A Study on Kinship Terms of English and Raji Language

Abstract

This thesis entitled A Study on Kinship Terms of English and Raji Language presents a clear figure of comparative study between English and Raji kinship terms. It studied both consanguineal and affinal relations from the point of view of male and female ego in the English and the Raji languages.The objectives of this study were to determine various kinship terms used to signify the Raji relation and to compare and contrast them with the English kinship terms, and to point out some pedagogical implications. A set of questionnaire was prepared for data collection of the Raji and the English terms.The sample of the study consisted of 40 informants(Twenty males and twenty females). Twenty Raji language speakers from each VDC (Babiya chaur and Pokhari kanda) were selected. The major findings of this study show that the Raji language is richer than the English language in terms of kinship of terms. The system of the Raji and the English kinship terms have the relationships of Mono-Raji Vs Multi-English and Mono-English Vs Multi-Raji such as dada for brother and cousin and koyo,kaka,mama for Uncle. This thesis has five chapters which are introduction, review of related literature, methods and procedures of the study, result and discussion and summary, conclusion and implications. The first chapter includes general background, statement of the problem, objectives of the study, research questions,significance of the study,delimitations of the study and operational definition of the key terms. Likewise, the second chapter deals with the review of the related literature, linguistic situation of Nepal, English language, an introduction to Raji and their language, contrastive analysis , an introduction to kinship terms and review of the empirical literature.Similarly,third chapter deals with the methods and procedures of the study. It is sub divided into design of the study, population and sample, sampling procedure, data collection tools,data collection procedure and data analysis and interpretation procedure. Fourth chapter deals with result and discussion.Finally, the fifth chapter consists of the summary, conclusion and implications.