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A Linguistic Study of Women’s Hairstyle Names

Received: 31 January 2024     Accepted: 20 February 2024     Published: 7 March 2024
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Abstract

The main focus of the study was to investigate on women’s hairstyle names in Kinondoni Municipal Council, which is found in Dar es Salaam region, Tanzania. This paper focuses on two specific objectives, namely to identify women’s hairstyle names and to find out the structural patterns of women’s hairstyle names. The study is a qualitative study guided by onomastic theory of naming and morpheme-based theory. The study employed descriptive research designs. Semi-structured interview and observation methods were used to collect data, where 16 respondents who were obtained through snowball and convenience sampling techniques. The findings reveal that, women’s hairstyles have meanings which are either denotative or connotative or both. They are derived from different sources such as insects, number, appearance, parts of human body, animal body parts, flora, insecticides, land forms, social events and names of famous people. Therefore, women’s hairstyle names in Kinondoni are deliberately created, not accidentally constructed. Moreover, women’s hairstyle names in Kinondoni Municipality possess morphological and syntactic patterns. Under morphological structure, women’s hairstyle names are in free morphemes, affixation, compounding and reduplication. Syntactically, women’s hairstyle names have noun phrases and sentential structures. In relation to the data from the field, the paper concludes that there is no rigidity on women’s hairstyle names compared to other kinds of names such as personal names. This is because women’s hairstyle names are replaced or used interchangeably with other hairstyle names which mean the same.

Published in International Journal of Language and Linguistics (Volume 12, Issue 2)
DOI 10.11648/j.ijll.20241202.11
Page(s) 71-85
Creative Commons

This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, provided the original work is properly cited.

Copyright

Copyright © The Author(s), 2024. Published by Science Publishing Group

Keywords

Hairstyle, Women’s Hairstyles, Name Giver, Rasta, Plaiting Thread, Morphological Patterns, Syntactic Patterns

References
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[8] Elias, T., Mpobela, L. & Tibategeza, E. R. (2023). A linguistic study of village names in Ngara District, Kagera Region, Tanzania. International Journal of Culture and History, 10 (1), 32-59. htpps://doi.org/10.5296/ijch.v10il.20695
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Cite This Article
  • APA Style

    Pius, A., Tibategeza, E. R., Ligembe, N. N. (2024). A Linguistic Study of Women’s Hairstyle Names. International Journal of Language and Linguistics, 12(2), 71-85. https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ijll.20241202.11

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    ACS Style

    Pius, A.; Tibategeza, E. R.; Ligembe, N. N. A Linguistic Study of Women’s Hairstyle Names. Int. J. Lang. Linguist. 2024, 12(2), 71-85. doi: 10.11648/j.ijll.20241202.11

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    AMA Style

    Pius A, Tibategeza ER, Ligembe NN. A Linguistic Study of Women’s Hairstyle Names. Int J Lang Linguist. 2024;12(2):71-85. doi: 10.11648/j.ijll.20241202.11

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  • @article{10.11648/j.ijll.20241202.11,
      author = {Agnes Pius and Eustard Rutalemwa Tibategeza and Nestory Nyamwala Ligembe},
      title = {A Linguistic Study of Women’s Hairstyle Names},
      journal = {International Journal of Language and Linguistics},
      volume = {12},
      number = {2},
      pages = {71-85},
      doi = {10.11648/j.ijll.20241202.11},
      url = {https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ijll.20241202.11},
      eprint = {https://article.sciencepublishinggroup.com/pdf/10.11648.j.ijll.20241202.11},
      abstract = {The main focus of the study was to investigate on women’s hairstyle names in Kinondoni Municipal Council, which is found in Dar es Salaam region, Tanzania. This paper focuses on two specific objectives, namely to identify women’s hairstyle names and to find out the structural patterns of women’s hairstyle names. The study is a qualitative study guided by onomastic theory of naming and morpheme-based theory. The study employed descriptive research designs. Semi-structured interview and observation methods were used to collect data, where 16 respondents who were obtained through snowball and convenience sampling techniques. The findings reveal that, women’s hairstyles have meanings which are either denotative or connotative or both. They are derived from different sources such as insects, number, appearance, parts of human body, animal body parts, flora, insecticides, land forms, social events and names of famous people. Therefore, women’s hairstyle names in Kinondoni are deliberately created, not accidentally constructed. Moreover, women’s hairstyle names in Kinondoni Municipality possess morphological and syntactic patterns. Under morphological structure, women’s hairstyle names are in free morphemes, affixation, compounding and reduplication. Syntactically, women’s hairstyle names have noun phrases and sentential structures. In relation to the data from the field, the paper concludes that there is no rigidity on women’s hairstyle names compared to other kinds of names such as personal names. This is because women’s hairstyle names are replaced or used interchangeably with other hairstyle names which mean the same.
    },
     year = {2024}
    }
    

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  • TY  - JOUR
    T1  - A Linguistic Study of Women’s Hairstyle Names
    AU  - Agnes Pius
    AU  - Eustard Rutalemwa Tibategeza
    AU  - Nestory Nyamwala Ligembe
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    DO  - 10.11648/j.ijll.20241202.11
    T2  - International Journal of Language and Linguistics
    JF  - International Journal of Language and Linguistics
    JO  - International Journal of Language and Linguistics
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    PB  - Science Publishing Group
    SN  - 2330-0221
    UR  - https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ijll.20241202.11
    AB  - The main focus of the study was to investigate on women’s hairstyle names in Kinondoni Municipal Council, which is found in Dar es Salaam region, Tanzania. This paper focuses on two specific objectives, namely to identify women’s hairstyle names and to find out the structural patterns of women’s hairstyle names. The study is a qualitative study guided by onomastic theory of naming and morpheme-based theory. The study employed descriptive research designs. Semi-structured interview and observation methods were used to collect data, where 16 respondents who were obtained through snowball and convenience sampling techniques. The findings reveal that, women’s hairstyles have meanings which are either denotative or connotative or both. They are derived from different sources such as insects, number, appearance, parts of human body, animal body parts, flora, insecticides, land forms, social events and names of famous people. Therefore, women’s hairstyle names in Kinondoni are deliberately created, not accidentally constructed. Moreover, women’s hairstyle names in Kinondoni Municipality possess morphological and syntactic patterns. Under morphological structure, women’s hairstyle names are in free morphemes, affixation, compounding and reduplication. Syntactically, women’s hairstyle names have noun phrases and sentential structures. In relation to the data from the field, the paper concludes that there is no rigidity on women’s hairstyle names compared to other kinds of names such as personal names. This is because women’s hairstyle names are replaced or used interchangeably with other hairstyle names which mean the same.
    
    VL  - 12
    IS  - 2
    ER  - 

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Author Information
  • Department of Languages and Linguistics, St Augustine University of Tanzania, Mwanza, Tanzania

  • Department of Languages and Linguistics, St Augustine University of Tanzania, Mwanza, Tanzania

  • Department of Languages and Linguistics, St Augustine University of Tanzania, Mwanza, Tanzania

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