2.0 Introduction
2.1.6 Language and Ethnicity
38
incorrect language, metaphors, and framing. The two general kinds of represents that signs encode are concrete and abstract.
Dondis 1973:50 notes colour is laden with information and a necessary tool for optical conservationists. Colour obtains in three dimensions namely, brightness, saturation, and hue. Hue comprises blue, yellow and red. Saturation refers to a color‘s ‗comparative purity when gray, white and black is added to it. Thus the saturation is compromised hence losing her unadulterated, modest, original and straightforward sense. The lesser the saturated a colour is the more refined and neutral they are. Brightness applies when colours are arranged in series with black and white at extreme ends. When hue, brightness and saturation are manipulated, the result could be millions of colours. This study has considered colour not only as a shade but rather a semantic component. Efforts have been made in analyzing colour semantic, colour recognition and in unraveling the political discourses inherent in KPP colours.
39
unity in cultural forms; (c) makes up a field of communication and interaction (using language); (d) has a membership which identifies itself, and is identified by others as consisting a category distinguishable from other categories of the same order. For ethnic nationalism (parties) is small-scale nationalism of a nationality, not a nation.
Thus, ethnicity, define ethnic identity as an aggregation of ethnic variables that constitute an ethic group and by which the group in question may differentiate itself from others. It is ―the result of membership to a specific group based on culture, history, language, religion, and geographical location (Hall, 1979-3). Tribe, caste, age groups, religion or state all have features that make them potentially adequate primary ethnic identity for group reference (Barth, 1981:223). Yet the centrality of culture in the formation of ethnic identity cannot be ignored. Barth (1981:214) observes that
―ethnic identity is associated with culturally specific set of value standards Raymond Halla writes that ―ethnicity and ethnic identity signify group cohesion centred on tradition, symbol, and others with whom the group is in contact (1979:xx) Antony Smith concludes, ―Ethnic movement make their claims in virtue of an alleged
‗community of culture‘, in which the members are both united with each other by a shared culture and differentiated from others by possession of that culture (1981:13) with such definitions of ethnic groups and their respective identities, it is only natural that such social groups maintain their ethnic boundaries that demarcate them off from their popular perceptions of generalized others. Ethnic boundaries `are erected upon racial difference, cultural difference, social separation and language barriers, spontaneous and organized enmity (Barth, 1981:200). In tribal societies the maintenance of tribal or ethnic boundaries ―is accompanied by signs, icons, totems and other markings (semiotics) of limited scale, their only function being to distinguish the group in question from other ethnic groups bound spatially and
40
temporarily‖ (Hall, 1979:13) under normal, namely non-conflictual, situation, the dichotomization of others ―as strangers, as members of another ethnic group implies as recognition of limitations on shared understanding, difference in criteria for judgment of value and performance, and a restriction of interaction to sectors of assured common understanding and mutual interest (Barth, 1981:206). The function of ethnic boundary in maintenance is primarily to present ethnic identity, but under conditions of on ethnic identity becomes not only more aggressively asserted and more acutely differentiated. National identity, it also marks the critical turning point in the transformation of ethnicity into ethnic nationalism. The transformation is brought about by the politics of mass mobilization and social communication. For ethnic conflict by definition involves a dimension of politics resting at least in part on such traditional bases for political association as culture, language, and ethnicity rather than on class or functional interests‘ (Thompson and Rohen, 1986:26). In short,
―the transformation of passive, often isolated and politically excluded communities into potential or actual ―nations‖, active participant and self –conscious in their historical identities‘ (Smith, 1981:24). Difference with big (National) largely is on the scale of mobilization and quality of leadership – for there is practically no intellectual mobilization that preceded and accompanied most large scale nationalism. (b) nor mass mobilization during ethnic conflict as protracted as in the case of large –scale nationalism for they find themselves in the contemporary polytechnic social systems, namely, powerful state apparatus captured by the dominant ethnic group. The structure of nationalism consists of two equally powerful components: traditional date (such as race, language, literature, tradition and fraternity) and egalitarian ideology (such as freedom, equality and fraternity) (Dawa, 1992:1). Ethnic boundaries `are erected upon racial difference, cultural difference, social separation and language
41
barriers, spontaneous and organized enmity (Barth, 1981:200). In tribal societies the maintenance of tribal or ethnic boundaries ―is accompanied by signs, icons, totems and other markings of limited scale, their only function being to distinguish the group in question from other ethnic groups bound spatially and temporarily‖ (Hall, 1979:13). under normal, namely non-conflict situation, the dichotomization of others
―as strangers, as members of another ethnic group implies as recognition of limitations on shared understanding, difference in criteria for judgment of value and performance, and a restriction of interaction to sectors of assured common understanding and mutual interest (Barth, 1981:206).
Individuals have been mobilized on the basis of a common culture (by use of local idioms metaphors and symbols), language (use of names, vernacular/Creole and slogans) as well as habitation of a common territory. This manipulation of language /slogans/ symbols/ local metaphor has been embodied in the choice of name and symbol for Kenyan political parties.