Staff Profiles

Ph.D in Linguistics (Language Acquisition): Memorial University, Canada 

M.A in Linguistics: California State University, Northridge, USA

Post Graduate Diploma in Education: University of Botswana

B.A Humanities: University of Botswana

I am a lecturer of Bantu Linguistics in the Department of African Languages and Literature at the University of Botswana. I obtained my BA degree in Humanities from the University of Botswana and a Post Graduate Diploma in Education (PGDE) from the same University. I won the Setswana Prize for best student in the Department of African Languages & Literature in 2001. In 2003 - 2004 I did my Masters degree in Linguistics at California State University in Northridge, USA. I specialize in teaching General Linguistics courses and Applied Linguistics (First language acquisition and second language learning and teaching). I also teach Setswana as a foreign and second language. 

• General linguistics courses (phonetics, phonology, morphology & semantics) 
• Applied linguistics (First language acquisition & Second language learning & pedagogy; Sociolinguistics); 
• Setswana language proficiency (Setswana as a 2nd and foreign language)   

• Articulatory phonetics (the physiology of human speech sounds, how they are produced in the vocal tract) 
• Phonology (how speech sounds categorically pattern in a language & the mind)
• Language acquisition & disorders in children (how children come to acquire their competence in their first language through storing, retrieving & organizing the sound systems of their language(s); 
• Loanword phonology and speech perception 

• Phonology,
• Phonetics
• Child-language development

Matlhaku, Keneilwe. (2020). "Setswana Nasal-Consonant Sequences", MUN Occasional Papers in Linguistics 3, ed. S.Abdelhady, A. Cucinelli & T. Fatema

Matlhaku, Keneilwe and Batibo, H. M. 2017. The nature and origin of acronyms in Kiswahili and Setswana. JULACE: 2(2)

Letsholo, R. & Matlhaku, Keneilwe. 2017. Attitudes of University of Botswana’Undergraduate Students Towards Minority Languages in Botswana. SALAS 35 (3). 245 – 257

Matlhaku, Keneilwe. 2016. Phonological & Sociolinguistic factors in Setswana loanwords, In: Monwabisi Ralarala, Ken Barris, Eunice Ivala & Sibawu Siyepi (eds). African Languages & Language Practice Research in the 21st Century: Interdisciplinary Themes & Perspectives. Cape Town: CASAS 122:139-160

Wakumelo-Nkolola, M, Rantso, L, Matlhaku, Keneilwe. 2013. Syllabification of Consonants in Sesotho & Setswana, In: Hugues Steve Ndinga-Koumba-Binza & Sonja Bosch (Eds), Language Science and Language Technology