A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Award of the degree "Licence en langue et littérature Anglaises"

Résume,

The work deals with the role of language use in building and sustaining the seller-customer relationship in the central market of Ngozi. It focuses on the use of Kirundi and French in speaking. The work aims at examining the influence that language use has on the relationship between sellers and customers in Ngozi central market. The study was conducted on the sellers and customers in that very market. The research questions are to know how sellers build relationship with their customers, how sellers sustain their commercial business and how language use impacts on the seller-customer relationship in Ngozi central market. After these questions, the work presents the research hypotheses. The first hypothesis is that sellers build relations with their customers, especially while welcoming them. The second hypothesis is that sellers sustain their commercial business by convincing their customers through long conversations. Another hypothesis is that using language properly can improve the seller-customer relationship whereas a bad language use can bother that relationship. As far as the methodology is concerned, observation and interview were used for data collection. Concerning the data analysis, the study identifies particular words used by sellers and customers and the impact that those words have on the addressees. As findings, the study finds out that sellers use selected words at the beginning to build relations with their customers that they sustain their commercial business in the continuation of conversations with their customers. It also finds out that language use has an impact on the relationship between sellers and customers in Ngozi central market. Finally, the work raises some recommendations directed to sellers, customers and to further researchers.