Embracing the mobile phone technology: its social and linguistic impact with special reference to Zimbabwean Ndebele

Abstract

Mobile phone technology has revolutionised the art of communication across all societies. Access to this form of communication has made personal contact much easier than before, with mobile phone networks in many countries now reaching rural areas where fixed telephones were rare. However, the popularity of mobile phones and mobile text messaging has come to evoke excessive hype and hysteria about the kinds of cultural, social and psychological impacts that the new technology is having. Central among these is the concern about the way that standard use of language and conventional linguistic and communicative practices are affected. The mobile phone presents one area of study in which language change is evident. This article highlights how the mobile phone has been embraced among the Ndebele speaking people of Zimbabwe by discussing, among other things, the SMS language, turn-taking in telephone conversation and naming around the mobile phone. Having done that, it argues that the gadget is not solely responsible for all the undesirable linguistic and communicative developments mainly because mobile phone users are at times able to control technology.

Keywords:

• mobile phone
• SMS
• communication
• Ndebele language
• culture

Notes

1. Zimbabwe, like many countries in Africa, is a multi-lingual society, although its language situation is certainly less complex as compared to other African countries. Officially, Zimbabwe's multilingual character has been suppressed since Doke (1931) recommended in his government commissioned report that only Ndebele be recognised in the western region and that only Shona be recognised in the rest of the country. Ndebele is the mother tongue to most people in Matebelaland North and South provinces. Since people other than the Ndebele inhabit both provinces, it means that other ethnic groups in the region have also adopted Ndebele as their main language of communication. Since Ndebele is one of the official national languages, it is the only language taught in Matabeleland schools especially from the fourth grade onwards. It has been the only language recognised for media communication purposes for the inhabitants of the above-mentioned regions and even spoken in some parts of the Midlands region. It is, however, spoken side by side with many other minority languages in the regions where it is spoken. In fact the majority of the so-called minority languages in Zimbabwe are spoken in the two Matebeleland regions.

2. A sample questionnaire on the use of the mobile phone was randomly administered to selected speakers of the Ndebele language. The speakers were between the ages of 16 and 25 years and were all college and university students. The questions asked ranged from when the respondent acquired the mobile phone, how they acquired it, what they use the mobile for, where, and whether the use of their mobile phone has any conditions or restrictions whatsoever.

3. Office Administrators have in some cases been trained on how to project the good image of their establishments by observing certain courtesies while on the telephone. At home, children are taught how to politely answer the telephone and they are expected to grow up with these good manners.