ABSTRACT This dissertation focuses on the role of the African writer in the politics and societies of Africa, especially how this role has been reflected in the work of the African writer. Drawing on the premise set by Chinua Achebe’s 1965 essay “The Novelist as Teacher,” this research establishes the African writer as a continuous function, allowing this description to embrace the dynamic hybridity of African writers from the past, present and future generations. It is remarkable how ...
ABSTRACT This research is designed to afford the understanding of the common cultural heritage between francophone and Anglophone postcolonial African literature. For the purpose of this research, Sembène Ousmane’s God’s Bits of Wood and Ngugi wa Thiong’o’s Weep Not Child will serve as reference points for francophone and Anglophone literature respectively within the paradigm of postcolonial theory. Through a comparative analysis of the themes exploring colonial resistance in both n...
ABSTRACT The practice of code-switching today has become a common act in a multilingual and bilingual societies. This research attempts to investigate the possible social factors and motivations that triggers Fulfulde speakers to change from their native to English language in a conversation. In addition, it is observed that the established relationship with other languages has tremendously contributed to the high practice of code-switching in most societies. Also, demographic and social fac...
ABSTRACT Television talk shows (TTSs) are forms of talk-in interactive programmes where hosts and participants employ different discourse strategies, laden with latent ideologies – ideas that reflect their beliefs and interests – and power relations – the controlling of contributions by more powerful participants. Previous studies on Nigerian TTSs described their discourse strategies using conversation analysis, without adequate emphasis on their ideological basis and linguistic featur...
ABSTRACT Anglicisation, a major way by which the Yoruba compromise their cultural values, is paradoxically a significant process of domesticating English in Nigeria. Although a large body of literature exists on names, the recent Anglicising tendencies among the Yoruba are yet to be studied despite the strong implications of the phenomenon for the Yoruba language. This study, therefore, examined Yoruba Personal Names (YPNs) and Yoruba Business Names (YBNs), the two mostly affected onomastic ...
ABSTRACT The language of Pentecostal sermons often features communicative function seeking to persuade, exhort and influence the audience. Previous linguistic studies on Pentecostal sermons, using stylistic perspective, have focused on content and tenor, emphasising the personal tenor of the discourse in terms of speaker as the „knower‟, and the audience as the non-„knower‟, but have not given adequate attention to their rhetorical strategies as persuasive communication. This study, ...
ABSTRACT Western postmodern approach to literary interpretation has, arguably, misinterpreted the cultural and ideological meanings of African literary texts. This has been a critical scholarly problem since the emergence of African literature. Although African literature derives its form and style from Western alternatives, its cultural and ideological contents differ considerably from those of the West. Even though several scholars have variously enunciated the need to jettison Africa‟...
ABSTRACT Anglophone African factions, which are narratives containing a blend of African real-life socio-political events and fictive accounts, and which sometimes connect writers‘ metaphysical reference with their social consciousness and aesthetics, is central to literary expression in Africa. Yet, studies in African literature have focused on these philo-literary features only in fiction, neglecting their engagement in factions, thus barring a balance in African literary scholarship. Th...
ABSTRACT Media reports on Niger Delta (ND) crises in Nigeria have reflected a relationship between lexicostylistic choices and reporters‘ ideological stances. Existing studies on these reports have, however, neglected this relationship, concentrating on general stylistic, pragmatic and discourse features. These features, which are concerned more with the linguistic and contextual dimensions to the reports than the interaction between the ideology and style used by newspaper reporters, have...
ABSTRACT Libation among the Ibibio involves invocations, incantations and supplications to the gods and ancestors through which their world view is expressed. While aspects of libation such as sacrifices, chants, rites and rituals, which emphasis on contents, have been adequately researched, performance of libation has not been elaborately studied, relevant as it is in revealing the cultural values of the Ibibio people. This study, therefore, examines the performance properties and world vie...
ABSTRACT Lack of clear channels for students to air their grievances has given rise to persistent writing of graffiti in public secondary schools in Baringo Central Sub-County, as a way of communicating their issues. Analysis of these graffiti can be an opportunity to understand the students with the aim of assisting them understand the issues they communicate and deal with them appropriately. The study described the types of graffiti, analyzed the linguistic forms and interpreted the themati...
ABSTRACT Vowel reduction, the weakening of strong vowels to the reduced /ə/ sound, is an essential phenomenon in the rhythm of Standard British English (SBE) and it is claimed to be absent in Nigerian English (NE). Some studies on the phonological features of Yoruba and Hausa Englishes, which are major Nigerian languages, have claimed that vowel reduction does not exist in NE. This is with little or no reference to the small group languages including Educated Isoko English (EIE). Therefore,...
ABSTRACT In the relatively short period (1952–1978) of 1to 1140 so far, the Nigerian novel has displayed a remarkable growth in which various forms and techniques have been exploited. The cost significant stimulus for this rapid growth had been the novelists' Interest in the portrayal of the realities of contemporary Nigerian world and experiences, and by the faithful representation of these aspects, to correct the prejudices which generations of Europeans have created about the black san, ...
Abstract The notion that women are subsumed and subjugated by male-devised social structures informs the concern of this study entitled “Female Identity and the Dynamics of Culture in Selected African Women-Authored Novels.” The notion enables this investigation of the interplay of identity, gender and culture and in the light of recent debates by many women and men (including Western critics) about how women can be granted equality with men in all human relations. This study investigate...
ABSTRACT This study critically explores the persistent claim by feminists that black male writing in the United States "has been systematically discriminatory against women.* The critics insist that African-American women in the malo-authored works are portrayed as playing unimportant rules that make the male protagonists emerge as the “real black heroes.' No black female, they argue, is accorded heroic status in texts by these male writers. They are also dissatisfied with the fact that som...