Construction of a Collective Memory: Linguistic Strategies of the ‘Bereaved’ of Bweni in Pangani, Tanzania

This article examines the linguistic/discursive strategies used to construct a collective memory. The findings reported in this article are from a bigger research project that was partly conducted in Bweni, Pangani, Tanzania. The data were collected using interviews, focus group discussions, and video recording. The respondents were relatives of the dead whose remains have been interred at the Masterkim cemetery in the study area. The data were analysed qualitatively, and the analysis was guided by Critical Discourse Analysis as well as Systemic Functional Linguistics. The study found that the ‘family’ of Shariff Abdallah and Sharifat Amina (his sister) deploy certain discursive and linguistic strategies to construct a collective memory of the origins of the family, the cemetery, and the celebrations related thereto. The article has also analysed the ideational, interpersonal, and textual metafunctions deployed in constructing the same memory. The people choose and deploy lexical resources such as strategic adjectives to show that theirs is a family of noble people whose ancestors were ‘complete’ and highly educated Islamic scholars. The strategies are also used to urge the family members to lead a noble life and follow Islamic teachings by making sure that they are not distracted by secular things, which come and go.