A Comparative Study in KinshipTerms of Eastern Dialect of Rai Bantawa and English

Abstract

This study entitled A Comparative Study in Kinship Terms of Eastern Dialect of Rai Bantawa and English was an attempt to find out the kinship terms used in eastern dialect of Rai Bantawa and compare them with the kinship terms used in English. In order to find out the objectives, I administrated the questionnaire to the forty native speakers from Rabi VDC of Panchthar district. The questionnaire included three major items related to kinship terms as core consanguineal, core affinal, and appellative as well as addressive use from both male and female ego perspective. Forty Rai Bantawa language speakers were selected using non-random sampling strategy to select the sample of this study. The collected data have been analyzed and interpreted descriptively. From the study it has been found that ‘papa, mama, bubu, nana, nichha’ are the consanguineal kinship terms, ‘dewa, dema, chhuna, pusain’ are the affinal kinship terms and ‘chha, mechhachha, nammi, makchha’ are the kinship terms of male and female ego perspective in eastern dialect of Rai Bantawa. The English language does not make any distinctions between elder and younger kinship terms whereas eastern dialect of Rai Bantawa makes this distinction. English has various cover terms such as cousin, siblings and offspring but such cover terms are rarely found in eastern dialect of Rai Bantawa. The terms ‘uncle’ and ‘aunt’ are cover terms in English which include the relations from both father and mother’s sides but this is not found in eastern dialect of Rai Bantawa. In English, kinship terms are addressed by the name in most of the cases therefore, English has a least number of kinship terms in comparison to eastern dialect of Rai Bantawa. This thesis has been organized into five distinct chapters. The chapter one consist of the background of study, statement of the Problems, objective of the study, delimitations of the study and operational definitions of the key terms. Similarly, chapter two consist review of related theoretical literature and its sub topics such as ‘sociolinguistic situation of Nepal’, review of empirical literature, implications of the review of the study and conceptual framework. In the same way, chapter three includes the methods and procedures of the study, population, sample and sampling strategy, research tools, sources of data, data collection procedure, data analysis procedures and ethical considerations. In the same way, chapter four is the data analysis and interpretation of the results on the basis of the consanguineal relations, affinal relations, comparison of the kinship terms used in eastern dialect of Rai Bantawa and English, similarities and differences between eastern dialect of Rai Bantawa and English kinship terms. Finally, chapter five consists the findings, conclusion, recommendations and its sub topics; policy level, practice level and further research related. This study ends with the references and appendices.