A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirement for the award of the degree Licencié en langue et Littérature Anglaises.

RESUME,

Generally,a language is an important tool that any society uses to communicate and maintain interactions among its members.Thus,Kirundi is used by Burundians as a means of communication in different circumstances even cultural ceremonies.Therefore ,Burundians use Kirundi to transmit meanings of cultural ceremonies from one generation to another.Nevertheless,it is not easy to understand some implied meanings in any culture without a good understanding level of the language in question and its culure.This study aims at seeking the srtucture and the pragmatic meanings of ulterances in the naming ceremony speeches together with the communicative forces they embody.It consisted to collect the speeches delivered during the ceremony of naming a new-born child and analyze them structurally and progmatically.
To achieve our goal,the study was carried out in Nyabitsinda ,a commune of Ruyigi province and Mpinga -kayove, a commune of Rutana province.The data were collected using a tape-recorder in two naming ceremonies.The analysis of the collected data revealed that spealers in the event follow a strict structure made of opening and closing greetings,honorific expressions,transitional devices and purpose in each of the speeches.Concerning the pragmatic meaning of ulterances ,it was shown that utterances used in the naming ceremony speeches embody different meanings and perform many speech acts such as representatives ,directives,commissives,expressives and declaratives which are searle's categories of speech acts.Furthermore,the speakers in the ceremony express some illocutionary acts like warning,pleading,wishing,pleading,commanding,promising and thinking,Based on the above findings a conclusion was drawn and a number of recommendations were formulated to the government and Burundians to invest more in the Burundian culture protection.Future researchers were also called to do more reserch to support the present study.