Politeness strategies in Ugandan English: making requests and responding to thanks

Abstract

This study examines politeness strategies and specific expressions employed by Ugandans when making requests and responding to thanks, against the backdrop that contact phenomena, as one of the key factors that characterize L2 varieties such as Ugandan English, make it virtually inevitable to have peculiarities in this respect. Specifically, in relation to the illocutionary acts of request, Ugandan English relies more on direct strategies (due to substrate influence), with various idiosyncratic mitigating devices such as the use of the past progressive with performative verbs, the use of the lexical mitigator first with imperatives, and the use of verbs with inherent supplicatory semantics in the imperative mood. As regards responses to thanks, while there is a clear preference for exonormative standards, formulae arising from substrate influence are visibly present, while several of the formulae used in L1 English (e.g. Standard British English) are not used in Ugandan English.

Homogeneity and heterogeneity in lexical stress placement among Ugandan speakers of English as an L2: a view from usage-based perspective

“…Once such features are not stigmatized in a given country or speech community (crucially Ugandans do not stigmatize their pronunciation of English at all (see , they constitute aspects that lead to endonormative stabilization. Given that the features de- scribed in this study are deeply entrenched among Ugandans and are locally not stigmatizable, this study has also contributed to the current discourse on the fact that English in Uganda is said to have aspects of endonormative stabilization manifesting themselves, even though it is still placed within the nativization phase (see Isingoma, 2021).…”

Overseas and home students’ perspectives towards the implementation of portfolio-based timed-writing technique in composition class

“…This investigation, which took place via online classes during the Covid-19 pandemic,collected 'the naturally occurring data' (Isingoma, 2021) of reflective narrations of five overseas students on their experience, weakness, strength, efforts, and initial analysis in their computerized PBTHT projects which hold the following features of students' works: a. Scanning/photoing the original handwritten timed composition which must be sent to the lecturer via WA in not more than two minutes. b. Retyping handwritten composition in word format for ease of analyses, checks, and revisions.…”