A Socio-linguistic Interpretation of the Social Meanings of Kingship Terms in Shona Urban Interactions

Abstract

This article provides an interpretive analysis of Shona native speaker's of kingship terms of address as forms of communicative resources to invoke social meanings in non-kin relations. Two types of data were used for the analysis of social meanings (a) field notes from participant observations taken from naturally occurring interactions in public and private spheres over an 8-month period ( from September 2001-May 2002) in and around the city of Harare, Zimbabwe and (b) transcriptions of semi-structured in-depth interviews conducted with 40 Shona speakers of varying ages, educational status,occupation and religious affiliation. I demostrate that the current explanatory address systems models are are apparently inadequate in their representation of both the complexity and distinctiveness of social meanings. Hence, i advocate the use of more interpretive, ethnographic approaches for the discovery of social meaning.