Characterization In Benjamin Kwakye’s The Other Crucifix: An Interpersonal Metafunction Approach

ABSTRACT The study sought to examine how selected characters (Jojo Badu, Marjorie, Norah and Dwayne) in Benjamin Kwakye‘s The Other Crucifix (2010) use the clause as an interactive unit to establish and maintain interpersonal relations. The Mood system and its grammatical categories of Modality, Subject, Polarity, Tense and Vocatives of Halliday‘s Interpersonal Metafunction of Systemic Functional Grammar (SFL) were analyzed for interpersonalness. It also looked at what these categories of the Mood system reveal about the selected characters. The data was drawn from the dialogic components of five purposive selected chapters which are representative of the plot of the narrative. Both qualitative and quantitative analysis were applied to the study. The analysis revealed that the selected characters used all the three sentence types and preferred; declaratives, interrogatives, and imperatives respectively. Though the most preferred sentence type was the declarative which has the function of conveying information, making assertions and exuding power, the characters explored the declaratives to realize other functions such as persuasion. The high occurrence of the declaratives and a comparative high use of interrogatives as well as the prominence of the second personal pronoun ―you‖ in Subject position, enabled the interactants exude power, experience contact and interactivity respectively. The study concludes that Jojo, the protagonist narrator is generally assertive while Norah is authoritative and disdainful of Africans. The relationship established between Jojo and Norah is a superior - subordinate relationship while Jojo and Marjorie share equal power, and between Jojo and Dwayne there is solidarity. In terms of racial relationships, there is disdain on the part of Native Americans against black Africans while there is collaboration between black migrant students. The study recommends that a study which involves all the chapters of the text should be carried out to find out what the grammatical choices of the dialogues of the characters reveal about the characters.