Phonological aspects of foregrounding in Kiswahili poetry

This study addresses itself to phonological aspects of foregrounding in Kiswahili poetry. To speak of phonology is to speak about sound and how it is perceived in a particular language. We have selected few phonological aspects to be covered by this study. These aspects are vowels, consonants stress, rhythm and pitch. The pattern of distribution of vowels and consonants in a literary work gives them linguistic labels of assonance and consonance respectively. Phonological aspects of foregrounding, is taken as a stylistic approach towards the analysis of Kiswahili poetry. It is the approach which observes the distribution and frequency of occurrence of phonological elements and how in turn such frequency has something to do with the meaning of the poem. It is the approach which takes into consideration two sides: the background and the foreground sides of a literary work but gives more emphasis to the latter side. The major argument being that, the foregrounded elements in a literary work play a mojor role in relating meaning to form. The study is organised in five chapters. Chapter one, as an introductory part, presents certain relevant preliminaries including the problem discussed, hypotheses, significance and objective of the study and the theoretical framework followed by this study. Chapter two is a review of literature. It takes into consideration the relevant literature that deals with a similar problem, the theoretical part of the problem and the practical part which casts light on the analysis of poetry. Chapter three is devoted to research findings and analysis of the data. It is in this chapter where questions asked throughout the research are analysed, with the aim of understanding the attitudes and knowledge of respondents on Kiswahili poetry. Chapter four forms the main body of the study. In this chapter four Kiswahili poems are analysed. This chapter attempts to see if there is any correlation between the foregrounded sound segments and the meaning the poems gives. Chapter five summarises what has been explored in the previous chapters. It concludes by observing the fact that in Kiswahili there are some phonological aspects which have a relationship with meaning. It is however pointed out that the concept of meaning is very controversial and sometimes subjective. The chapter ends with a recommendation for further research.