Groping an indulgent on English Homographs among Lecturers of Semantics in Tanzania’s Universities

Abstract

This paper sets out to examine the understanding of English homographs by Lecturers of Semantics in Tanzania’s Universities. Homographs are words with the same spelling but different pronunciations and semantics scope. The paper demonstrates that most of the semantics lecturers of Tanzania confuse English homographs with non-English homographs. For instance, 75% of lecturers of semantics acknowledge that the lexeme bank and present are English homographs. Such perception is incomplete which has motivated the present study to examine groping an indulgence on homographs to instructors. The study qualitatively applied the interpretive paradigm to five Tanzania Universities. Documentary reviews and questionnaires were the instruments of data collection. The analysis was done by using Referential Theory which articulates the context of the situation in which the lexeme is articulated and in which the meaning reflects that which is being articulated. It was found that most of the Lecturers of semantics in Tanzania’s Universities confuse English homographs with non-homographic words and that what they instruct in their lectures is incomplete; thus, words that are not English homographs are acknowledged as English homographs. Moreover, some lecturers of semantics confuse stress on the syllable with homographic words; others do not know the qualification of a certain word to be homograph. It was concluded that Lecturers of semantics in Tanzania’s Universities should admit continuous reading and training on any matter of facts pertinent to their area of specialization. This would make them competent in the content they lecture in classes.