Negative impact of multiculturality on the use of standard Kiswahili in Burundi

: Since language and culture are intertwined, acquisition and use of foreign or second language faces cultural obstacles. Belonging to various groups has made Burundians having different perceptions towards Kiswahili. This study intends to explore cultural elements that slow down effective use of Kiswahili in Burundi. It also looks at determining negative impacts of the lack of communication competence in Kiswahili on the integration of Burundi into the East African Community (EAC). This study adopts both qualitative and quantitative method to analyse data. The data were collected using online questionnaire administered to 50 students in Kiswahili department, 13 lecturer s of Kiswahili and 10 parents. Findings indicate that Burundians’ negative perceptions towards Kiswahili, language policy, gender and religion bias impede effective use of Kiswahili in Burundi. The results also reveal that the non-effective use of Kiswahili affects negatively Burundi’s capacity to express its needs in EAC. To ensure effective cooperation with other EAC member states, the study recommends Burundians to develop positive perceptions towards Kiswahili.

especially the rapidly rising East African Community Common Market, which seeks to improve economic growth and development. East African Community integration milestone cannot succeed without a common language between members of the community. Further, although Kiswahili and English are official languages for EAC, the first one should take the lead because Burundi already has Kiswahili communities. Being a Bantu language may also make Kiswahili easier to learn than English for Burundians. The trend toward Kiswahili as a second common language for the East African Community has evidently some advantages, and it is not expected to be reversed in the foreseeable future.
2.3. Burundi language policy, language planning, policy implementation, language management and their impact on standard Kiswahili use Understanding the concepts of "language policy", "language planning", "language management", "policy implementation" and their impact on Kiswahili use in the Burundi multicultural context plays significant role.
Various scholars have differently defined the concepts. According to Spolsky (2004), language policy indicates all the language procedures, practices, beliefs and organisational preferences of a society, organisation or group of people. Based on the previous definition, a country language policy aims at responding to society's needs, interests and concerns in compliance with local norms. Different governments establish different language policies, language planning and policy implementation in a bid to encourage the practice of a specific language. Alike other EAC Member States have elaborated language policies most often to promote one or the official languages at the expense of others, Burundi has language policy designed to promote Kiswahili as regional common code of communication since the integration of EAC in 2007. However, while Kirundi, French and English have official status, Kiswahili does not have any official recognition in the country (Burundi Language Policy, 2013: 13). That Bantu EAC's common code is only a compulsory course from basic education till higher education. It is also taught as a programme of studies at the Burundi Higher Institute of Education and University of Burundi (Mazunya & Habonimana, 2010: 9). Although the latter university has trained 5 batches of Kiswahili teachers, the language is not effectively used in the country. Besides, despite the signature and ratification of treaties to safeguard the language in the whole region, Burundi government's officials prefer French and English instead of Kiswahili.
In the same vein, Burundi established the language policy that includes Kiswahili to prepare functional regional integration. However, it does not provide Kiswahili with any status whereas Kirundi, French and English are official languages. That language policy prioritises first Kirundi for the safeguarding of national culture. It also focuses on the two European languages French and English, languages used on administrative documents such as passport, driving license, among other documents to benefit geopolitical opportunities around Africa and all over the world (Mazunya, 2016: 93). Has the Burundi language policy attained its objectives? Maybe no, the government is still reclaiming the use of French as a second official language in EAC (idem) instead of English and Kiswahili only. That shows there is still a linguistic and cultural divide, although the country has been teaching the latter two languages for 15 years to fill the gap and contribute to regional development. Burundi legislation established the teaching of Kiswahili from basic education to higher education to promote the language around the country. Despite the government effort to incorporate Kiswahili among other languages spoken in the country, it seems that there is no implementation. Since the government has signed and ratified texts stipulating Kiswahili use as an official language of EAC and taught language in Burundi, the assurance and use in public institutions are limited. Government officials rarely communicate in that language. Kiswahili practice is, therefore, far from actions.
According to Cooper (1989), language planning means conscious initiative to influence people's behavior regarding the acquisition, structure, or functional allocation of their language codes. The definition indirectly reveals the role of people in promoting a second language through teaching and learning. It also emphasizes the need of respecting existing culture alongside policies. The language planning made in Burundi in 2007 most visibly indicates the government's will to sensitize Burundians to use Kiswahili for effective regional integration.
Nevertheless, stakeholders seem they did not effectively contribute an expected massive changes in regional integration due to less importance attributed to Kiswahili. By establishing the new language planning, the government intended to promote systematic linguistic change in the country. Burundi introduced the linguistic change for assuring socio-economic development and maintaining useful communication between local citizens and other East African Community inhabitants. It aimed at moving the entire Burundi society to the regional cooperation direction. Although language policy has been established to enhance linguistic access conditions to EAC cooperation, policy implementation encountered constraints that impeded interregional communication.
Language policy implementation has been a threat to Kiswahili use. According to the theory of policy implementation firstly discussed by Pressman and Wildavsky (1984) in early 1970s, policy implementation refers to carrying out, accomplishing, fulfilling, producing or completing a given task (Narendra, 2009: 1). For pioneers of policy implementation theory, policy implementation concept indicates the process of interaction between the setting of goals and actions geared to achieve them (Pressman & Wildavsky, 1984: 21-23). Noluthando (2017) states that policy implementation means a process whereby a policy is translated from plan, ideas or expectation into substantive action with which the intention is to change or regulate the current societal issues. Besides, they stated that when a policy is being implemented, it means that the implementers including government officials and other stakeholders are taking into consideration decisions, rules, regulations and practices intending to improve the community well-being.
This study considers policy implementation as a set of practical activities carried out through collaboration between the government and stakeholders to attain a certain objective. They all aim at effectively and efficiently attaining the goals and objectives already planned, that are the effective use of Kiswahili. The implementation process can be of initiating programs, supporting all groups involved in the sector of that language policy, and evaluating how effective and efficient is the policy being implemented. Establishing language policy and planning for language are not enough to make Kiswahili effective tool of cooperation and integration in EAC.
The government of Burundi, therefore, has to deal with language management in order to insure language responsiveness, language preparedness and language awareness. The process should provide the state with capacity of satisfying the needs of multilingual Burundi people within the EAC. Apart from stating language policy and language planning as parts of language promotion, Spolsky (2004) indicates that language management is any specific efforts to modify or influence language practice. The scholar adds that language management is conscious and explicit efforts by language managers to control language choices (Spolsky, 2004: 1) and the explicit and observable effort by an individual or group that has or claims authority over the participants in the domain to modify their practices or beliefs (Spolsky, 2004: 4). Furthermore, EAC common market urges people to have multilingual skills. The process of East African integration has given rise to a rapid increase in the use of Kiswahili as official language by at least 50% of EAC member states. Three countries (3) out of seven (7) speak and have adopted Kiswahili as official language.
Tanzania and Kenya have Kiswahili as national and official language while it only has official status in Rwanda.
Despite the interests and needs of Burundi to effectively integrate the community, the country did not provide the language with any status in language policy. There are regulations and laws to teach Kiswahili, but no legislation to use it. Further, as effective communication and common understanding are main strategic imperatives for successful EAC integration, Kiswahili is one of the two languages which has been adopted as the common language of administration, legislation and business. That Bantu language plays the role of lingua franca in the region due to its large number of speakers. Ineffective use of Kiswahili in Burundi will therefore lead to ineffective integration and cooperation of EAC.
This article explores how cultural elements impede language policy implementation, language planning and language management. Those cultural factors involve attitudes and behaviours or government's practices that block Kiswahili, the most important language of EAC common understanding. The study hence evaluates whether there is a connection between the 2014 Burundi language policy and the promotion of Kiswahili the lingua franca of the region.

Kiswahili spread in Burundi
Language bias has been a practice by adults to discriminate against younger people willing to master Kiswahili for different purposes. Biased language against Kiswahili users in Burundi consists of using expressions that relate them to no mature and uneducated people. In rural areas and in most of high class quarters of Bujumbura, younger people who tend to speak Kiswahili face mistreatment. Children are not sensitised to study the language. However, adults feel proud to see their children communicating in any European or Asian language. Therefore, even those who have studied the language at school feel ashamed to use it.

Materials and methods
The study used qualitative and quantitave approaches to analyse data collected from three categories of respondents. It was conducted in Burundi, the francophone member state of EAC. In total, 73 respondents participated in the study. It adopted random approach as method of sampling. The study population hence comprised 50 students in Kiswahili departments, 10 parents of university students and 13 lecturers of Kiswahili.
Kiswahili students were targeted for whether they had experienced or not cultural challenges for willing to learn and use Kiswahili in their society. Lecturers were also selected for they are aware of barriers to Kiswahili use in Burundi. They also know cultural factors that ease the use of the language in the country. Parents are also targeted in order to reveal their perceptions of Kiswahili users.
The study applied questionnaire surveys and interview methods for data collection. For each category of correspondents, the questionnaires comprised two closed questions and two open-ended questions.
Respondents were directed to meticulously reflect on the questions by relating them to the society experiences.

Findings
This section presents results following three subsections, that are data collected from Kiswahili lecturers, students of Kiswahili and questionnaire administered to from non-Kiswahili lecturers neither students. The last sub-section presents findings under the following major headingsː opinions of parents on their children studying and speaking standard Kiswahili, parents' perceptions towards women or girls who speak Kiswahili, and parents' favoured language programme of studies for their children at university.

Level of Kiswahili use out of classroom
This section aims at examining the level of kiswahili language use when lecturers and students are interacting with other people. The study presents statistics about the level of speaking Kiswahili for teachers in daily life and for students when they visit a public or private institution. Results indicate that 5 % of teachers speak Kiswahili out of classroom whereas 95 % do not speak that language due to various cultural factors (Figure 1). This research also shows that 14 % of students especially speak Kiswahili when they visit their teachers whereas

Cultural barriers to Kiswahili use in Burundi
Teachers were asked to mention cultural challenges that block them to speaking Kiswahili. The figure below indicate the most cultural obstacles to Kiswahili use in Burundi.  In order to investigate cultural elements that impede the use of Kiswahili, students were also targeted to mention obstacles to speaking the language when they visit public or private institution.

Level of using Kiswahili by various social classes
After presenting responses on frequencies of participants to indicate cultural barriers to Kiswahili effective use who were split into two categories of respondents, the research also presents statistics of teachers' and students agreements on the level of Kiswahili use by high class and low class ( Figure 5).
About the question of investigating whether high class and low class use at same level Kiswahili and why, findings indicate that 50 % of teachers confirm the second class studies and communicates more in that African language than the first class. Further, they reveal that 15 % of respondents indicate that both high class and low class use Kiswahili at the same level. The first category of teacher respondents (50 %) explained that low class is historically supposed to contain poor people. They hence study Kiswahili in a bid to be able to communicate when they go to seek for job in Tanzania and Kenya where Kiswahili is mostly spoken. Besides, respondents were asked to indicate whether high class Burundians speak Kiswahili than low class do.
Results from the figure show that 32 % of students agree with the unequal use of the language by the two social classes, whereas 24 % confirm the same level of studying and communicating in Kiswahili. In short, the majority of both lecturers and students confirm disparity in studying and speaking Kiswahili between the two classes.

Burundian parents' perceptions towards women and girls Kiswahili speakers
This study also aimed at researching the contribution of Burundian parents to effective use of Kiswahili. Findings show that lack of good education (28.6 %), assimilation (28.6 %) and disrespect (35.7 %) are interpretations for a woman or girl who speaks Kiswahili. Women and girls face these obstacles when they are willing to learn and speak the language.   Source: Field data, 2022 The study also explores negative impacts of the lack of Kiswahili competence communication on Burundi.
Students provided the following responses.  Source: Computed data from field, 2022

Discussion
The aim of this paper was to explore negative effects of Burundi multiculturality on the effective use of Kiswahili.  Kiswahili as lingua franca is undoubtedly a tool of regional integration of East African Community. This research contributed to the assessment of cultural barriers to Kiswahili use in Burundi and exploring the importance of a cross-cultural language competences in regional integration. Further study might be done on the role of EAC member states language policy and implementation in promoting Kiswahili, since it is the African official language of the community and working language of the African union. The present research was carried out on impacts of multiculturality on the use of Kiswahili in Burundi. The choice was based on the fact that foreign language learning and use depend on target people's attitudes.

Conclusion
This paper aimed at examining the cultural elements that impede effective use of Kiswahili the official language of EAC. The study also sought to investigate how the lack of communication competence in Kiswahili negatively affects Burundi's integration into the community. The significant role played by various cultures in regional integration and cooperation motivated the research. Although Kiswahili is the official language of EAC, findings revealed that due to bad historical perceptions towards the language, high class, villagers and women limit their use of Kiswahili. Results also indicated that teachers and students use less of Kiswahili out of classroom and parents consider uncivilised or assimilated a woman who speaks the language. The findings finally showed that lack of mutual understanding, absence of effective cooperation and incapacity to express Burundi's needs during EAC member states decision making are negative effects of the lack of communication competence in Kiswahili.
This research recommends that the government of Burundi should establish and implement a language policy which provides Kiswahili with crucial status like one of French and English. The government should also consider the language as a requirement to job accession. The decision will hence motivate students, public and private administrators to learn and practice Kiswahili. To ensure Burundi's effective integration and cooperation, the study recommend Burundians to develop positive attitudes towards Kiswahili which is irreversibly an intercultural communication tool around the EAC. People from high class families, villagers and administrators should take Kiswahili as a paramount communication tool which will enable them enter and benefit from the EAC market. The research finally recommend parents to avoid gender bias against women and girls who want to learn and speak Kiswahili. Burundians should also understand that women and girls need too to benefit from EAC opportunities, and Kiswahili might be one of the communication tools.
To enhance mutual understanding, Burundians should finally bear in mind that Kiswahili is not only a medium of communication, but also an individual's identity in Burundi and East African region. Learning Kiswahili as a foreign language will therefore facilitate the understanding of other people's ways of living. On the contrary, refusing to learn the language will surely cause the lack of cross-border understanding within EAC member states.

Funding
This research paper received no internal or external funding.