A pragmatic exploration of naming practices in Siswati

Abstract

This study is a pragmatic exploration of naming practices in Siswati. It examined personal names bestowed on newborns and focused on how the emaSwati use names to convey messages to their interlocutors by using speech acts, which are categorised as commands, requests and interrogatives. It was established that name-givers include great grandparents, grandparents, parents, parents’ friends, aunts, uncles and sometimes siblings. To be eligible for this task, these individuals must meet the felicity conditions concerning naming, they must have authority to bestow the names and have relations with the name-bearers. Name-givers who are not relatives are given consent by the child’s kin to issue a name on their behalf. Data was gathered through interviews and questionnaires. Purposive sampling was used to select informants and obtain rich data on personal names. Names that are commands, requests and interrogatives were identified and the situations or contexts that informed the naming were also explored. The speech act theory and systemic functional linguistics were the theories that underpinned the study. Some personal names in Swazi culture are speech acts wherein name-givers communicate precise messages to specific interlocutors or hearers. The speech acts involved in naming are influenced by the way of life of emaSwati, their cultural traits, challenges, aspirations, emotions and frustrations as they interact with one another in encounters such as community struggles, failure to offer bride price, their religious beliefs, marriage problems, issues involving the paternity of a child and their desires about the roles their children should play when they have grown up. Hence, naming as a speech act is context-bound. The naming practices also revealed that naming is a functional process wherein language is used to carry actions such as making demands, requests and asking questions. On the part of the name-bearers, some are proud of their names because of the informative and authoritative messages they contain, while others dislike the meaning of their names especially when, for instance, the name exposes complex information such as denied paternity. However, they use their names as permanent identity markers which they were given at birth.