What's in a Name? The Place of Language in the Naming of Programmes in the Zambian Radio and Television Industry
Keywords:
Shakespearian Question, Programme Content, Onomastics, Radio and Television Programmes, Language Policy, Media Houses
Abstract
The old Shakespearian rhetorical question, 'What's in a name?'’' comes to the fore when we examine the names given to programmes by Zambian radio and television stations. While most people are not bothered by such names and would argue that it is the content of the programmes that is paramount, not the names thereof, it may be argued that the names are worth analysing from the perspective of onomastics, which is the scientific study of names and naming systems. No study has been conducted on the names of radio and television programmes in Zambia, and this is the lacuna that this study is concerned with. The study is qualitative in nature and analyses names of programmes in both public and private media houses. More specifically, the study concerns itself with the language used in the naming – that is, whether local names are used apart from English names and if so, which Zambian languages are the local names associated with. The findings reveal that none of the media houses selected for the study has a formal or written policy on language use. The naming of programmes tends to follow a linguistic pattern similar to what obtains with regard to the use of language: the public media has more programmes with names in local languages than the private media. Ultimately, however, the findings of this study underline the fact that there is no formal language policy guiding the affairs of the nation. It may be concluded, therefore, that the situation cannot be corrected or ameliorated without a clear language policy at national level.References
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2. Al-Zumor, R.D., 1987. Naming and Identity: A Cross-cultural Study of Personal Naming Practices, New Haven: HRAF Press.
3. Chilala, C., 2016. The Adamic Licence in Ellen Banda-Aaku’s Patchwork. In O. Nyambi, T. Mangena & C. Pfukwa (Eds.), 2016. The Postcolonial Condition of Names and Naming Practices in Southern Africa. Newcastle Upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 155-171.
4. Global Study Bible, English Standard Version, 2012. Wheaton: Crossways.
5. Nhlanhla, L., 2016. Pseudonymity as Self-Naming: The Pseudonym and the Performer in Zimbabwean Socio-Technical Spaces. In O. Nyambi, T. Mangena & C. Pfukwa (Eds.). The Postcolonial Condition of Names and Naming Practices in Southern Africa (120-135). Newcastle Upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.
6. Landry, R., and Bourhis, R.Y., 1997. ‘Linguistic Landscape and Ethnolinguistic Vitality: An Empirical Study.’ Journal of Language and Social Psychology, 16, 23-49.
7. Lodge, D., 1992. The Art of Fiction. London: Penguin Books.
8. Myers, A.G., 2009. Naming and Placing the Other: Power and the Urban Landscape in Zanzibar. In D.L. Berg & J. Vuolteenaho (Eds), Critical Toponymies: The Contested Politics of Place Naming (pp. 85-100). England: Ashgate Publishing Company.
9. Perko, D., Jordan, P., and Komac, B., 2017. Exonyms and Other Geographical Names. Acta Geographica Slovenica, 57(1), 99–107.
10. Pfukwa, C., and Mamvura, Z., 2016. Names in Space: Some Theoretical Perspectives on the Place Names of the Southern African Urban Landscape. In O. Nyambi, T. Mangena & C. Pfukwa (Eds.). The Postcolonial Condition of Names and Naming Practices in Southern Africa (258-268), Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing,
11. Rose-Redwood, R. and Alderman, D., 2011. Critical Interventions in Political Toponymy. An International E-Journal for Critical Geographies, 2011, 10 (1):1-6.
12. Rose-Redwood, R., Alderman, D., and Azaryahu, M., 2010. Geographies of Toponymic Inscription: New Directions in Critical Place-name Studies. Progress in Human Geography, 34(4):453–470.
Published
2024-05-26
How to Cite
Chilala, C. and Musonda, C. (2024) “What’s in a Name? The Place of Language in the Naming of Programmes in the Zambian Radio and Television Industry”, Journal of Law and Social Sciences, 6(1), pp. 27-45. doi: https://doi.org/10.53974/unza.jlss.6.1.1202.
Section
Articles