English variety for public domain in Kenya, speakers' attitudes and views

Abstract

The study sought to establish the attitudes of Kenyan speakers (n=210) towards 3 varieties of English: 1) ethically marked Kenyan English, 2) standard Kenyan English and 3) native speaker English (British, American, Australian etc) of the three varieties, the most preferred by both rural and urban respondents for use in the media and education was standard Kenyan English. Most of the respondents also considered this as the variety used by successful professionals like lawyers, doctors, engineers and successful business people. Contrary to expectation, intelligence, ambition, expertness are attributed to speakers not when they use native varieties of English but when they use the non ethnic marked variety of Kenyan English. The study suggests that further research should be less concerned about the deviation of Kenyan English from native speaker norms and concentrate more on the formal description of the variety of English that Kenyan speakers overwhelmingly prefer