of referents” (Eble 1996,
p. 54). In other words, the semantic content of a word expands and therefore
the word attains richer denotation and connotation as well. One typical word
that can help illustrate this is the jargon term “gutera”(throw).
Its semantic content is so much generalized that it can almost occur in
any context and combine with as much jargon expressions as possible. Other
examples include “guhaba” (to die of envy) ‘kurya’(eat), etc. As for‘gutema’,
its meaning is, at first, strictly confined to cut off. Now, through the process
of generalization, it extends to cover all kinds of “failure” including ones like
failure in class, in the refectory, or when a lady betrays a boy.
Unlike in generalization, if the semantic shift is towards a decrease in
referents, the process is called specialization (Eble 1996). Specialization plays
a prominent role in narrowing down the number of referents to a level that
specific knowledge is sometimes necessary for decoding the genuine meanings
of the jargon expressions. A good example is ‘kumara’, which connotes the
action of ending, finishing, concluding. However, in the pupils’ jargon,
‘guca’(to cut off), specifically refers to the action of having sexual intercourse,
while all the other possible interpretations would naturally be discarded.
IV.2.1.10. Code-mixing
Code-mixing refers to the mixing of two or more languages or language

varieties in speech (Wikipedia). For instance, the word ‘dofudu’ (who likes
food so much) is made up of ‘do’ from French ‘de’ (of), and ‘fudu’ from English
meaning ‘food’. The word ‘nobifu’ is composed of ‘no’ from English and ‘bifu’
(conflict) from Kiswahili, etc.
The term code-switching emphasizes therefore a multilingual speaker’s
movement from one grammatical system to another. Speakers practice code-
switching when they are fluent in both languages. Code-switching is understood
as the socially and grammatically appropriate use of multiple varieties.
IV.2.1.12. Analysis of words according to their morphological origin

Table 4: Classification of words according to their morphological origin
Morphological Frequency The word and expression
process
Prefix 21 Ntibuberwa, kuzuminga, kukinyonga, maniga, kubukonjiga,
kubusingiza, abashalimo, ikimonita, ikimoteri, igisipreme,
igisabuni, umuniga, umustari, umubaya, umuscience,
aridistinga, umurise, amagari, amaradio, ibisanzwi, agasima
Suffix 3 Umusengayi, kuzuminga, umustari,
Infix 3 ,kukinyonga ,kubukonjiga, kubusingiza,
Coinage 22 Gupafura, inzuku, gutaha ingande, kubokora, ikinyangateur,
itente, gongohi, idori, impiringi, kijoga, songwesi,
indegwedegwe, ikijora, umucowi, , umucwezi, idegedege,
baju, goriath, iwence, igiswiku, ingwende, umuyungwe,
Borrowing 76 Lancer une mission, gutonda oroje, first round, kuravaja,
defudu, kiboko, , nobifu, umujama, maniga, masere, vedette,
pasitori, gupanika, dopompo, kuzuminga, gucimba, gukarota,
kwiranda, gupororonja, kubukonjiga, kubusingiza, marmote,
kubizura, gukunja, imbabthe researcher, abashalimo, incoke,
injeni, ikimonita, ikimonita, ikimoteri, igisipreme, ikibunene,
économe, nyamunini, dogisosi, giti, ijeya, ikiyo, ikizungezi,
igisabuni, imoshi, muzungu, niga, igikara, mwarabu, kiwi,
proche de la terre, spaghetti, cent kilos, ikimamabebe,
sanforme, papapoints, umustari, super, amaradio,
umugome, umubaya, bikoti, gutera stire, aridistinga, ari kuri
hit,yaguzeparcelle, iwari, umurise, taramusine, amaharage,
zero element nutritive, amagari, amatoke, ibisanzwi,
imontanye, indege, kuja ihoro, gusanya, gufutura, agasima,
cacher vos testicules,
Compounding 9 Satuntutwiwe, abasangwabutaka, nzophejo, ikimamabebe,

sanforme, barumthe researcherte, papapoints, ndyabana,
ikiyayuramutthe researcher,
Clipping 5 Ibisanzwi, refe, annif, blem,doro
Acronyms 2 SOGRAMABU, TBT
Echoism 1 Kuririmba,
Reduplications 3 Indegwedegwe, idegedege, nyamugigima,
Neosemanticism 38 Gusenya, kuvoma, kuja mu ya mbere, gushora, gutema,
(semantic shift) maniga, gutemuka, guhaba, gukwega, kukinyonga,
kwicungera, gusokora, guteteza, indobo, gukunja, incoke,
mathias, igishwi, économe, ikigonde, giti, ikinyati, icuki,
wasishthe researcher, umthe researcherranda, umuvyeyi,
igikashi, imveyi, umutama, super, umugome, madirisha,
kuvika, ari kuri hit, ibumba, kwimosha, kubogora,
Code-mixing 4 Dofudu, ducure-dent, dovyumba, nobifu
IV.2.2 Analysis of jargon on the semantic level
The semantic concept should be understood as the study of the meanings

of words and phrases. This concept of meaning is too complex that it has been
and is still receiving varied definitions from several researchers. Therefore,
knowing the meaning of words, expressions, sentences or phrases implies
knowing certain semantic concepts such as synonymy, polysemy, antonymy,
etc. as the pupils of Buye Lycée use jargon as means of communication and a
way to hide their secret to the outsiders, the researcher finds word like “icuki”.
Kirundi language which is synonymy to “ikiyo” from Kiswahili language.
Both words refer to a very beautiful girl.
One word can replace another and the sense remains the same. Equally, some
words have more than one meaning. Thus, word like “umuniga” originated from
English, is used to mean “a person with dark complexion”, a very kind teacher or
a teacher giving good marks, “a socially good pupil in the pupils’ jargon”, “imvura”
which initially means “rain” is used in pupils’ jargon to mean “headmaster” or
“supervisor”; they use such item to hide their secret and protect themselves from
being discovered by their authorities. In the same jargon, the researcher found
words which are used to express just the opposite in original meaning. Words like
“Nzovu” originally means “an elephant” is used to refer to “a very thin person”. In
fact, they make use of those words to show the opposite of the existing reality and
their meanings have to be understood in the context of use in the jargon
As it has already been mentioned, the concept of meaning is difficult to

master since it is revealed to be broad as Firth (1967, p.57) points it out in his
definition of meaning: “meaning is one of the ambiguous and controversial
terms in the theory of language”.
He adds that “its ambiguity can be reduced but by no means resolved.” This
justifies the complexity of the notion of meaning.
IV.2.2.3 Semantic features of the jargon
IV.2.2.3.1 Synonymy
Words and expressions are said to be synonymous when one word can be
used in the place of the other without changing the meaning of the context.
Thus, such as “maniga”, “masere”, “pastori”, “vedette”, are used to refer to
“someone who prays a lot”. Words like “gukamura (to dry something up)”,
“gukura amazi munyama (to take water out of meat)”, “kurasa impongo” (to
shoot antelope)” “kuririmba (to sing)” are used in Buye Lycée pupils’ jargon
to mean “to urinate”, etc.
Jargon is a kind of language which is full of synonyms since it is considered
as an informal form of language because everyone who is in the social group
has his or her own ways of conceiving concepts, naming them as he or she
hears them.
IV.2.3.2. Polysemy
Polysemy is a semantic feature in which a word or expression may have

more than one meaning. This notion of polysemy is also used by Buye Lycée
pupils. Words like “maniga” which means “someone who prays a lot” may
also mean “a kind teacher”, “a brave person”. In the same respect, word like
“kukinyonga” means initially “to ride it” may mean “to fail in class” or “to
signal meal time”; “guhaba” which initially means “to die of envy” may mean
“to pray a lot” or “to do sports”.
Polysemy is used by such people because words are derived from others
and are used with as social meaning outside the original one.
IV.2.3.3. Antonymy
Antonymy is a semantic aspect in which a word is used to express just the

opposite of the other. This concept is also used in the jargon of Buye Lycée
pupils. Consider the word “Nzovu” which generally means “an elephant”
and which is normally used in Buye Lycée pupils’ jargon to refer to “a very
thin person”; “proche de la terre” which originates from French and initially
means “close to earth” and means in pupils’ jargon “a very tall person”; and
“cent kilos” originated from French which initially means “hundred kilos” and
means in the pupils’ jargon a very thin person.
This antonymy is illustrated by the way a very thin person is compared to
“an elephant” and “hundred kilos”, “a very tall person” compared to “close to
earth”. Whenever a pupil from Buye Lycée hears one of those words, he or she
instantly knows that the person is too thin or tall.
IV.2.4. A stylistic view of the jargon
The term “style” consists of figures of speech or writing of a given person or

a group of people according to the situation, the topic, the hearer, etc. stylistic
variation can be observed in the use of the following stylistic features: speech
sounds, words or expressions, figures of speech, etc. Moreover, figures of
speech occur either in written or spoken form of language. Thus, metaphor,
Hyperbole, Euphemism, antithesis, are noticeable in the language variety used
by the pupils at Buye Lycée.
IV.2.4.1. Metaphor
According to Eble (1996, p. 61), “the ability to make complex and multiple
connections between form and meaning is central to human cognitive and
linguistic ability, and most of the time we are unaware of the series of semantic
transfers that the interpretation of a word or phrase requires”.
Metaphor is indeed a type of figurative speech which requires human
beings to define different levels or degrees of indirect reference in associating
form with meaning. It is certainly not surprising that “metaphor abounds in
jargon” (Eble 1996, p. 69). Besides, comparison is made without necessarily
putting the terms of comparison. For instance, “a teacher giving good marks”
is referred to as ‘umuzungu’ (a white person). It means that, because many
Burundians organizations are sponsored by organizations created by white
men, this implies for them that anyone who is kind is compared to white men.
“A spoon” is referred to as “ikigwanisho” (a weapon).
In the same way, there is a noticeable parallelism between words pupils
use ‘indobo’ (bucket) for ‘a stupid pupil’, ‘magara y’urwembe’ (as strong as a
razor) for ‘someone who is physically weak’,‘ikiyo’ (mirror) for ‘a beautiful

girl’, ‘kubaga’ (to slaughter) for ‘to cheat’, ‘igisabuni’ (a big soap) for ‘a very
ugly girl’ , ‘siraje’ (shoe polish) for ‘dark-skinned person’, ‘girafe’ (giraffe) for
‘a tall person’, ‘gashinge’ (needle) for ‘a thin person’, to name but a few. As
a matter of fact, metaphorical uses are most frequent in the jargon under
study.
IV.2.4.2. Hyperbole
There is hyperbole when this figure of speech exaggerates what a concept

is or does. A human being is granted qualities , which he actually cannot
have in reality.In fact, the expression ‘magara y’urwembe’ being used to mean
‘someone who is physically weak’ is hyperbole to give a man that name just
because he is unhealthy and not strong. To refer to ‘excessive love’, pupils
resort to the word ‘guhwera’, ‘to die’ which is actually fallacious. A pupil
who misbehaves and eats someone’s food has his act referred to as ‘gutema’
(to cut down). This is so while someone who is fond of food is ‘kiboko’
(hippopotamus) from Kiswahili. An avocado “ivoka” is referred to as a drug
called “a hemp” Though eating an avocado is forbidden, there is no reason to
refer it to hemp.The term ‘kwaka’ (to burn) is used to refer to ‘to be thirsty’.
However, to say that a stupid person is ‘indobo’ (a bucket) is to overstate as
well. To fail in first session is referred to as “kugira ku mutoto” (to move by
using banana leaf), etc.
IV.2.4.3. Euphemism
Euphemism comes in to soften the hard words and acts, trying to make
them applicable to any situation though the one who is outside the convention
will get lost.
At Buye Lycée, to steal something is said as “kwitiza” which originally means
“to lend oneself something”. There is term which is used euphemistically to
mean the act of having sex is ‘kurya ivyumba’ (to eat rooms).The act of going
to the toilet should not be said in public. It is instead called ‘kwurira indege’
(to get in the airoplane).
In the same way, ‘kwifasha’ (to help oneself) is used to refer to ‘cheat’,
‘kuribwa n’iryinyo’ (to have a toothache) for “to be in erection”, ‘kwimosha (to
have a haircut) for ‘to get drunk’, ‘kwicungera’ (to protect oneself) for “to fall
asleep in class” etc.
IV.2.4.4. Metonymy
It is a figure of speech which consists of assigning another name to an object

from the appropriate one. It is a way to designate the container for the content.
In this jargon, an example of metonymy is a word “ikigwena” is used to refer
to “palm oil”. Kigwena is normally a place located in Rumonge province where
palm trees are grown. There is also words like “bikoti” which is used to refer
to “a teacher who doesn’t dress well”. A teacher is called “Bikoti” taking into
consideration the clothes she or he puts on.
IV.2.4.5. Antithesis
This figure of speech consist of using words which contrast in meaning. In

Buye Lycée pupils’ jargon, there are words in which the researcher finds such
figure of speech, in words like “gutaha amarembe” ( to go home in peace)
which means in pupils’ jargon “to fail in first session” or word like “nzovu”
which initially means “an elephant” used to refer to “a very thin person”. Then,
antithesis is direct opposite to social meaning. However, the two meanings are
somehow related to each other.
To end this stylistic section, the researcher can confirm that Buye Lycée
pupils’ jargon is full of figures of speech such as Metaphor, Hyperbole , ,
Euphemism , Metonymy, Antithesis, etc. among those figures of speech,
Metaphor is the most used as it is a source of strength in variety language
because it clearly shows that may metaphorize while speaking. While talking
to one another, they may transfer existing terms to a different object, but
analogous to the first one which is properly used.
Bolinger (1975, p.424) puts it as follows: “….every time we speak we
metaphorize. “Metaphor” says, one linguist stylistician, “is not a figure of
speech among the others, but a basic grammatical category”. This shows that
figures of speech may play a great role in a language innovation
IV.3. Findings
This section is concerned with the discussion on findings from the collected
and analyzed data through the procedures described in the precious chapter.
Answers to the formulated questions are also provided and the hypotheses
will be verified. Before trying to give answers and verifying hypotheses, it is
better to recall which those research questions and hypotheses were:
1. Why do Buye Lycée pupils create their own jargon?

2. Are there any strategies involved in Buye Lycée pupils’ jargon
creation?
3.
Are words and expressions used by pupils of Buye Lycée
understood by outsiders?
Whereas research hypotheses were
1. The pupils of Buye Lycée create their jargon in order to hide their
secrets to the outsiders.
2. There are different strategies involved in Buye Lycée pupils’
jargon creation.
3. The words and expressions used by Buye Lycée pupils presents
some particular features that no outsider can understand it.
Hypotheses are somehow answers to the research questions that is why in

this section the researcher revisited the research questions in order to compare
with the findings.
Hypothesis 1
As for the reason that pushes the pupils at Buye Lycée to create jargon,
the data resulted from the research, showed that 60% of pupils at Buye Lycée
create jargon in order to hinder communication from the outsiders and
thereby communicate more freely with their friends and 20% said that they
create jargon to distinguish themselves from others, while 12% of pupils use
jargon because it sounds good to them and 8% said that it is because they have
found it and adopted it. See the table2.
After analyzing the data, the researcher found that, as the data showed it,
the pupils use jargon because they want to hinder communication from the
outsiders in order to keep their things secret and safe. For instance, there are
things that are prohibited by the school regulations, when the pupils want to
go beyond the regulations, they create jargons. To illustrate this, “Cachez vos
testicules” it is an expression used by Buye Lycée pupils to warn someone to
hide what is prohibited. Another example is when an authority comes, they
say “ngwaho imvura” which literally means “pay attention to the rain”. Here
the hypothesis 1 is confirmed.
Hypothesis 2
Concerning the strategies involved in creating new words and expressions

by the pupils at Buye Lycée, the data got from questions handed to pupils,
showed that according them, 42% of the informants said that new words and
expressions are totally invented, 28% said that a word is given a new meaning,
10% said that a word is modified, that is shorted or lengthened and 8% said
that there is fusion of two words into one. See table3
The data showed that there is no word formation that give a word from
initial letters of a set of the words or where two words are joined to produce
a single word form. After the analysis, the researcher realized the opposite of
what the pupils said in justifying the strategies that involved in words creation.
The pupils transfer words and expressions from ordinary languages (Kirundi,
English, French, Kiswahili, Kinyarwanda) into their special language resorting
to linguistic mechanisms such as Affixation that is:(Suffixation, prefixation)
infixation, coinage, Borrowing, compounding, Reduplication, Clipping,
Echoism, Neosemanticism, code mixing. With this analysis, the hypothesis 2
is also confirmed.
Hypothesis 3
After analyzing the data, the researcher found that, as far as the third
question is concerned, pupils at Buye Lycée use words and expressions that
cannot be easily understood unless you are part of their speech community.
Most of words and expressions that are used in the jargon at Buye Lycée have
changed their denotative meaning. At the end of data analysis, the researcher
came up with more than two hundreds words and expressions, few words
among them have kept the original meaning.
It is also noticeable that words and expressions used by pupils at Buye
Lycée are mostly from Kirundi because it is their mother tongue. Yet, they are
given other meaning that cannot be understood by outsiders. Moreover, some
words can be interpreted differently depending upon the situations. Therefore,
figures of speech such as Metaphor, Hyperbole, Euphemism, Metonymy and
Antithesis, had been tackled. There is also some changes in meaning of words
which shifted their meaning which means a word can in different situations
with the same spelling have different meanings that is the reason why the
researcher dealt with Synonymy, Polysemy, and Antonymy. The hypothesis 3
is also confirmed when we try to analyze the data analysis.
IV.4. Conclusion
To sum up, this chapter dealt with data presentation, analysis and findings.
to confirm the hypothesis elaborated at the beginning, the researcher, for first
hypothesis of this work, saw that the jargon is not created for free: there is an
aim to do this. As the researcher has mentioned it, pupils generally create jargon
in order to hide their secret to the outsiders and to distinguish themselves
from the surrounding environment in some other situations. The data analysis
also showed that there are strategies involved in the Buye Lycée pupils’ jargon
but pupils, creating those words and expressions, have no rule in doing so, one
creates a word until it becomes common to the whole community. Therefore,
this verifies the second hypothesis. As for the third and last hypothesis, the
data analysis showed that language used by pupils at Buye Lycée is made of
words and expressions that cannot be understood by outsiders. As said in the
third hypothesis, the jargon presents features that make that “language” not
understandable to outsiders as it has been mentioned above. The language
also gives identity to the members of the group.
5
GENERAL C ONCLUSION AND
R E C O M M E N DAT I O N
T his sociolinguistic study aimed at displaying and analyzing the

jargon spoken by pupils at Buye Lycée. In fact, the research is
built on four main chapters.
The first chapter which is a general introduction gave a general overview of
the whole work. It stated the problem and the basic questions of the research
and hypotheses to be verified on the whole thesis.
The second chapter which is on literature review talked about the
contribution of previous researchers in sociolinguistic domain. It is within
this chapter that the present study is defined and integrated into what has
already been achieved in the sociolinguistic field.
As for third chapter entitled “Methodology”, it includes the mechanisms
that the researcher resorted to so as to collect the data as well as their analysis,
and also the obstacles which hampered the researcher all along the study.
The fourth chapter, “data presentation, analysis, findings” reveals some
words and expressions which are used in the jargon of Buye Lycée pupils with
their origin as well as the processes the users resort to for its creation. Thus,
some of the jargon words have proven to be the result of four main languages
such as Kirundi, French, Kiswahili, English, and Kinyarwanda, while others
are of unknown origin.
The word formation process, includes some processes such as prefixation,
suffixation, infixation, coinage, borrowing, compounding, echoism, clipping,
neosemanticism and code-mixing which are resorted to in the creation of the
words and expressions that are used in the Buye Lycée pupils’ jargon .
At the semantic level, it has been shown that the concept of meaning is too
broad. However, a close analysis has been made to show how the meaning of a
word or expression, used ordinarily, can change meaning when it is transferred
into pupils’ jargon. It is under this section that semantic changes in meaning
and stylistic changes have been differentiated.
64 . general conclusion and recommendation
Firstly, changes in meaning that words and expressions have undergone

such as Synonymy, Polysemy, and Antonymy are shown in this work. Secondly,
stylistic changes in figures of speech such as Hyperbole, Metaphor, Antithesis,
Euphemism, and Metonymy have been used to create this special language
which is peculiar to the in-group members.
The classification of words and expressions according to morphological
domain and findings got its place in this chapter. In brief, this chapter presents
detailed answers to the research questions as well as verification of hypotheses
as they were raised in the general introduction.
Furthermore, the researcher claimed that pupils of Buye Lycée use jargon
which impede communication to outsiders including the authorities that run
the school. The researcher cannot end without making a recommendation:
To pupils of Buye Lycée to concentrate on studies and respect the school
regulations. They have to focus on studies and be flexible in order to facilitate
the educators to provide successful education to them. Hiding anything from
the school authorities is not the solution on the contrary they should call up
them when there is a misunderstanding on a given issue.
To the Buye school authorities to listen to pupils when they have something
to say.to associate the pupils when instituting new regulations because the
researcher realized that many words are created to hide things from the school
authorities for fear that they can be punished if caught in any mistakes. The
school authorities should not be rough to the pupils but should provide time
to listen to them and solve together any problem occurred.
Nevertheless, the researcher cannot claim to have exhausted the study of
this jargon because of a number of reasons such as problems encountered by
the researcher during his investigation which are mentioned under “Research
Methodology”. Moreover, any study constitutes a modest contribution to
open up new horizons to further researchers who may think of studying
jargons. Hence, the researcher wishes to see further research conducted in
this particular field of schooling life. For example, it would be interesting to
know the special language used by the pupils of the new educational system
known as “Post fundamental school”.
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Merriam Webster’s Dictionary (1989).Massachusetts: Merriam Webster, inc.
New Oxford Dictionary of English (1998). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Oxford Advanced Learners’ Dictionary (1948). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Webster’s New World Dictionary (1986).Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.
Webster’s New Third Intermediate dictionary (1993). Chicago: The University of
Chicago Press.
Webster’s Third New Dictionary (1961).Chicago: The University of Chicago Press
b. Webography
Susanto, J. (2012).The study on jargon and words constructions used by Waria malang
(uploaded on Academia.edu)
Wisniewski,K.(2010). Sociolinguistics.
http://www.linguistics/sociolinguistics.( November 30th, 2016)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/code_mixing_and_code_switching
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sociolinguistics
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/register
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/style
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/slang
APPENDICES
RESEARCH QUESTIONNAIRE
Dear informant,
I am a university student and I am carrying out an academic research on

Buye Lycée. I am writing to request that you fill in these questions for me. Your
response is an invaluable contribution to my study.
I look forward to your cooperation.
Sincerely yours,
Josué Niyokwizigirwa
Section I
Give words and/or expressions used in your jargon to refer to the following
concepts, if any.
a. Pupils’ activities
1. To go to the kitchen to ask for food.....................................................................

2. To go to the refectory before others.....................................................................
3. To eat others pupils’ food deliberately.................................................................
4. To be fond of food..................................................................................................
5. To eat from other pupils’ plates............................................................................
6. To be selfish.............................................................................................................
7. To be socially...........................................................................................................
8. To pray a lot.............................................................................................................
9. To vomit...................................................................................................................
70 . appendices
10. To urinate..............................................................................................................
11. To have sexual intercourse..................................................................................
12. To study very hard................................................................................................
13. To get up early in the morning to study............................................................
14. To cheat..................................................................................................................
15. To fail after the first session.................................................................................
16. To succeed after the first session........................................................................
17. To succeed after repeating some exams............................................................
18. To be absent from class deliberately..................................................................
19. To get discouraged and stop studying before the end of the school year.....
20. To study until very late in the night...................................................................
21. To sleep in class....................................................................................................
22. To go to fetch water..............................................................................................
23. To fetch water for a girl........................................................................................
24. To kiss lovingly a girl or a boy............................................................................
25. To caress................................................................................................................
b. Terms related to mutual estimation between boys and girl, and their
physical appearance.
26. To name different ethnic groups........................................................................

27. To say that a pupil is very intelligent.................................................................
28. To say that a pupil is stupid.................................................................................
29. To say that someone is very fat...........................................................................
30. To say that someone is physically weak.............................................................
31. To say that someone is physically strong..........................................................
32. To say that someone is beautiful or handsome................................................
33. To say that someone is ugly................................................................................
34. To say that someone is light-skinned................................................................
35. To say that someone is dark-skinned................................................................
36. To say that someone is very short......................................................................
37. To say someone is very tall..................................................................................
38. To say that someone is very thin........................................................................
39. To say that someone is very big..........................................................................
40. To say that someone is coward...........................................................................
41. To say that someone is brave..............................................................................
42. To say that a pupil loves very much girls..........................................................
appendices . 71
43. To say that a boy spoil much money on girls...................................................

44. To say that a girl like boys giving him things to drink and eat......................
45. To say that X is a boyfriend to Y........................................................................
46. To say that Y is a girlfriend to X.........................................................................
c. Description of authorities’ behavior or activities
47. To say that a teacher is too kind.........................................................................

48. To say that a teacher is wicked............................................................................
49. To say that a teacher is rigorous.........................................................................
50. To qualify a teacher who gives good marks......................................................
51. To qualify a teacher who gives bad marks........................................................
52. To say that a teacher puts on dirty or won out cloths, that is, dresses badly.
53. To say that a teacher puts on new fashion style cloths, that is, dresses well .
54. To say that a teacher like chatting with pupils especially out classes;...........
55. To qualify a teacher who is in love with a pupil...............................................
d. Terms related to food and drinks
56. To name different kinds of food served, that is:

• Rice...............................................................................................................
• Beans..............................................................................................................
• Cassava bread................................................................................................
• Potatoes ........................................................................................................
• Sweet potatoes...............................................................................................
• Bananas ........................................................................................................
• Palm oil ........................................................................................................
• Salt.................................................................................................................
• etc..................................................................................................................
57. Food with much oil..............................................................................................
58. Food with less or no oil.......................................................................................
59. Delicious food.......................................................................................................
60. Insufficient food...................................................................................................
61. Much food.............................................................................................................
62. To take a big part of the food served forgetting your friends.........................
63. To miss water after eating....................................................................................
72 . appendices
64. To get drunk..........................................................................................................

65. To be thirsty..........................................................................................................
66. To be hungry.........................................................................................................
67. To be fed up...........................................................................................................
Section II
Choose good answer(s)
1. Why do you prefer to use jargon instead of ordinary language?
a. Because I want to distinguish myself from other people;

b. Because it sounds good to me
c. Because I have found it as it is and then adopted it
d. Because I want impede communication towards outsiders and thereby
communicate more freely with my friends
e. Other reasons. Specify
2. How do you create your jargon?
a. A word is given a new meaning

b. A word is modified, that is, shortened or lengthened
c. Two words are joined to produce a single form
d. We invent totally new terms
e. By fusion of two words into one,(eg: as in gasohol, from gasoline and
alcohol)
f. From the initial letters of a set of other words
g. By adding affixes to existing words.
3. Do boys and girl use different jargon? If yes, give examples.
Section III
Give any other words or expressions used in your jargon and their meanings.
(Sports, nicknames given to educators, etc)

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Sociolinguistic Study

of the Jargon used

GALDA VERLAG 2017

© 2017 Galda Verlag, Glienicke

ISBN 978-3-941267-96-1 (Print)

To my late grandfather and my grandmother Muhitira Marie;

I f the present work has some qualities, it is due to a contribution

B.A - Bachelor of Arts

I.1. Background to the study ...................................................................... 1

I.2. Statement of the problem...................................................................... 2

I.3. Aim of the study..................................................................................... 3

I.4. Motivation of the study......................................................................... 3

I.5. Significance of the study....................................................................... 3

I.6. Research questions................................................................................ 4

I.7. Research hypotheses.............................................................................. 4

I.8. Scope and delimitation ........................................................................ 5

I.9. Definition of key terms......................................................................... 5

I.10. Structure of the work........................................................................... 7

II.4. Code Mixing and Code Switching................................................... 19

III.1. Research area .................................................................................... 25

III.2. Population and sampling................................................................. 25

III.3. Research Instrument: Written Questionnaire............................... 26

III.4. Data collection procedure............................................................... 27

III.4.1. Pilot study.................................................................................. 27

III.5. Encountered difficulties................................................................... 28

III.6. Data analysis procedure .................................................................. 28

4 DATA P R E SE N TAT IO N , A NA LYSI S A N D F I N D I N G S

IV.1. Data Presentation.............................................................................. 31

IV.2. Data analysis ..................................................................................... 46

IV.2.4.1. Metaphor ...................................................................... 56

IV.4. Conclusion ........................................................................................ 61

I.1. Background to the study

E very human being is normally created in a way that he needs

No languages spoken by more than a very small number of people is

As far as sociolinguistic research in Burundi is concerned, there are some

I.2. Statement of the problem

I.3. Aim of the study

I.4. Motivation of the study

The motivation to undertake a sociolinguistic study of the jargon used by

I.5. Significance of the study

Linguistics has tended to concentrate on the language of printed

By our language, we define the groups to which we belong. We define

I.6. Research questions

1. Why do Buye Lycée pupils create their own jargon?

I.7. Research hypotheses

1. The pupils of Buye Lycée create their jargon in order to hide

2. There are different strategies involved in Buye Lycée pupils’

I.8. Scope and delimitation

This work puts an emphasis on sociolinguistics. It focuses on the context that

I.9. Definition of key terms

Specialized language of social group; sometimes used to make what is said

According to the New Oxford Dictionary of English, a jargon is ‘special

which means in Buye Lycée pupils’language “a meal”, “Imvura” (which means

It is a variety of language specially created for the purpose of communicating

The fact that language undergoes transformations in time and space.

What a word or expression originally means.for example, in pupils’ jargon

The second meaning of a word or expression; the literary meaning. For

It is a branch of linguistics which studies those properties of language and

It is the use of morphemes from different languages within a single word,