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"The minister they killed used to live around here, abi, aunty?" A postcolonial pragmatics theoretical study
Esther Igwenyi, Juliet Ekpang, Romanus Aboh
Vol.12, 2025
"The minister they killed used to live around here, abi, aunty?" A postcolonial pragmatics theoretical study
By: Esther IgwenyiEmail: info@caleljournal.com
Tel: 08063695290
Abstract
As a subfield of linguistics, pragmatics has kept evolving, drawing scholars attention to the constantly growing nature of knowledge and scholarship. A recent addition to pragmatic theories is postcolonial pragmatics. Its application to text analysis has continued to engage the attention of scholars who do pragmatic research. In this study, we attempt to introduce postcolonial pragmatics as well as provide insights into how texts from the Nigerian postcolonial context could be analysed in line with the analytical tenets of postcolonial pragmatics. We examine eleven excerpts following five postcolonial pragmatics components, namely, collectivist cultures and in-group norms, kinship, ethnicity, religion, and social class or status. Also, the pragmatics of codeswitching and politeness as conceptualised in postcolonial pragmatics theory are discussed with textual examples drawn from the Nigerian postcolonial context. This study enriches the understanding of how ideations are emplaced in context, and how discourse participants generate meaning from interactions as motivated by the peculiar linguistic environment in which they put English to use. Besides, by accounting for the peculiar ways Nigerians use English, we contribute to extending the frontiers of postcolonial pragmatics.
Keywords
postcolonial pragmatics, postcolonial Nigeria, context, English, pragmatic components
Introduction
This article explores ways through which postcolonial pragmatics as a theoretical framework can be applied to pragmatic research in the Nigerian context. Since its emergence, postcolonial pragmatics has increasingly become a viable pragmatic theory that scholars employ to explicate the dynamic nature of language use, especially colonial languages in postcolonies. The emergence of new Englishes across excolonial societies has necessitated the evolution of theories that are compatible with African thoughts and capable of appropriately engaging indigenous ways of thinking through English. The evolution of new Englishes accounts for the continuously evolving nature of the English language. Scholars have advanced the argument that the way English has been adapted, “domesticated”, “nativised”, and “indigenised” in many ex-British colonies has brought significant changes in the syntax and semantics of the language (Ugwuanyi & Aboh, 2025). These changes, in syntax and semantics, even in lexis, are motivated by Nigerians’ desire to express their lived experiences in their distinct Nigerian ways and in a language that expresses as well as resonates their Nigerianness, leading to the emergence of a variety of World Englishes known as Nigerian English. This unique way of using English in Nigeria is also known as Nigerianism (Aboh, 2018; Eburuaja & Udoh, 2021). According to Eburuaja and Udoh (2021), “Nigerian English emerged and evolved due to the nativisation of the English language in Nigeria, so it can be defined as the type of English spoken and used by Nigerians” (2025, p. 3). English, perhaps Nigerian English, exists alongside indigenous languages such as Nigerian Pidgin, Hausa, Igbo, Tiv, Idoma, Yoruba, Bette-Bendi, Efik, Ibibio, among several others. In such a multilingual context, it is not uncommon to find people who speak more than two of these languages. The foregoing details the hybridised identity of many Nigerians. Some Nigerians speak about five indigenous languages. While this kind of multilingualism would appear unusual in most Western societies, “it is a normal fact of life and a natural consequence of migration in the complex multiethnic societies” (Anchimbe & Janney, 2017, p. 105). These Nigerians can speak or understand these languages because of migration and the multiethnic composition of the Nigerian linguistic ecosystem. These multilingual and multiethnic situations make many Nigerians a cornucopia of languages, cultures, and identities. It therefore suggests that, given Nigerians' postcolonial experience and upbringing, they are hybridised beings. It also implies that a theory or framework that is conversant with Nigerians' hybridised identities will be required to appropriately explain the dynamic complexity of their linguistic biography. Obana and Haugh stress the fact that “theoretical assumptions underpinning pragmatics often do not readily address characteristic features of languages beyond those typical of European languages, particularly English” (2023, p.11). As already hinted, the aim of postcolonial pragmatics is to provide a framework that addresses the peculiar features of excolonies. Following proponents of postcolonial pragmatics, we aim to account for how postcolonial pragmatics could be applied to the analysis of language practices in Nigeria. Although studies such as Otong (2019), Ugwuanyi and Aboh (2025), among others, have drawn analytical insights from postcolonial pragmatics to drive the analysis of texts in the Nigerian context, there is still a need for more research in the field, given that studies in the area are grossly inadequate. Additionally, given its relative newness, not many scholars are conversant with the pragmatic theory and its application to text analysis. Thus, in undertaking this study, we extend the frontiers of postcolonial pragmatics and enrich the understanding of the context-determined nature of pragmatic analysis. We start by outlining the features and concerns of postcolonial pragmatics, discuss the methodology, and proceed to provide practical examples of how postcolonial pragmatics analysis could be understood in the postcolonial Nigerian context.
Content
Postcolonial pragmatics theory Postcolonial pragmatics evolved out of the realisation that theories developed from predominantly monolingual and monocultural Western societies do not adequately address the amalgam of pragmatic patterns common in postcolonial societies. Arguing against the inadequacy of Western-based theories in providing useful insights into the significations emplaced in postcolonial discourses, Wierzbicka (1991) called for an understanding of the cultural scripts of a people and how they play out in the people’s use of language rather than appropriating the culture universalist approach in interpreting languages. In this regard, Wierzbicka critiques the one-sidedness of Western-based theories and their incapacity in explicating localised and conventionalised symbolic codes as are obtained in ex-colonies. Proponents of this sociocultural pragmatic framework –Anchimbe (2011a, 2011b) and Anchimbe and Janney (2011, 2017) – developed, or are formulating, postcolonial pragmatics to account for the deficiencies of Western-based pragmatic theories. Postcolonial pragmatics is a crossbred pragmatic approach that puts text in sociocultural contexts by depicting the complex multicultural significations that background the production, interpretation, and consumption of texts. It “is an analytical framework for investigating the realities of postcolonial communities” (Otung, 2019, p.3). In this regard, postcolonial pragmatics can be understood as an instrumental analytic method that stresses the pragmatic and situational aspects of language use in larger postcolonial communities. It conceives the use of language in postcolonial societies as a hybrid of the colonised and colonisers’ identities (Anchimbe, 2020). Taking intermixed language and communicative practices in postcolonial multilingual societies as its focus, postcolonial pragmatics approaches speakers whose communication strategies have been shaped by the heterogeneous postcolonial environments in which they interact daily. Anchimbe and Janney (2017) argue that postcolonial pragmatics analysis explicates how various forms of identities are formulated in discursive situations, and how role projection, group maintenance, gate-keeping, and social empowerment and marginalisation are given expression in interactive contexts in postcolonial settings. Proponents of postcolonial pragmatics argue against “the limitation of individualistic Western pragmatic theories in accounting for non-Western pragmatic practices” (Anchimbe & Janney, 2017, p. 106). They contend that we understand texts better when the cultural ecologies that embed their production are explicated. Given the peculiar linguistic situation of most postcolonies, Western-based pragmatic theories are inadequate in explicating the nuanced speech acts that characterise postcolonial discourse (Rocha Azevedo 2020). According to Rocha Azevedo, “postcolonial pragmatics consists of a framework based on an emic perspective which aims at taking into account the hybrid settings found in postcolonial societies in pragmatic analysis” (Rocha Azevedo 2020, p. 1). In the light of this, postcolonial pragmatics investigates pragmatic features in the use of excolonial languages in postcolonial societies, which are characterised by their distinct mix of ethnic communities, languages, cultures, and social practices. This implies that postcolonial pragmatics aims to interrogate language use in interactive encounters in communities that speak languages such as English, neither as a native nor as a foreign language, but rather as a second language. This language is often an official language and an interethnic lingua franca (Anchimbe & Janney, 2011). What, then, are the basic assumptions of postcolonial pragmatics? Postcolonial pragmatics assumes that: • colonialism created sociocultural and political mixes in many areas: Africa, South Asia, the Caribbean, etc.; • pre-colonial cultures and colonially-introduced cultures (including languages, religions, political administrative systems, formal education, etc.) merged into new hybrid patterns; • the outcomes include, among others, hybrid identities and hybrid languages yielding hybrid communication patterns, and • pragmatic components of age, religion, ethnicity, and kinship, among others, are key to understanding how meaning is derived from language use in postcolonial societies (Anchimbe, 2018). How all these aspects function together in these complex multilingual and multicultural spaces is worthy of research from emic perspectives, especially taking into account that most pre-colonial cultures have collectivist structures or are group-based. We analyse our data following the postcolonial pragmatics model, offering insights into the distinct ways English and its users make sense of their social universe.
Conclusion
Using postcolonial pragmatics as our theoretical point of reference, we analysed some extracts gathered from literary and non-literary situations. The analysis shows that there is a conjunction between Nigerians’ linguistic choices and their cultural realities. As a postcolony, Nigeria’s linguistic space features multilingualism, multiculturalism, intermixed or hybridised identities and ethnicities. Postcolonial pragmatics is, therefore, a response to the call for indigenous pragmatic frameworks dedicated to emancipatory research on non-Western pragmatics from the ethnocentric constraints of Western pragmatic theories. Thus, the difficulty of applying individualistic, monolinguistic notions of speech acts and principles of politeness to the study of collectivistic, multilinguistic discourse birthed postcolonial pragmatics. Following the postulations of Anchimbe and Janney (2011), we have explained, through textual examples, how, as a consequence of colonialism and the consequent mixture between indigenous and colonisers’ cultural and linguistic practices, postcolonial societies are characterised by hybridised forms of ideations, language, social norms, and speech acts such as code-mixing and code-switching. This brings about communication strategies that have been shaped by these heterogeneous settings. The implication is that for research on social communication in excolonies to be nuanced and representative enough or appreciated, it must take into consideration the dynamic history of these societies’ emergence. The argument that postcolonial pragmatics advances is that the specific sociocultural context of interaction not only determines the way language is put to use, but also the meaning elicited. Central to this argument is the fact that the meaning of an utterance is tied to or derived from the overall sociocultural and interactive contexts, as well as the culture-specific elements and the speech acts and events in which they are entrenched. Thus, postcolonial pragmatics, as we have illustrated, advances the recognition of the diverse factors that condition the way excolonies perform their collectivist identity through language.
References
Aboh, R. (2015). Slang and multiple methods of interpreting sex and sexual identity in the Nigerian novel. The African Symposium: An Online Journal of the African Research Networks. 15(1), 91-97. Aboh, R. (2018). Language and the construction of multiple identities in the Nigerian novel. NICS (Pty) Ltd. Aboh, R. and Igwenyi, E. (2021). Igbo endearment terms: In-group identity construction in selected novels by Achebe and Adichie. South African Journal of African Languages. 42(1),123-130. Anchimbe, E. A. (2011a). Postcolonial linguistic voices: Switching together identity choices and their representations. Postcolonial linguistic voices: Identity construction and representations, E. A. Anchimbe and Mforteh, S. A. (eds.). De Gruyter Mouton. (pp. 3-21). Anchimbe, E. A. (2011b). On not calling people by their names: Pragmatic undertones of sociocultural relationships in a postcolony. Journal of Pragmatics, 43(6), 1472-1483. Anchimbe, E. A. (2018). Offers and offers refusal. A postcolonial pragmatics perspective on world Englishes. John Benjamin. Anchimbe, E. A. (2020). Postcolonial pragmatics. Abralin online lecture series. July 30, 2020. https://aovivo.abralin.or/en/lives/eric-a-anchimbe-2/ Anchimbe, E. A. and Janney, R. W. (2011). Postcolonial pragmatics: An introduction. Journal of Pragmatics, 43(6), 1451-1459. Anchimbe, E. A. and Janney, R. W. (2017). Postcolonial pragmatics. In Routledge Handbook of Pragmatics. Routledge. (pp. 105-119). Achebe, C. (1958). Things Fall Apart. Heinemann. Achebe, C. (1965). A Man of the People. Heinemann. Adichie, C. (2007). Half of a Yellow sun. Farafina. Adelakun, A. (2008). Under the Brown Rusted Roofs. Kraft Books. Ayola, A. and Alabi, T.O. (2018). Politeness and discourse functions in doctor-patient verbal interactions at the University College Hospital Ibadan, Nigeria. International Journal on Studies in English Language and Literature. 6(12), 1-12. Bozdağ, Ç. and Karakasoğlu, Y. (2024). Multilingual media repertoires of young people in the migration society: A plea for a language and culture-aware approach to media education. Global Studies of Childhood 14(4), 448-461. Dumaning, F. P. and David, M. K. (2011). Language use and bilingual consumers: An analysis of print advertisement in multilingual Malaysia. Bridging the gap of cross cultural communication. University Malaya. (pp 216-224). Eburuaja, C. and Udoh, C. (2021). Nigerianisms and Nigerian socio-cultural identities: A sociolinguistic analysis of contemporary expressions in computer mediated communication AJELLS: Awka Journal of English Language and Literary Studies 8 (1), 1-8. John, E. (2015). Born on a Tuesday. Cassava Republic. Ibrahim, A.A. (2015). Season of Crimson Blossoms. Parresia Books. Odebunmi, A. (2015). Pragmatics. In Issues in the study of language and literature: Theory and practice. Kamalu K, Tamunobelema I (eds.). Kraft Books. (pp 196-221). Rocha Azevedo, D. S. (2020). Postcolonial pragmatics: Changing lenses. Revista da Abralin 19(2),1-5. Obana, Y. and Haugh, M. (2023). Sociopragmatics of Japanese: Theoretical implications. Taylor & Francis, Otung, G. E. (2019). Campus decorum: The realisation of apologies, complaints, and requests by Nigerian and German students. Master’s thesis, University of Bayreuth. Sabao C. (2013). The sexual politics of the female body in contemporary Zimbabwean youth sociolects in interpersonal communicative contexts. The Journal of Pan African Studies 5(10), 80-89. Ugwuanyi, K. and Aboh, S. (2025). Nigerian English: History, functions and features. World Englishes. 1 12. Wierzbicka, A. (1991). Cross cultural pragmatics: The scientific of human interaction. Mouton DeGruyter.
Allusive truths in selected Mabel Osakwe's poetry
Bartholomew Chizoba Akpah, Nureni Oyewole Fadare
Vol.12, 2025
Allusive truths in selected Mabel Osakwe's poetry
By: Bartholomew Chizoba AkpahEmail: info@caleljournal.com
Tel: 08063695290
Abstract
Nigeria's socio-political frustrations continue to find expression in the creative outputs of Nigerian female writers. By deploying allusion as a powerful literary tool, historical events of significance are reincarnated as sites of national contestation. The poetry of Mabel Osakwe, which has received few critical reviews, serves as the compass for this study. The study investigates the lingering angst in Africa's most populous nation. Using critical and inter-textual analytical methods to analyse the selected poems, the study focuses on the interplay of history and art as emblems of social consciousness and hidden truths in Nigeria's socio-political landscape. Using New Historicism, the study examines Osakwe's allusions to certain truths the strictures undermining economic viability and socio-political stability in oil-rich Nigeria. The study analyses four purposively selected poems: The Land Chokes with Honourables Dying Days and a Cabal Nurses Ailing Nation Eavesdropping on Observing Demo-demons and Publish and Perish published in her collection, Desert Songs of Bloom. Osakwe, in these poems, through a careful deployment of poetic devices, satirises the oppressive agencies of the political class and their awful impact on the social underdogs of Nigeria. Osakwe's artistic sensibility alludes to and condemns the vicious circle of leadership ineptitude in Nigeria.
Keywords
Nigerian female writers, Mabel Osakwe, allusion, New Historicism, Nigeria
Introduction
Socio-political experiences of pre- and post-colonial African states largely stimulate African literature and its criticisms. African imaginative writers allude to a myriad of socio-political challenges in their creative works. Pioneers of African literature use their art to examine the impact of colonisation and racial discrimination against Africans during the colonial period. Similarly, African writers after colonial rule continue to address socio-political issues that impact the political and economic stability of many African nations in their creative works. In countries like Nigeria, Rwanda, Liberia, Burundi, and Somalia, African writers have depicted the horrors of war and the challenges faced in the aftermath through their art. Examples of this can be seen in Christmas in Biafra and Other Poems (Achebe, 1973), Casualties: Poems 1966-68 (Clark, 1970), and A Shuttle in the Crept (Soyinka, 1973). Nigerian writers portray fictionalised versions of the Biafran war experience (Kola, 2019). The depiction of Nigeria’s troubling past in art aligns with the notion that Nigerian writers, particularly in the poetry genre, from the Ibadan literary block, allude to the tragic phase of Nigeria’s political experiences (Okunoye, 1998). Patricia Wesley’s Before the Palm Could Bloom: Poems of Africa (Wesley,1998) and "When the Wanderers Come Home” (Wesley, 2016) also alluded to the socio-political upheavals that impaired Liberia’s economic and political stability. The literary corpus of Sierra Leonean-born Sly Cheney-Coker also points to the trauma of war in Sierra Leon. Similarly, several works of South African literature make direct and indirect references to the mistreatment of black individuals during the notorious apartheid era in South Africa. This is exemplified in the creative instincts of Dennis Brutus, Oswald Mitswali, and Athol Fugard, among others. Fugard’s "Sizwe Bansi is Dead,” for instance, is a spotlight on South African racial abuse of blacks during the apartheid regime. The play is a political allusion to the prejudices against many blacks described as “the psychological persecution experienced by black workers” (Jayathilake, 2018). Dennis Brutus' poems are artistic statements and socio-political allusions to the politics of devaluation during South African apartheid rule. Brutus exemplifies this in “The Sun on this Rubble”, which references the systemic stifling of apartheid policy and the ominousness of unpropitious violence against the majority of blacks.
Content
Allusion is one of the literary devices used by creative writers to bring back memories of the past in imaginative arts. Mainly, creative writers deploy allusions to add depth and understanding of past events, people, or historical contexts in literature. In its simplest definition, allusion is an indirect reference to places, events, people, or persons of note. The reference to any of the above must, however, have significant importance known to the average reader. Similarly, an allusion is a reference to a well-known figure, place, or significant historical event, either direct or indirect. This literary device is utilised to contextualise a story by referencing well-known individuals, places, events, or other literary works (Gaiman, 2019). Furthermore, as a figure of speech, an allusion allows the poet to subtly reference something, someone, a place, or an event familiar to the reader. For instance, J. P. Clark’s poem, “IBADAN”, is a direct reference to the ancient city of Ibadan, the capital of the old Western Region of Nigeria: Ibadan running splash of rust and gold-flung and scattered among seven hills like broken China in the sun. (Clark, 1962) The poem undoubtedly evokes memories of the ancient city of Ibadan, with its old rusty brown roofs and the absence of orderliness in the construction of mud houses scattered all around. Also, T. S. Eliot and Alexandra Pope artfully deploy allusion in The Waste Land and The Rape of the Lock, respectively. Campbell (1994) agrees that “Allusions invite us to select from our mental library knowledge which is no t in the text itself and without which the writer’s intention will not be fully communicated” (p.19). Campbell’s position above implies that allusion, as a literary device, helps the writer and the reader associate meaning outside the text based on either a direct or indirect reference to the text. By associating the meaning inherent in the text, allusion helps the reader tap into the history associated with the inherent reference. Perhaps this explains why Irwin (2001) argued that “allusion is bound up with a vital and perennial topic in literary theory, the place of authorial intention in interpretation, and literature itself; allusion has become an increasingly pivotal device. How different would twentieth-century poetry be without ubiquitous allusion?” (p.1) The foregoing is an attestation that, as a literary tool, allusion wields artistic influence in sustaining the author’s intentions and readers’ interpretations of poetry and other imaginative works. For instance, several Anglo-Saxon writers deploy allusions to accentuate meaning in their writings. This is evident in “Beowulf,” believed to have been written sometime by an anonymous poet between the eighth and eleventh centuries. The subject matter and themes in “Beowulf” are anchored on Biblical allusions to Cain and Abel: Till the monster stirred that demon that fiend Grendel who haunted the moors, the wild marshes, and made his home in a hell. Not hell but hell on earth. He was spawned in that slim of Cain, murderous creatures banished by God, punished forever for the crime of Abel’s death (Biblical Allusions in Beowulf, 2016) From the above, meaning can be associated based on the Biblical allusion to Cain and Abel. In the epic poem, Grendel, a monster-like murderer, had his hand grimed with the innocent blood of Hrothgar’s men. He is likened here to Cain, while Hrothgar’s men suggest a direct reference to the Biblical Abel. One can also surmise that allusions are of different kinds. The explanation above refers to a Biblical allusion. Biblical allusion falls under the category of religious allusions. Other kinds of allusions include literary, classical, mythological, historical, cultural, and socio-political allusions. The interest of this writer, however, is mainly in socio-political allusions in the poetry of Mabel Osakwe. 2. Previous Studies Scholarly engagements abound on how writers deploy allusion to foreground events of the historic past. For critics (Alstyne, 1993) and (Oraegbunam, 2022), allusion is an unvoiced text used to add depth to the understanding of literary works, especially poetry. This presupposes the literary weight allusion has in the place of meaning in imaginative works. History and politics play a critical role in every society. Literary critics and imaginative writers mask the thematic elements of their art through the use of allusion. They carefully allude to events of the past by bringing to mind some histories and politics that shape modern society. In most African American literature, writers reincarnate the history and politics of race and racial discrimination following the inglorious transatlantic slave trade with the use of allusion. Richard Wright’s Native Son and Black Boy, for instance, explore the history and dynamics of racial subjugation. Similarly, the politics and history of colonisation are evident in texts such as Things Fall Apart (Achebe, 1958), A Man for All Seasons (Bolt, 1960), and House Boy (Oyono, 1956). This illustrates that literature is a reflection of the socio-political and historical contexts that influence human existence. Poets and other creative writers utilise allusions to make their subject matter, characters, and events relatable to their audience. Allusion is employed to bring significant happenings of the past and assist the audience in finding meaning in the text. In her essay “African Allusions in Eighteenth-Century Literature”, (Walker, 2012), Walker argues that eighteenth-century African-American writers are known for historical allusions to Africa as a lost homeland, expressing a strong nostalgic desire to reconnect. According to her, writers like Langston Hughes, Henry Louis Gates Jr., Claude McKay, Phillis Wheatley, Olaudah Equiano, Lucy Terry, and Venture Smith all "capture the pulse of their homelands in their artistry” (2). She further suggests that they create an artistic “tapestry of the supernatural, matriarchy, and unique ways of knowing the world” (3). Her submission points out that the hyphenated African-American writers of the eighteenth century often alluded to the history of traditional African heritage, encompassing Africa’s distinct culture and religion. In Dorothy Blairs’s Examining African Literature in French: A History of Creative Writing in French, from West and Equatorial Africa (1976), the author contends that a Francophone West African poet employs allusions to “situate his tales” or “enhance the comic or satirical effects, particularly in animal fables” (47). Therefore, both Anglophone and Francophone African writers leverage the artistic significance of allusions to advance the thematic depth of their works. Thus, allusion has been an integral part of African literature. In Yoruba traditional religion, especially the adherents of the Orunmila Ifa Oracle, it is observed that the Ifa priests often resort to historical allusions to the myth of creation, as well as recalling the life and times of Orunmila while on earth and carefully situating this in their incantations and divination. Liberian writers like Patricia Jabbeh Wesley, Vamba Sherrif, Wayetu Moore, Helene Cooper, and Shannon Gibney, among others, are relatively contemporary writers who integrate socio-political allusions to explicate the socio-political and historical life experiences of the Liberian nation. This is evident in Cooper’s The House on Sugar Beach (2008), which alludes to the loss and pain of the protracted civil wars in Liberia. A considerable number of Wesley’s poems delve into Liberia’s socio-political conflicts. Her poetry mainly alludes to the long-fought wars in her native land, Liberia. In the poem “War Children” for instance, Wesley alludes to the anxieties, conflicts, complexities, and socio-political alienation that plunged Liberia to the lowest ebb of economic and political instability. She writes: Bury them-oh, we buried them. Bury them-yah! We buried them. After years, we now dump those we used to carry on wheel barrows, legs and arms dangling, the air charged with gunfire (Wesley, 1998) The tone of anguish in the poem brings back the memory of pain and the burden of agony that characterises the Liberian civil wars. The poet skillfully articulates the theme of death by referencing the mass killings during the war. The deliberate use of italics in the first two lines aims to highlight the humiliation and loss of loved ones in the war. African writers, besides alluding to and recreating history in their creative oeuvre, have also continued to reflect the socio-political conflicts that plunge most post-independence African countries into their primaeval chaos. From Nigeria’s Biafra war to the wars in Rwanda, Burundi, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Cote d’Ivoire, Somalia, Sudan, and the Arab Spring in North Africa, African creative writers consistently make direct and indirect references to the politics of power, tribalism, religious fanaticism, and neo-colonialism, which in most cases lead to socio-political squabbles. For instance, in Achebe’s There Was a Country, (Achebe, 2012), The Man Died: Prison Notes (Soyinka, 1985), and “Forty-eight Guns for the General” (Iroh, 1976) are imaginative writings that allude to the Nigeria-Biafra war. These works bring to light the politics of the civil war in Nigeria between 1967 and 1970. Similarly, Mabel Osakwe, one of Nigeria’s female poets, uses her art to allude to the socio-political disillusionment of post-independence and post-war Nigeria. Most of the poems published in Desert Songs of Bloom (2011) catalogue the socio-political underpinnings that mar development in Africa’s oil-rich nation. Her poetry, no doubt, is a socio-political allusion to instances of Nigeria’s underbelly. 3. New Historicism New Historicism, as a literary theory, seeks to unravel the weight of socio-political and historical contexts in the making of a literary text. Every writer is shaped by society and the socio-cultural norms that influence it. The writer is also a product of society and its history. Reading a literary piece through the lens of New Historicism literary theory facilitates the understanding of the socio-cultural and political background that inspired the production of a literary text. This aids in the interpretation of such imaginative writing. Stephen Greenblatt and Michel Foucault are primarily credited as pioneering proponents of New Historicism. Greenblatt’s perspective focuses on understanding the socio-cultural background behind a text. Thus, literary works are not closed cases of a single mind of the writer. Creative writers, therefore, write against the background of experiences in cultural, political, historical, and socio-economic contexts. Typically, new historicists situate their analysis within the boundary of a “non-literary text” (Barry, 1995). The non-literary text here suggests the life experiences outside the text that the author (un)consciously brings to the fore in their writing. Barry (1995) posits further that in New Historicism, “literary and non-literary texts are given equal weight and constantly inform or interrogate each other” (172). Hence, a text is appreciated within the context of revisiting society and historical perspectives, which in most cases exist in the space and time of relevance. This implies that there is a correspondence between imaginative works and their socio-historical contexts (Montenegro, 2018). This is seen in Half of a Yellow Sun (Adichie, 2007), which highlights the overlaps between the text (the novel) and the historic Nigerian-Biafran War experiences. This suggests that there is not much difference between literature and history (Bonila, 2018). This argument is also supported by Bressler (2011) that “in literature can be found history and in history, much literature” (184). This underscores that all expressive art exists in a network of intertextualities. This can be pigeonholed in the examination of the play "A Man for All Seasons," which probes into the struggles between the state and the Church (Bolt, 1960). In the play, Bolt references the intrigues revolving around politics of power, religion, and freedom. Contemporary African poets utilise socio-political allusions in their poetry. Corruption continues to be a major issue affecting growth and development in Africa. For example, Niyi Osundare, a prominent figure in Nigerian contemporary poetry, addresses issues of corruption in several of his works. In the poem “My Lord, Tell Me Where to Keep Your Bribe” (Osundare, 2016), the poet lampoons government officials, especially those who are expected to be the eyes and integrity of the nation’s justice system. He writes satirically: My Lord please tell me where to keep your bribe? Do I drop it in your venerable chambers Or carry the heavy booty to your immaculate mansion. Shall I bury it in the capacious water tank In your well-laundered backyard (Osundare, 2016). The betrayal of the Nigerian masses through corruption by government officials is a common theme in Nigerian literature. Political corruption, for example, is evident among the top echelons of the state. This has undoubtedly resulted in stagnation, inequitable wealth development, social injustice, and hindered economic growth in the nation (Awuzie and Okiche, 2017; Okonkwo & Ugwanyi, 2020; Okonkwo, 2024; 2025; Akpah, 2025). New Historicism, however, does not view history as absolute truth; instead, it is seen as one of the perspectives for interpreting and writing about experiences in the world. New Historicism, also known as cultural poetics, interprets history and other discourses through a textual lens (Etim, 2020). This implies a convergence between socio-cultural foundations and the references to them in expressive art. In Mabel Osakwe’s poetics, evidence abounds of intricate and inextricable connections between poetry and societal experiences. The writers, therefore, explore Osakwe's poetry to reveal the socio-political foundations to which the poet refers in her verses. Mabel Osakwe’s innate talent is visible in Desert Songs of Bloom, published in 2011. As a professor of English at Delta State University, where she was the pioneer head of the English department, and a University of Ibadan-trained poet, she brings to light the consciousness of her country, Nigeria, with deft allusions to history, politics, and socio-economic dictates of her native land. In her poetry, the reader is invited to explore the socio-political conditions that shape the thematic concerns of her work. Reading through most of the poems categorised under Parts II, III, and IV in the collection, an average follower of Nigeria’s ongoing tales would recognise the socio-political allusions inherent in the poems. 4. Methodology Using interpretative qualitative analysis (IQA) and inter-textual analytical method, the study engages four purposively selected poems of Mabel Osakwe: “The Land Chokes with ‘Honourables”; “Dying Days… and a Cabal Nurses Ailing Nation”; “Eavesdropping on Observing Demo-demons”; and “Publish and Perish” published in her collection, Desert Songs of Bloom (2011). The selection was based on the overwhelming use of allusions to Nigeria’s sore points. Nigeria, Mabel Osakwe’s country, is the scope of the study, which examines the allusive truths of the country’s open wounds. 5. Mabel Osakwe’s poetry as a mirror to Nigeria’s sociopPolitical landscape Osakwe’s Desert Songs of Bloom examines Nigeria’s socio-political conditions. The poems categorised in Part II, under the heading: “Songs of Moral Decay, Drought and Rot” lament the moral decadence, strife, chaos, tyranny, and kleptomaniac tendencies exhibited by supposed Nigerian leaders. In the poem “The Land Chokes with ‘Honourables’," she alludes to the greediness and insensitivity of members of the Nigerian parliament by satirically scrubbing their depravities with a tone of condemnation: Putrefaction assaults their breath up the city In the countryside, suffocating stench of decay Amidst distended containers of city honourable members Member representing Pocket-Project Budget for white elephant constituency Honourable chairman of Don’t-Develop-Grass Roots Government (31). The foregoing represents a poet whose poem drips with tears over the abandonment of the masses’ projects to the whims and caprices of avaricious Nigerian lawmakers. True, Nigerian lawmakers have been entrapped in corrupt practices at the expense of good governance and other dividends of democracy. Nigerian lawmakers, in most cases, indulge in all kinds of corruption scandals (Ojo, 2019). This is despite the hefty emoluments they earn. Yet accusations of “bribe for budget” (1) approval for various ministries still abound (Ojo, 2019). This explains why Osakwe, in the poem’s title, gives the word “Honourables” a special meaning by her choice of enclosing the word in inverted commas to suggest a different meaning, suggesting its corruptness. Hence, the term “honourable” becomes questionable and points to legislators comprising men and women who, rather than being agents of change and development to the people of their constituencies, are instead, “Ladies and gentlemen, all men of timber calibrating on people’s naivety” (lines 18-19). The land, according to Osakwe, stinks with rapacious lawmakers who had “become their dishonourables’ dedicated account/Dedicated to all that destroys the land” (lines 16-17). The beauty of Mabel Osakwe’s poetry lies in her ability to draw the average reader into her poetry through a careful deployment of literary devices used to enrich and project the themes of her art. The literary devices, besides amplifying the subject matters of her work, also help to evoke emotions, sustain memorability, and foster a deeper understanding of the inherent issues in her art. A remarkable literary device used in Osakwe’s poetry is satire, as seen in the poem, “The Land Chokes with “Honourables” In this poem, Osakwe deploys satire and parody to highlight the absurdities of corrupt Nigerian lawmakers while evoking laughter. In the poem, it is paradoxical that the legislative members of the Nigerian state and national assemblies have become “Members representing Pocket-Project Budget for White Elephant Constituency” (3). Osakwe herein lampoons corrupt lawmakers as pocket-driven praetorian individuals whose mission in public governance is self-centred. The theme of corruption in Nigerian politics is highlighted with careful satirisation and parodying of the socio-political underbelly in the Nigerian state. Thus, Osakwe employs satire as a textual mechanism to stimulate the audience’s laughter while condemning and parodying the imprudence of corrupt politicians. Osakwe’s sense of humour, while challenging the inappropriate behaviours of public officers, testifies to Akpah (2018), who argues that in Nigerian literature, creative writers are “gifted with a sense of humour and wit while ridiculing follies” (134) Similarly, the depth of meaning, emotional connection, and empathy with the Nigerian masses are aptly foregrounded through the poetic choice of personification as a textual strategy in Osakwe’s poetry. Osakwe’s choice of personification is signaled in “putrefaction assaults their breath up the city” (31), in which the poet personifies the state of putrescence or rottenness in Nigeria’s legislative chambers in the poem, “The Land Chokes with “Honourables.” Osakwe further deploys metaphor in the third line of the first stanza to describe the legislative chambers as “distended containers of city honourable members” (31). Comparing Nigerian temple of lawmaking chambers to “distended containers” is an indictment of the failing state of corrupt Nigerian political office-holders. Osakwe’s deployment of metaphor further helps to foreground the social commentary and activism towards repositioning and challenging politicians to rethink and mend their ways to good governance for the interest of the Nigerian masses who elect them into office. Her deployment of metaphor, thus simplifying complex ideas, invites her audience to the uncovering of hidden truths in her poetry. Osakwe’s ire, evidenced in the mood of anger and tone of condemnation of the poem, brings the reader closer to one of the ills obstructing growth and development in Africa’s most populated black nation. The themes of corruption and maladministration among African politicians attract critical attention from various African writers and critics. Literary works like A Man of the People (Achebe, 1966), Midnight Hotel (Osofisan, 1998), Land of Tales (Akpah, 2019), Dance of Savage Kingdom (Akinsete, 2020), Answers through the Bramble (Martins, 2021) and others serve as reminders of how Nigerian writers reference the endless covetousness of African leaders. The inter-textuality context, a significant aspect of allusion, indirectly refers to constraints that hinder societal development due to corrupt officials. In some cases, political, historical, religious, and literary allusions overlap since, in the words of Pirnajmuddin (2011), political allusions “…are related to a historical period” (854). This is apposite to Osakwe’s “Dying Days… and a Cabal Nurses Ailing Nation.” The poem revives the memory of a covert scheme by covetous leaders to cling to power. It reminds readers of the intrigues and power struggles during the tenure of the late Nigerian president, Umaru Musa Yar’adua, whose presidency witnessed a lot of in-house scheming by his kitchen cabinet, often referred to as the “cabals." The conflict revolved around the control of the political power machinery due to the void left by the absence of President Yar’adua in Aso Rock, where he was flown abroad for medical treatment. Osakwe writes in the third stanza that: Ailing president rules from anywhere in the world Global concerns mount, Nigeria goes comatose Power usurpers, intoxicated cabal, enthrones lawlessness No sharing formula: looted treasury; looted all over again Her matriarchy plunders state powers, state treasury Her usurpation a check to mate Jonathan’s crime When does deputizing become a crime? Crime heinous? (Osakwe, 2011) As shown above, Osakwe’s poetry decries corruption and the thirst for power. She delves into this by appropriating the history of Nigeria’s political space during the regime of the late Umaru Musa Yar’adua, who was Nigeria’s president between 2007 and 2010. The deteriorating health of the ex-president in 2010 was shrouded in secrecy when flown abroad for medical attention. The gap created by the absence of the President in Aso Rock plunged the country into a “comatose” with “power usurpers” and “intoxicated cabals” scheming for power and control of the state machinery, including the nation’s national purse. This did not go without the intemperate looting of the state treasury, abuse of power, and subsequent neglect and downplaying of the office of the Vice President, as if it were a crime to act as second in command. Hajiya Turai Yar’adua, the wife of the late President, was allegedly accused of playing an active part in the manoeuvrings. This is suggested in “Her matriarchy plunders state powers, state treasury/Her usurpation a check to mate Jonathan’s crime” (p.47). If Osakwe’s exasperation in “The Land Chokes with “Honourables” amplifies the rot in the legislative arm of Nigeria’s democracy, the executive arm comes under her scrutiny in the poem: “Dying Days… and a Cabal Nurses Ailing Nation” (p.47). The title of the poem is garbed with the garment of personification, which the poet uses to embody the theme of power abuse by Aso Rock cabals during the administration of the late President Umaru Musa Yar’adua. The poem's literariness, apart from personification in the title, is further enriched by metaphor, enjambment, and rhetorical questions that condemn power usurpers, mainly the president’s kitchen cabinet. During the ailing moments of the late President Yar’adua, he was secretly flown abroad for medical care; his deputy, Dr. Goodluck Jonathan, who by constitution deserved to take over the mantle of leadership in the absence of his principal, was, however, relegated to the background by the late president’s camarilla. It is against this backdrop that Osakwe’s use of rhetorical questions resonates in the third stanza of the poem. She asks rhetorically, “When does deputising become a crime? Crime heinous?” (p.47). To Osakwe and many Nigerians, relegating Goodluck Jonathan and preventing him from assuming full responsibility as Acting President by Yar’adua’s coterie is tantamount to usurpation of power. Osakwe’s use of rhetorical questions in the poem, however, helps evoke empathy and emotional resonance for Goodluck Jonathan, whose unjust treatment by intoxicated, power-drunk cabals at the presidency during Yar’adua’s illness is evoked. The use of rhetorical devices in the poem, apart from inviting readers to supply their answers to the unanswered questions, provokes critical introspection into the pervading power play among high-ranking politicians in Africa, especially between presidents and their deputies, as alluded to in Yar’adua and Jonathan’s Nigerian experience. The rhetorical question in the poem is erotesis, as it is merely used to emphasise the unhealthy political manoeuvring among political gladiators in Nigeria. As seen above, Osakwe’s poetry is a socio-political allusion to the autochthonous corruption in Nigerian politics. Corruption has become so ubiquitous in nearly all facets of socio-political and economic life (Soyinka, 2015). Soyinka describes corruption in Nigeria as “Hydropus”, which is a coinage he derived from the words “hydra” (multi-headed) and “octopus” to show how boundless corruption has become in Nigeria. Soyinka, the recipient of the 1986 Nobel Prize in Literature, poignantly expresses his moral repugnance towards corruption: How, for instance, does one begin to evoke, in just one word, the slimy yet abrasive, ubiquitous yet elusive, deadly but hypnotic, etc., characteristics of such national sui generis as corruption in all its manifestations, a phenomenon whose near-invisibility lashes out at will in all domains of social existence, and sucks the willing or the unwary, the complacent or the combative into its maw? (Soyinka, 2015) Soyinka above ponders the sordid endangerment of corruption in the national space of the Nigerian people. This is also what Osakwe alludes to in her art, as the theme of corruption runs through Desert Songs of Bloom. This theme of corruption is further traversed in the poems: “Power” …“They Saw It Disappear,” “Magic Painters Painting,” “Maximum Rule,” “Publish and Perish” “M.V. Nigeria,” “Enough Is Enough” and such others. Osakwe’s exploration of Nigeria’s return to democracy in 1999 after years of military interruptions is a major concern in Part IV of the collection. Under the military dictatorship of retired generals Muhammad Buhari, Ibrahim Badamosi Babangida, Sani Abacha, and Abdulsalam Abubakar, Nigerians were divided along religious and ethnic lines, especially between Southern and Northern Nigeria. This was exacerbated by the annulment of the 12th June presidential election allegedly won by the late MKO Abiola. The cut-throat “politricks” and the abortion of democracy by then Gen. Babangida gave birth to dissenting voices, which led to riots, security challenges, extrajudicial killings, indiscriminate arrests, ethnic and reprisal attacks, and the jailing of political activists. This further spurred the emergence and strengthening of ethnic militias like the Odu'a People’s Congress (OPC) in the Southwest, Egbesu Boys in the Niger Delta, and the Movement for the Actualisation of the Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB), and the like. On 29th May, 1999, Nigeria returned to democracy with the emergence of Chief Olusegun Obasanjo. This is the perspective upon which Osakwe’s poem “Eavesdropping on Observing Demo-demons” is written. In the poem, Osakwe is pained that the expectations of the gains of democracy were dashed as politicians failed to usher in growth and development. The glitz that characterised the swearing-in of Chief Obasanjo eventually gave way to avidity by the politicians. This is the socio-political context to which the poet alludes in the third stanza of the poem: Where weak ethno-religious tendon joins sinews Weak majority-minority divide joints And greed binds North to South, East to West Ghana-must-come-and go-politics Politricksters extra ordinary quantum! Ghana-must-come go missile; very deadly, most deadly Kills nine hundred and ninety-nine of every thousand (Osakwe, 2011). The lines above show that the only thing that binds politicians from both religious and ethnic divides is corruption, rather than improving citizens’ social welfare and physical infrastructural development. The “Ghana-must-come-and-go politics” is a metaphor for corruption, which has become a pang in the annals of Nigeria’s socio-political space. The poet in the first stanza refers to these politicians as a “threat to our kingdom here on the globe” (line 7). The poet’s play on words with the deconstruction of democracy as “Demo-demons” in the poem’s title suggests that the politicians are compared to demons whose purpose is to milk the blood of the nation dry by their demonic dispositions to governance. Osakwe in the poem blames both members of the upper and lower chambers of state and national assemblies as accomplices in the bastardisation of good governance. Hear her in the last stanza of the poem: From lower Abu-chamber come Upper chamber-come-legislative nothing Thirsty-sick Assemblies come join the chorus Dance crazy in tune with demo-demons Sniff this air-borne abortion pill Abort democracy in Nigeria. Divide, despoil, destroy democracy (Osakwe, 2011). The wit and artistic vibe in Osakwe’s poetry are evident in the sullenness and sarcasm that pervade the last stanza of the poem. The line “Thirty-sick Assemblies come to join this chorus” apparently suggests each of the thirty-six houses of assemblies representing each of the thirty-six states in Nigeria. The poet is disturbed by the collusion of these state assemblies with the executive arm to steal and destroy the people’s patrimony through a macabre dance. The poet likens the spread of corruption between the executive and legislative arms of the Nigerian government to an “airborne abortion pill” that she fears would “Abort democracy in Nigeria”. The pervasive corruption among government officials serves as the backdrop of Osakwe’s poems. This exemplifies the new historicist dimension of her poetry. One of the remarkable beauties in Mabel Osakwe’s poetry is the consistency in her use of poetic license. This is evident in the poems: “Eavesdropping on Observing Demo-demons” and “Publish and Perish.” The poetic license confers on the writer the artistic freedom to bend the rules of syntax to achieve certain stylistic effects. In exploring the subject matter of corruption among Nigerian politicians and the rot in Nigeria’s ivory tower concerning publishing, academic ranking and promotion, Osakwe stimulates her readers with her choice of poetic license. For instance, the poet describes Nigerian politicians as bound in the common interest of siphoning public funds regardless of their ethnic and religious colourations. To bring the spotlight on the ills of corruption among Nigerian politicians, the poet subverts the normalcy of word formation to create the word “politricksters” as a metaphoric reference to venal officials in Nigeria’s democracy. Describing Nigerian unprincipled politicians as “Politricksters extraordinary quantum” in the third stanza of the poem “Eavesdropping on Observing Demo-demons (29’05’99)” (p.54) suggests Osakwe’s recreation and unique voice as social commentary on the treachery that pervades civic leadership in Nigeria’s statutory administration. Similarly, Osakwe’s technical maturity resonates in how she carefully uses linguistic neologisms of poetic liberty to enhance the literariness of her poetry. In the last stanza of the same poem, referencing the thirty-six states' houses of assemblies in Nigeria as “thirsty-sick Assemblies.” is not only a manipulation of the morphology of the phrase “thirty-six” but also the poet’s sonic and semantic creativity aimed at chastising the malfeasance of lawmakers in Nigeria and the business of ensuring sanity in the state’s legislative houses. The squalid catalogue of issues affecting Nigeria is revisited in the poem “Publish and Perish.” In this poem, Osakwe focuses on her constituency, the academia, in what seems to be a self-reflection on her career as academic staff in the ivory tower. Here, the poet deprecates the claptrap surrounding the “publish or perish” slogan in university promotions for academic staff. To her, the value of hard work appears to have diminished as promotions are no longer grounded in academic rigour, resulting in what she describes as the “rotten inbreeding of scholarship” (line 2). The poet bemoans the uncouth practices of “bootlicking, praise singing” and other uncultured dispositions by some academics to gain undue favour to reach “apex status” (professorial cadre) in career advancement. According to the poet, favouritism has become commonplace in attaining the professorial cadre of academic institutions, as long as aspiring candidates engage in bootlicking and “worship” of the stakeholders responsible for appointments and promotions in the university system. This sentiment is succinctly expressed in the following lines: Be ready for the green card as you perfect your game. You perfect your games of bootlicking, praise singing You have easy virtue and vices: double-tongued, double speaking If you kneel and crawl, announce loyalty, paying regular homage You defend evil practices of principal umpire fiercely, add Other corrupt practices labelled: smooth, easy flowing, agreeable Then, publish less, promoted fast (Osakwe, 2011). It is disheartening that pervasive corruption has infiltrated the sanctity of academic institutions, which are meant to serve as the moral compass for society. The “green card” is a metaphor for approval of a lecturer’s promotion as long as you can “perfect your game” which means aligning to the whims and caprices of the supposedly senior academics. ” If not in the poem, delete; if there, please explain for non-Nigerian audience. There have been negative attitudes and politicisation in the appointments and promotions of academic staff in Nigeria (Fatunde, 2019). While this may not be true in all cases, this is what Osakwe, however, condemns in “Publish and Perish.” At times, principled academics, irrespective of their qualifications and publication records, are denied promotions for refusing to engage in bootlicking or praise towards those tasked with deciding the fate of academic staff during the promotion process. Osakwe paints this aptly in these lines: Be ready for the red car if – You are principled and upright, if – You’re truly God-fearing and truth-speaking If you are fearless and diligent, worst still if- If you are not corrupt or incorruptible Then publish and perish! (Osakwe, 2011) The global practice in academia is that promotion is based on teaching, research (publications), and community service. In Nigeria, however, it appears that academic publications take a lion's share in determining lecturers’ promotion to the next rank after two or three years. This accounts for why many lecturers prioritise publication to flourish. However, in addition to hard work and paper publication, there is an unvoiced rule that one must be in the good books of those who dictate where one’s fate lies during the promotion exercise. The “red card” metaphorically suggests rejection for promotion regardless of whether one meets the criteria for promotion or not. Hence, academic staff who refuse to “play ball” by capitulating to the dictates of ego-driven superiors wait endlessly before reaching the apogee of their careers as university teachers. The diligent scholars are painfully subjected to psychological and emotional deprivations as they wait. The poet makes this clear below: Some die waiting, some retire waiting Their sin? They publish too genuinely Too scholarly, no veneer of loyalty Therefore publish and perish (Osakwe, 2011). Osakwe’s poetry, when situated within the context of Nigeria’s ivory tower, reincarnates the harsh realities faced by some blunt, honest, hard-working academics who are unwilling to bow to the line of “veneer of ‘loyalty’” (45). This is what the poet alludes to and satirises in “Publish and Perish.” In the poem, Osakwe’s empathy towards genuinely hardworking university teachers is projected through the technical use of literary devices. The abundance of literary devices in the poem bears testimony to the poet’s conscious effort to magnify the thematic thrust of her poetry through the richness of figurative language. For example, Osakwe’s use of parallelism in the first line of the seventh stanza when she writes: “Some die waiting, some retire waiting,” as a means of emphasising and contrasting the uncertainty of hardworking university lecturers whose moral sanctity, rather than becoming a rewarding virtue for their uprightness, has become a setback to earning promotion. They instead suffer endless delays or are denied promotions because they refuse to perfect the game of bootlicking and praise-singing ego-stuck superiors. The use of irony is evident in “…retire waiting” after all, retirement from active service suggests rest and a break from waiting. It is therefore ironic that rather than the university lecturers earning their promotion while in active service, some had to wait until retirement before being rewarded. It is this unhealthy practice that Osakwe decries in the poem. The choice of irony is therefore deployed to amplify and condemn the state of limbo and endless waiting to be promoted for years, even when it is certain that the sedulous lecturers deserve their promotions. Also, Osakwe uses rhetorical questions in the sixth stanza to expose the delay tactics used in Nigerian ivory towers by disgruntled, egoistic colleagues to create a time lag and emotionally suppress fellow university teachers into endless waiting.
Conclusion
The study investigated the socio-political allusions to a myriad of corrupt practices experienced in Nigeria’s economic, educational, and socio-cultural spaces. Through the imaginative writings of Mabel Osakwe, the audience is exposed to the insensitivity of Nigerian leadership. Within the theoretical provisions of New Historicism, the poet’s stylistic imagination depicts how the poet reincarnates the pervading history of “hydropus” and the ills of Nigeria’s socio-political life. Osakwe uses her art to unveil the stagnancy of growth and development because of failed leadership and corrupt officials in government. The allusion to systemic corruption in Nigeria’s socio-cultural existence manifests in various sectors such as politics, education, and the national treasury. Also, the study explored the creative prowess of Mabel Osakwe in the use of figurative expressions. The literariness of her poetry is demonstrated through a careful deployment of poetic devices such as poetic license, metaphor, allusion, rhetorical questions, irony, paradox, parallelism, symbolism, imagery, and among others, used to amplify the different themes in her poetry. Thus, Nigeria’s socio-political undersides, to which the poet alludes, are sustained through evocative strategies and literary aesthetics.
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Digital transformations and the construction of utopia imperfect in African science fiction: Eco human syncretism in Mame Bougouma Diene’s Lekki Lekki
David Mikailu
Vol.12, 2025
Digital transformations and the construction of utopia imperfect in African science fiction: Eco human syncretism in Mame Bougouma Diene’s Lekki Lekki
By: David MikailuEmail: info@caleljournal.com
Tel: 08063695290
Abstract
This article, focusing on Mame Bougouma Diene’s Lekki Lekki, examines how contemporary African science fiction (ASF) harnesses the speculative possibilities of science fiction to critique Africa’s socio-political realities and envision a domesticated African future which incorporates traditional ethos and technological advancements. ASF marks a significant epistemological shift by reimagining science and technology, not as imported constructs, but as adaptable, locally grounded practices, that is a hybrid scientific paradigm that merges technological innovation with indigenous epistemologies. This synthesis challenges the entrenched binary between scientific rationalism and traditional knowledge, advancing a syncretic and process-oriented vision of utopia, what this study terms an “imperfect utopia.” Rather than presenting utopia as a fixed ideal, ASF portrays it as a dynamic negotiation shaped by Africa’s historical, cultural, and ecological specificities. Through this lens, African writers redefine science and technology as tools for both survival and self-determination, reframing them within Africa’s epistemic and environmental contexts. Drawing on frameworks from African science fiction and ecocriticism, the study explores how these narratives interrogate the colonial legacy of Western scientific dominance and proposes integrative, sustainable models of existence. Ultimately, ASF disrupts reductive dichotomies between modernity and tradition, science and myth, offering a nuanced blueprint for reimagining Africa’s agency within the global speculative imagination.
Keywords
Utopia, African science fiction, science fiction, hybridity, syncretism
Introduction
African science fiction (hereafter ASF), much like its Western counterpart, resists rigid or hermetic definition. The genre of science fiction itself has long been marked by an inherent indefinability. Delany (1994) observes, “we have watched definitions posed and definitions refuted. All have seemed too broad or too narrow” (p. 176). Similarly, Roberts (2000) agrees that “all of the many definitions offered by critics have been contradicted or modified by other critics, and it is always possible to point to texts consensually called SF that fall outside the usual definitions” (pp. 1–2). And that is because “the qualities that govern texts universally agreed to be science fiction can be found to govern other texts as well…it may even begin to appear that ultimately nearly all fiction—perhaps even including realism itself—will be found to be science fiction” (Freedman, 2000, p. 16). ASF shares this fluidity, further complicated by its entanglement with multiple cultural and geopolitical contexts. Like poetry, ASF resists clear cut boundaries, and efforts to impose definitional frameworks have often been met with resistance by both practitioners and critics like Okorafor and Adeyemi, particularly when such definitions attempt to subsume ASF within the broader rubric of Afrofuturism. Okorafor (2019) for instance persistently refuses to be called an Afrofuturist writer, rather referring to herself and works as “Africanfuturist” writer. She writes in her blog that: “Africanfuturism is concerned with visions of the future, [it] is interested in technology, leaves the earth, skews optimistic, is centered on and predominantly written by people of African descent (black people) and it is rooted first and foremost in Africa” (p. 1). These writers argue that their creative and philosophical intentions depart significantly from the assumptions often embedded in Afrofuturism. This rejection underscores the importance of considering African science fiction on its own terms, rather than through frameworks developed in the West. Despite definitional ambiguities, several scholars have proposed working descriptions of the genre. Adejunmobi characterises ASF as a body of literature through which African authors employ science fiction elements to interrogate the socio-political arrangements shaping the contemporary African condition (Adejunmobi, 2016, p. 265). Crucially, this definition does not restrict ASF to futuristic or speculative temporality; instead, it accommodates realist depictions of African life that are shaped by the technological and socio-political anxieties of the present. Likewise, Omelsky (2014) posits that African science fiction is marked by its appropriation and localisation of canonical science fiction tropes: “they recycle many of the existing tropes and conventions of Euro-American SF and insert them into distinctly African cultural geographies” (p. 38). In this view, ASF writers engage in a form of narrative grafting, infusing familiar speculative conventions with uniquely African cultural, historical, and spatial inflections. Central to the conceptualisation of ASF is the identity of the author and the authenticity of the setting. As Okorafor (2019) insists, the African provenance of both the writer and the narrative space is foundational to the legitimacy of the genre. African science fiction, then, can be defined as speculative storytelling about Africa by African authors, incorporating indigenous epistemologies and exploring the intersection between African socio-religious systems and technological advancement. Thus, for a text to be considered African science fiction, it must be unambiguously grounded in African temporality and geography, and its thematic concerns must emerge from African experiences or a projection into African future. This positioning stands in deliberate contrast to the rationalist and often decontextualised scientific ideals that underpin much of Western science fiction.
Content
ASF therefore, addresses the post-industrial realities confronting African societies, particularly the socio-environmental and ethical consequences of science and technology. It also reveals the ways in which African communities have domesticated and reinterpreted scientific paradigms through the lens of organic traditions and cultural continuity. In other words, ASF advances a hybrid epistemology, blending modernity and tradition in ways that produce a culturally mutated variant capable of surviving, and thriving in the speculative future. In so doing, ASF domesticates technology to fulfil utilitarian purposes rooted in cultural specificity, rather than simply showcasing technological novelties as ends in themselves. Ultimately, African science fiction offers a unique contribution to global speculative discourse as it provides a historicised, non-Western vision of the future, one that foregrounds African people, their traditions, and their aspirations. Through this genre, African writers assert both cultural autonomy and imaginative agency, challenging dominant narratives and proposing alternative futures shaped by African values, histories, and environments. This paper articulates the concept of “utopia imperfect” as a framework for reading African science fiction. The essay demonstrates a sophisticated grasp of postcolonial, ecocritical, and utopian theories, weaving them into a coherent argument that redefines the speculative imagination in African contexts. By positioning Lekki Lekki (2020) within this theoretical nexus, the paper reveals how African science fiction both critiques and transcends Western technocentric paradigms, envisioning instead a hybrid, eco human model of futurity grounded in indigenous epistemologies. The strength of the analysis also lies in its close textual reading, which illuminates how the narrative’s techno-organic symbols, such as the Soul Machine, embody the reconciliation between modern science and traditional spirituality. Furthermore, this essay is seminal because it bridges an abstract theory with narrative evidence. This intellectual attempt contributes to the on-going conversations about de-colonial futurism, ecological consciousness, and Africa’s speculative reimagining of science and technology. This work also addresses the dearth in African science fiction by theorising the intersection of utopian imagination, ecological consciousness, and indigenous epistemologies, a connection often overlooked in existing critical discourse. While much of ASF criticism has focused on its political, technological, or postcolonial dimensions, this study advances the conversation by introducing the concept of “utopia imperfect” to describe a uniquely African mode of futurist thinking that resists the static, idealised visions of Western utopianism. By analysing Diene’s text, the paper demonstrates how African writers reconceptualise science and technology as culturally embedded, adaptive, and ecologically attuned practices, rather than as imported instruments of modernity. This reorientation fills a scholarly gap in understanding how ASF negotiates the relationship between modern techno-science and indigenous ecological wisdom to imagine sustainable futures. The study’s contribution to knowledge, therefore, lies in its development of a syncretic critical framework, one that bridges ecocriticism and speculative futurism; to articulate how African narratives generate alternative epistemologies of progress and survival. In doing so, the paper expands the theoretical vocabulary of ASF studies and offers new pathways for interpreting Africa’s speculative engagement with science, environment, and de-colonial transformation. 2. Methodology The choice of Diene’s Lekki Lekki (2020) as the primary text for this study is guided by both thematic relevance and theoretical significance within the landscape of contemporary African science fiction. Methodologically, this paper adopts a qualitative, interpretive textual analysis, grounded in postcolonial ecocriticism and utopian theory, to examine how Diene’s narrative constructs a decolonial and eco-human model of futurity. Unlike more widely discussed ASF texts, such as Okorafor’s Lagoon (2014) or Thompson’s Rosewater (2016) and the others, Lekki Lekki offers a distinctive engagement with environmental degradation, techno-spiritual hybridity within a specifically African context. Diene’s short story captures the complex entanglement of technology, ecology, and spirituality in ways that foreground Africa’s ongoing negotiation between modernity and tradition. This made it a particularly suitable text for exploring the paper’s central concept of “utopia imperfect,” a paradigm that envisions progress as a continuous, adaptive process rather than a fixed ideal. The selection also responds to a methodological gap in ASF scholarship, which tends to privilege Anglophone and novel length works over Francophone and short speculative narratives. 3. Utopia and the foundations of science fiction: A genealogy of idealised space At the core of science fiction as a literary genre lies the concept of utopia, a speculative space often juxtaposed with dystopia and understood as an ideal realm in which the complexities and contradictions of real-world conflicts are imaginatively resolved. The notion of utopia, while central to science fiction, is rooted in a longer literary and philosophical tradition that begins with More’s seminal text Utopia, first published in Latin in 1516 and translated into English by Robynson in 1551. As Rogan (2009) notes, most contemporary definitions of literary utopia trace their origins to More’s foundational work, in which the term "utopia" itself is coined from the Greek ou-topos, meaning "no place". Importantly, More’s Utopia is not to be mistaken for eutopia, or a "good place;" but rather, a satirical projection, a “non-place” that critiques existing sociopolitical structures through imaginative displacement (p. 309). More’s Utopia, therefore, does not present an ideal society in the conventional sense but rather operates as a space of cognitive estrangement, where familiar norms are subverted to provoke critical reflection. Rogan argues that More constructs this imagined world not as a blueprint for perfection but as a means of distancing the reader from their own reality: Utopia is a ‘no place,’ and does not represent an idea of the ultimately ideal, attainable place, but serves as a blank slate upon which he inscribes a world that is intended to estrange the contemporary reader from their conditions of existence, thus allowing them to see their own world in a new light (p. 309). In this sense, Utopia functions as a political satire employing mechanisms that would later become central to science fiction, particularly the trope of cognitive estrangement. Freedman (2000) further extends this conceptualisation by describing utopia as "the homeland where no one has ever been but where alone we are authentically at home. It is the promised land that can only be attained by means of exodus" (p. 65). This paradoxical formulation underscores the role of utopia not as a destination to be reached, but as an experiential device, a metaphorical and imaginative elsewhere from which to critique the present and envision alternative modes of existence. Thus, utopia in science fiction is not simply an abstract ideal but a narrative strategy that enables radical thought and political critique. More’s Utopia sets the stage for the development of this tradition, laying the groundwork for subsequent science fiction texts that continue to explore the tensions between what is and what could be, between the real and the possible. Through the dual mechanisms of satire and estrangement, utopia in science fiction becomes both a site of imaginative freedom and a tool for socio political interrogation. In this interrogation, Suvin (1979) delineates several structural characteristics essential to the utopian form. These include the use of an isolated setting, a comprehensive and panoramic depiction of the alternative society, a systematic and often rigidly formal social order, and dramatic strategies that challenge the reader’s normative expectations. Suvin further describes utopia as a “historically alternative wishful construct”—a vision of the ideal that remains aspirational and fundamentally elusive as quoted in Seed (Seed, 2011, p. 73). Sargent (1994) contributes to this enquiry by defining utopia as “a non-existent society described in considerable detail and normally located in time and space that the author intended a contemporaneous reader to view as considerably better than the society in which that reader lived” (p. 9). Utopia, then, functions not only as imaginative critique, but also as a tool of ideological intervention. Freedman (2000) deepens this interpretation by suggesting that utopia cannot be understood as wholly detached from empirical reality. Rather, he argues that “it is the transformation of actuality into utopia that constitutes the practical end of utopian critique and the ultimate object of utopian hope” (p. 69). Although utopia as a concept may be inherently unattainable, its imaginative potential played a formative role in the development of eighteenth-century travel fiction, as exemplified in the works of Defoe, Swift, Spence, and Paltock. These authors employed utopian motifs not as concrete blueprints for ideal societies, but as literary devices through which to critique contemporary socio-political conditions. Seed (2011) argues that Sir Thomas More’s Utopia established the narrative pattern for subsequent utopian literature by framing the utopian society as the subject of a traveler's report. This narrative technique positions the traveler as an intermediary figure, mediating between the reader’s familiar reality and the speculative realm being depicted. More’s contribution to the genre also highlighted a formal liability: the utopian narrative’s tendency toward excessive exposition and an overemphasis on societal order (p. 73). However, following the catastrophic events of the Second World War, literary utopias gave way to a surge in dystopian narratives. As Seed observes, dystopia can be understood as a “malfunctioning utopia,” wherein the promise of scientific advancement and social liberation is subverted, leading instead to disorder and chaos (p. 74). Dystopian fiction underscores the disillusionment with Enlightenment ideals, especially in light of technological developments that failed to deliver emancipation and instead exacerbated human suffering. In examining the implications of science fiction within this context, Leonard (2006) asserts that the genre allows writers to explore both poles of this spectrum. Science fiction can hypothesise future worlds in which existing social problems have been resolved, or conversely, it can magnify those problems, extending them into bleak, dystopian futures (Leonard, 2006, p. 253). While traditional religious and philosophical discourses often portray utopia as the dwelling place of the morally upright and dystopia as the realm of evildoers, science fiction complicates this binary. Rather than presenting these worlds as fixed moral endpoints, the genre frequently renders them as contested spaces, arenas in which competing values and ideologies struggle for dominance. In this light, the interplay between utopia and dystopia in science fiction becomes not merely a narrative contrast but a dynamic continuum of ethical, political, and existential tensions. These speculative spaces offer the possibility of transformation and renewal, functioning as receptacles where the future is negotiated through both critique and hope. 4. Contaminated utopias and syncretic heterogeneity in African science fiction The early emergence of utopian themes within African American literary tradition is exemplified in Delany’s Blake; or the Huts of America (1859), often cited as the first proto science fiction text authored by a Black writer. This narrative centres on the orchestration of a successful slave revolt and the subsequent establishment of a Black utopian society in the American South, culminating in resettlement in Cuba. Similarly, Harper’s Iola Leroy; or, Shadows Uplifted (1892) is widely regarded as the first African American utopian novel, premised on a vision of a just and egalitarian society wherein racial and gender equity is realised among formerly enslaved individuals and their white counterparts. While differing in their narrative trajectories, one emphasizing militant resistance, the other peaceful integration, both texts articulate a foundational utopian impulse shaped by the enduring legacy of racial subjugation in the United States. As Fabi (2001) observes, these early African American utopian narratives emphasise the transformative process of individual and collective ideological development over the attainment of a fully realised or perfected utopian state. This emphasis on ideological transformation rather than static idealism resonates profoundly within contemporary African Science Fiction (ASF), where utopia is reconfigured not as a definitive site of perfection, but rather as a discursive space of contestation, negotiation, and potential rebirth. In ASF, utopia is inherently provisional, subject to decay, appropriation, and the imposition of hegemonic structures that replicate exclusionary dynamics. ASF suggests that a utopia that suppresses dissent or enforces homogeneity undermines its own legitimacy. Instead, these narratives often foreground communal values that coexist with, rather than override, individual agency. The utopian visions in ASF are therefore dynamic and pluralistic, reflecting the syncretic nature of African epistemologies, which traditionally accommodate diverse spiritual, cultural, and social systems. Central to this syncretic vision is the tension between indigenous African worldviews and the encroachment of technocentric modernity. ASF engages this tension through speculative frameworks that seek not to reject science and technology outright, but to domesticate and harmonise them with African socio-cultural values. In doing so, these narratives critique the uncritical embrace of technological advancement that often characterizes Western science fiction, portraying it as a force complicit in ecological degradation, social fragmentation, and neo-imperial domination. ASF, in contrast, posits a utopian alternative that is iterative and rooted in cultural hybridity, where science is not an instrument of sterile advancement, but a tool reoriented towards sustainable and inclusive futures. Ultimately, African science fiction represents a critical intervention into global science fiction discourse. It offers speculative models that not only resist dystopian inevitability, but also challenge the epistemological binaries between tradition and modernity, science and spirituality, the global and the local. In doing so, ASF articulates a form of utopianism grounded in the lived realities of African communities—an aspirational horizon that remains conscious of its limitations while remaining committed to social transformation. In an era of unprecedented technological advancement and ecological precarity, such a vision is both necessary and urgent. This reimagining of utopia as a process rather than a destination is particularly salient in ASF’s ecological consciousness. In many African speculative texts, the recovery of the environment is framed as integral to the construction of a liveable future. ASF writers envision societies where ecological stewardship, communal ethics, and technological innovation converge to resist the destructive logics of capitalist exploitation and environmental neglect. Such narratives underscore the urgency of rethinking the role of science and technology within African contexts, not as ends in themselves, but as means to a broader socio environmental equilibrium. The leadership problem in Africa is responsible for the myriads of difficulties bedevilling the continent. Omelsky (2006) notes that: the leaders are not conscious of preserving posterity. At the moment, unbridled capitalism and the quest for financial aids and loans by these rudderless leaders, have them giving up the landscape to multinational corporations and foreign government to use the ecosystem as drilling grounds for fossil fuels and solid minerals and its vast lands as areas used for scientific experiments with future devastating ramifications (p. 34). African Science Fiction now operates as a corrective discourse situated against the backdrop of dominant technological epistemologies, offering an alternative worldview grounded in ecological consciousness and a recuperative return to pre-colonial cosmologies. Fundamental to ASF's critique is a reinvestment in nature as both a symbolic and material force. Within many African societies, nature has long served as a crucial signifier of spiritual, cultural, and communal life. However, the exploitative trajectories of extractivist capitalism manifested in unregulated mining, deforestation, industrialisation, and spatial expansion, have increasingly endangered the ecological foundations upon which African life depends. ASF thus advocates for a syncretic alternative, wherein scientific rationalism is tempered and enriched by nature-based aesthetics and traditional cosmologies, producing a mode of futurism that ensures continental survivability amidst anticipated resource scarcity. This yields what may be termed a “utopia imperfect”, a vision of futurity that resists dystopia through imperfection, hybridity and adaptability. This conceptualisation of utopia in ASF significantly diverges from Western paradigms, which have often been shaped by the theological idealism rooted in Thomas More’s foundational text, Utopia (1516). In More’s formulation, utopia functions in a way that is underpinned by Christian dogma and monolithic moral codes that dictate sociopolitical order. In contrast, ASF posits a cosmology of ambivalence, ambiguity, and multiplicity. Rather than conforming to a singular hegemonic ideal, ASF’s utopias are embedded in a pantheon of diverse spiritual and philosophical systems, what may be understood as syncretic heterogeneity. This approach refuses essentialism and critiques the limitations of any fixed ideal. As such, the utopia envisioned in ASF is not a static end state but a striving, a continuous negotiation toward equilibrium between humanity and the natural world. Consequently, the utopia posited by ASF writers, therefore, is an ongoing phenomenon, one that renews, critiques, and regenerates itself through cycles of self-correction. This dynamic conception aligns with Moonsamy’s (2006) assertion that utopia, like all human constructs, “is prone to decay, much like everything else, and must continually forge ahead in acts of constant renewal” (p. 343). In this sense, utopia in ASF is less a place than a practice, an evolving form that responds to shifting social, political, and ecological conditions. Its regenerative capacity is not merely philosophical, but urgently practical, given the rapid techno scientific transformations affecting African societies. In addition to its forward-looking aspirations, ASF is imbued with a nostalgic sensibility. It often mourns the displacement of a once harmonious triadic relationship among divinities, humanity, and nature. While ASF does not advocate a regressive return to the past, it seeks to retrieve and recontextualise indigenous epistemologies as a basis for imagining sustainable futures. This return is not only temporal, but also spatial and epistemological, a process of recombination wherein the past and present inform a hybrid future. The utopia projected in ASF is thus not a manifestation of a centralized socio-political authority or a knowledge monopoly; rather, it is a decentralised, hybridised formation that resists fixed boundaries and monocultural dominance. This hybridity is not incidental, but central to ASF’s narrative logic. The genre deliberately deflects the notion of utopia itself through tropes of mutation and contagion. Such deflection resists the sterility associated with classical utopias, spaces defined by total order, purity, and the erasure of difference. As Moonsamy (2016) notes, ASF “embraces the contaminated utopia,” resisting both the genre’s Western inheritance and the colonial residues embedded within idealised futurities (p. 343). In these narratives, utopia is always already infected: by history, by contradiction, by the very impossibility of perfection. That is why Reid (2009) underscores this critical tension in postcolonial science fiction, observing that writers frequently “parody utopian societies as a sign of the inflexibility of essentialist Western values while simultaneously celebrating utopian thought’s potential for social transformation” (p. 266). ASF embodies this dual gesture. It critiques the exclusions of conventional utopian models while reclaiming their imaginative utility to envision radically better futures. As Moonsamy (2016) further articulates, “utopia comes to stand for the imaginative conceptualisation of significantly better worlds, not ideal ones,” and this reconceptualisation allows for the integration of “both the unknown song and the potential contagion that one can encounter” (p. 343). Accordingly, the utopias constructed within ASF are imperfect by design. Edward and Mendlesohn (2003) contend that “utopian perfection is a form of control that denies any sense of adventure, risk taking, and discovery” (p. 222). Moonsamy (2016) extends this argument, asserting that a “perfect” utopia is incompatible with an African futurity because it replicates the very colonial logics from which the continent seeks emancipation (p. 337). Through the embrace of an impure, mutable, and hybridised utopia, ASF writers not only resist genre conventions, but also assert a distinct intellectual and political agency within global science fiction. These contaminated utopias embody resistance, complexity, and possibility, hallmarks of a genre committed to both critique and creation. 5. Utopia imperfect: Ecological syncretism and cultural reclamation in Mame Bougouma Diene’s Lekki Lekki The organic and spiritual interconnectedness between human beings and the natural world constitutes a foundational aspect of African cosmology. Within the African worldview, nature is not merely an external environment to be utilized or exploited; rather, it occupies a central, metaphysical position that informs cultural, spiritual, and philosophical thought. As Egya (2019) observes, “humans do not only depend on nature for feeding but also for spiritual wellbeing… [they are] products of nature, profoundly inscribed in it, constantly rejuvenated by it” (p. 414). This ontological embeddedness of humans within nature is vividly illustrated in the broader trajectory of African literary philosophy, evident in the works of seminal authors such as Laye, Achebe, and wa Thiong’o, among others. These texts articulate an intimate, almost sacred relationship between people and their environment, a relationship that is both sustaining and identity constituting. However, the incursion of modernity and the colonial project have disrupted this ecological harmony, introducing exploitative paradigms that regard nature as a resource to be dominated and consumed. For a people whose cultural and existential essence is deeply entwined with the land, the degradation of natural ecosystems precipitates not merely environmental loss, but an existential crisis that threatens the continuity of life and tradition. Consequently, postcolonial African writers increasingly emphasise a renewed ecological consciousness that recognises nature “not only as the other being besides human being, but also as an environmental being, a place, inflected with histories of peoples, that is shaped and in turn shapes the cultural existence of humans” (Egya, 2019, pp. 412–13). African science fiction, in this regard, has emerged as a critical narrative form through which the recuperation of precolonial environmental symbiosis is envisioned within speculative futures. It frequently articulates the imperative to reclaim the land, not merely as physical territory, but as a site of cultural memory and ecological agency. This reclamation is often pursued through the very instruments of modernity, science and technology, which, while responsible for the ecological damage, are reimagined as tools for restoration and renewal. The dialectic between destruction and redemption through technological intervention is central to Diene’s speculative narrative Lekki Lekki . Set in a post-apocalyptic Senegal, Lekki Lekki portrays a dystopian landscape ravaged by global environmental shifts. The once fertile land has become arid and lifeless due to drastically reduced rainfall, threatening both human and non-human life. The narrator poignantly describes the condition of the land, noting that it remains a lifeline despite its degradation: “we get our food from the trees, our water from the roots” (p. 78). This statement not only underscores the resilience of the natural world, but also the enduring dependence of the community on ecological systems for sustenance. The story further illustrates how environmental degradation has eroded communal life. The traditional nocturnal gatherings, once characterised by storytelling, collective memory, and social bonding, have been replaced by isolated domestic retreats necessitated by nightly dust storms. These storms are held at bay by a retractable protective dome that shields the village each evening, suggesting a technologically mediated survival that nevertheless lacks the warmth of communal cohesion. “Villagers hurry home and stay indoors before the protective dome rose against the evening storm” (p. 76), the narrator notes, emphasising the loss of a once shared cultural ritual. In this technologically altered world, even pastoral life, a long-standing symbol of African communal identity, has been reduced to a rationed and emaciated vestige. Morning routines, once guided by organic rhythms, are now governed by artificial mechanisms: “The sun wouldn’t shine through the dusty vortex until the turbines had worked their magic” (p. 76). The extinction of goats and the skeletal condition of cows highlight both ecological collapse and cultural disintegration. Herders, maintaining the remnants of a traditional lifestyle, now do so within an artificial ecosystem, suggesting a fragile attempt to preserve identity in a fundamentally transformed world. Lekki Lekki, therefore, serves as a potent critique of the ecological consequences of unchecked modernisation and a call for syncretic solutions that bridge scientific innovation with indigenous ecological knowledge. Through speculative fiction, Diene reasserts the centrality of the land to African identity, while envisioning pathways toward environmental restoration that honour the cosmological roots of African communities. The narrative ultimately affirms that in the African context, technological advancement must align with ecological symbiosis to forge a meaningful and sustainable future. The narrator’s father said that: We herded cattle before the world knew we existed. When other people flew, some of us herded cattle. When the world crumbled, and the towers fell we herded cattle. Two thousand years later we herd cattle. It doesn’t matter where we’re going. It doesn’t matter where we came from, it doesn’t matter if we’re here or on the moon Djoulde. We herd cattle, it’s our tradition… And that’s why I take you all in turn with me in the morning. To remind you of that… (p. 78). In the context of increasing multicultural hybridity and the pervasive allure of techno-scientific advancement, the affirmation of cultural identity and traditional knowledge systems remains an indispensable marker of communal selfhood. The erosion of indigenous identity in favour of ephemeral technological trends carries with it the risk of cultural dislocation. This underscores the critical importance of preserving traditional practices as a cohesive force that affirms cultural continuity and homogeneity among its adherents. In Lekki Lekki, this preservationist ethos is exemplified through the community’s reverence for cows, which hold symbolic and ritual significance within their sociocultural framework. Despite the dramatic decline in cattle populations due to ecological degradation, the community deliberately refrains from consuming mutton. This conscious abstention signifies an effort to safeguard what remains of a vital aspect of their traditional heritage—underscoring the cow's centrality not merely as livestock, but as a cultural emblem. Moreover, the community’s worldview is shaped by a profound belief in the sentience and personhood of nature. This ontological posture is captured in the character Djoulde’s assertion that “she knew the tree can hear her and know her love” (p. 75), which motivates her daily ritual of singing to the tree (p. 77). Her inability to hear the tree in return does not negate her belief; instead, it initiates a desire within the community to bridge this communicative gap through technological innovation. The elders, acknowledging the limits of human perception, collaborate with scientists to create a technological interface that can fuse human consciousness with the sentient essence of nature. This endeavour culminates in the development of a hybrid technological device known as the “Soul Machine,” a fusion of indigenous spirituality and scientific innovation. Embedded within primordial forest trees, the Soul Machine facilitates the electronic transfer of human soul essence into the trees themselves, engendering a metaphysical convergence between the human and the non-human. This union, wherein the material transitions into the immaterial, enables reciprocal communication between humans and nature. Through this integrative process, the community envisions a renewed relational ontology, one in which humans can listen to, nurture, and exist harmoniously with the environment. African Science Fiction, as exemplified in this narrative, privileges the metaphysical and introspective dimensions of existence over the empirical materialism often characteristic of Western techno scientific paradigms. In contrast to the prevalent trope of interplanetary migration as a solution to ecological collapse, a hallmark of Euro American science fiction, the scientists in the text propose an inward migration into the spiritual core of human and planetary existence. Their goal is not to escape Earth, but to re-inhabit it more ethically and symbiotically: “to live on. One with the earth” (p. 79). This approach exemplifies the distinctive epistemological framework of ASF, which seeks to restore equilibrium between technological innovation and ecological reverence through a syncretic fusion of science and cultural spirituality. This inward migration is necessary, as Djoulde tells her cynical husband: We’d be a planet with a conscience. A planet that could guide life instead of suffering from it. When a new people are born to this world, they won’t be blind like us humans were. Ravenous like we were. They will learn. From us (p. 79). Cheikh, the protagonist’s husband, expresses a critical and pragmatic stance toward the emergent biotechnological experiment aimed at integrating human consciousness with the natural world. Viewing the scientific endeavour with scepticism, he regards the mechanical grafting of human essence into nature as an exercise in futility. For Cheikh, the speculative nature of the procedure, still in its nascent stage and fraught with uncertainty, renders it an untenable risk. He chooses instead to endure the harsh realities of a dystopian Earth, preferring the tangible discomforts of a deteriorating environment to the ambiguous promises of a technological transcendence that lacks empirical certainty. His doubts are articulated in his dialogue with his wife, Djoulde, where he questions both the logic and safety of the procedure: “Look, what happens if it doesn’t work and you die? You wouldn’t even know... Remember the test run?” (p. 79). Here, Cheikh invokes prior failures as a cautionary reminder of the limits of experimental science. His apprehension reflects a rationalist worldview that privileges caution and experiential knowledge over speculative innovation. He remains unconvinced by the project's theoretical underpinnings, perceiving the attempt to synthesise the human soul with nature via technological mediation as not only unreliable but also ultimately unnecessary. Cheikh’s resistance serves as a narrative counterpoint to the optimistic vision of eco-technological harmony espoused by other characters. His reluctance underscores the ethical and existential tensions that arise in response to radical scientific interventions, particularly those that seek to reconfigure the boundaries between humanity and the natural world. In this way, the text does not merely celebrate technological advancement, but stages a complex dialectic between scepticism and belief, between the familiar certainty of ecological decline and the unfamiliar promise of techno-spiritual integration. But progress was however made at the Soul Engine hub, where the willing will make the transition to intangibleness, the trees glowed with a reflective light, trunks and branches laced with slick metal, connected across the soil by slithering black cables to large grey cubes vibrating with a collective hum like the voices of a million bugs calling to be born check (p. 80). Nonetheless, the implementation of the Soul Engine technology is accompanied by stringent ethical and physiological screening protocols, which mitigate many of the risks that fuel Cheikh’s scepticism. Individuals whose neural patterns are deemed incompatible with the machine’s interface, such as those exhibiting erratic brain wave activity, as well as pregnant women, are systematically exempted from undergoing the consciousness transfer procedure. This precautionary measure suggests that the scientific community involved in the development of the Soul Engine is both aware of its limitations and committed to minimising harm through selective participation. As Khady, one of the project’s principal facilitators and orientation experts, clarifies, the transition process is not universally applicable, but is instead governed by a series of medically and ethically informed criteria (p. 80). These guidelines ensure that only those with optimal cognitive and physiological alignment are allowed to proceed, thereby reinforcing the integrity of the experiment and countering the claim that it operates on speculative or haphazard foundations. In this context, Cheikh’s reservations, while emblematic of a broader cultural and philosophical hesitation toward post-human integration, are shown to be partially misinformed. The narrative thus complicates his position by juxtaposing emotional doubt with the procedural rigour of a carefully managed scientific innovation, underscoring the nuanced interplay between scepticism, informed consent, and technological advancement in African speculative imaginaries. Khady explains further that: The Engines are very complicated but quite simple. The world is a network, everything is interconnected. We all evolved from the same original organism. Billions of years ago. Down to our DNA. We are one with the earth. One with the wind. And yes, one with the cows we herd in the morning…And they communicate. Organically. They know who we are and fear us when we wish them harm, and love us when we give them love and they let the others know, through their roots, through their spores and sap. We have mapped these networks and now, we can connect to them more directly through the Soul Engines. These engines parse out our human consciousnesses and pulse them into the network, mimicking the bokki’s own bio-chemical signals, those signals are transmitted into the roots of the trees and conducted into the earth where they become one with the planet. Growing with new saplings, spreading through open spores. Our way of life is no longer sustainable, if we want to survive, we have to adjust to the world, adapt and embrace it. For thousands of years humanity has tried to shape the world in its image. We failed and did so much damage to the world in the process. Now, we pay it back (p. 81). Paying nature back is necessary because the narrative presented in Diene’s Lekki Lekki reflects a world teetering on the brink of ecological collapse. It depicts a post-apocalyptic environment characterised by severe climate anomalies, diminished rainfall, the near extinction of livestock, the degradation of the ozone layer, and the toxic saturation of the atmosphere. Within this environmental catastrophe emerges a radical technological intervention: the Soul Machine, a symbolic and material conduit for the techno organic reconciliation between humans and nature, to save both humans and nature. In this speculative scenario, the preservation of life and culture is no longer possible through conventional means. The text posits that only through a deliberate syncretism between the organic and the mechanical, a merging of human consciousness with natural elements, can ecological and existential continuity be assured. This form of techno organic fusion collapses the historical binary between the human and the natural, proposing instead a hybridised ontology in which mind, body, and soul coalesce within the natural world. Djoulde, the central figure in the narrative, initially embraces the opportunity to undergo the transformation facilitated by the Soul Machine. However, her participation is interrupted when the machine detects that she is pregnant—rendering her ineligible for the process due to its ethical protocols. Her exclusion underscores the machine’s sensitivity and ethical design, further discrediting Cheikh’s earlier scepticism. Cheikh, Djoulde’s husband, had refused to participate, dismissing the initiative as unproven and perilous. Upon learning of his wife’s willingness to undergo the transformation without his approval, he responds with hostility, masking his insecurity and fear with emotional and physical abuse. His reaction underscores a broader theme in the narrative: the resistance to change from patriarchal and anthropocentric paradigms that prioritise control and materialism over ecological harmony and spiritual transcendence. Despite Cheikh’s doubts, the experiment proves successful. Those who underwent the transformation now inhabit a new ontological space, existing as ancestral spirits embedded within the trees, the air, and the waters. Their presence is both ethereal and active, serving as ecological stewards and spiritual guides for subsequent generations. Four years after the Soul Machine’s implementation, the narrative illustrates a community that is thriving in symbiotic connection with nature. The grafted ancestors not only care for the natural world but also maintain communication with the living, particularly the children, who are now born with telepathic abilities. Djoulde’s daughter, Arsike, exemplifies this emergent generation, able to communicate freely and consciously with her grandmother, who now resides within the ecosystem. Djoulde, however, remains confined to partial communion with the ancestral realm, receiving messages only through dreams. This limitation signifies her transitional position between the corrupt, anthropocentric past and the evolving posthuman future. Her marginal access to the spiritual world is a poignant reminder of the ecological complicity borne by earlier generations, whose actions contributed to the environmental crisis. Meanwhile, Cheikh, increasingly alienated and disillusioned, succumbs to despair and violence. His descent into alcoholism and domestic abuse signals the destructive consequences of rigid resistance to transformation. Ultimately, his rejection of the ecological synthesis proves fatal. In a climactic moment, the spirit of Djoulde’s mother intervenes by psychically overwhelming Cheikh, driving him into a state of madness that culminates in his accidental death. The conclusion of the narrative reaffirms the cyclical and regenerative philosophy central to African cosmology. Though the ancestral spirits acknowledge their temporality, "none of them will be there forever" (p. 89), they affirm the community's future through continuity. Arsike is expected to one day enter the Soul Engine herself, symbolising an intergenerational commitment to ecological stewardship and cultural preservation. As Djoulde’s grandfather proclaims, “we were always one with nature…it’s our tradition” (p. 89). The ancestral admonition that “just because you can’t hear” (p. 89) the earth’s cries does not mean it is silent, underscores the spiritual deafness that contributed to environmental degradation. Now, however, humanity has been restored to an ontological alignment with nature, allowing for reciprocal communication and mutual care. In Lekki Lekki, the synthesis of spiritual tradition and scientific innovation does not signal a retreat into romanticized pasts, nor an escapist projection into sterile techno futures. Rather, it embodies a utopia imperfect—an ongoing process of ecological repair and cultural reclamation. Through techno organic hybridity, the narrative envisions a world in which nature, tradition, and technology are not antagonistic forces but interconnected modalities for survival, continuity, and renewal.
Conclusion
The prominence of nature-based aesthetics within African Science Fiction is deeply rooted in the cultural epistemologies and ontological frameworks of African societies, wherein nature is not merely a backdrop to human activity but a central, animating force in the structure of communal life and cosmological order. ASF foregrounds this ontological pre-eminence by envisioning scientific and technological innovation not as instruments of domination or escape, as is often the case in Euro American science fiction, but as means to restore and reforge a lost communion between humanity and the natural world. In these narratives, science is reimagined as a reconciliatory tool, one that counteracts the alienation produced by Western modernity and reintegrates the human subject into a relational and ecologically conscious cosmos. Operating within a postcolonial framework, ASF actively interrogates and dismantles the hegemonic paradigms propagated by traditional Western science fiction, which often posits interplanetary migration or technological transcendence as the default responses to ecological collapse. In contrast, ASF resists such escapist trajectories and instead articulates a form of planetary responsibility. This repositioning constitutes a significant intervention in the speculative tradition, offering a counter narrative that reclaims African agency, cosmology, and ecological knowledge systems from the margins of futurist discourse. Through this intervention, ASF performs a critical revisioning of history, what may be termed a corrective historicity, that challenges the colonial legacy of technological imposition masked as religion, education, and civilisation. Despite the purported universality and benevolence of these colonial civilizing missions, their application in African contexts has repeatedly failed to yield the promised ideal of societal perfection. ASF exposes these failures and rejects the utopian projections they imply. Rather than striving for a static and unattainable perfection, ASF proposes a dynamic model of utopia imperfect: a fluid, contested space characterised by hybridity, multiplicity, and on-going negotiation. Within this imaginative terrain, the interplay between indigenous African epistemologies and contemporary scientific paradigms produces a syncretic vision of futurity, one that neither denies the value of science nor relinquishes the spiritual and ecological imperatives central to African worldviews. In this way, ASF reorients the speculative gaze inward and downward, toward the earth and its histories, rather than outward and upward into the void of space. It offers not a flight from dystopia, but a transformative engagement with its causes. Through this lens, utopia becomes not a distant destination but a continuous, imperfect striving toward balance, justice, and ecological renewal. The merger of science and African liturgy in ASF thus inaugurates a powerful space of cultural reimagination and resistance, an ever-evolving landscape where the values of the past and the imperatives of the future converge in the pursuit of sustainable coexistence.
References
Adejunmobi, M. (2016). Introduction: African science fiction. Cambridge Journal of Postcolonial Literary Inquiry, 3(3), 265–272. Delany, S. R. (1994). Silent interviews: On language, race, sex, science fiction, and some comics. Wesleyan University Press. Diene, M. B. (2020). Lekki Lekki. In W. Talabi (Ed.), Africanfuturism: Science fiction by African writers (pp. 75–89). Brittle Paper. Edward, J., & Mendlesohn, F. (2003). The Cambridge companion to science fiction. Cambridge University Press. Egya, S. (2019). Alter-nature Niger Delta in Christian Otobotekere’s poetry. In G. Ibileye et al. (Eds.), Gender, folklore and cultural dialectics in African literature: A festschrift for Asabe Kabir Usman (p. 408). Sevhage Publishers. Fabi, M. G. (2001). Passing and the rise of the African American novel. University of Illinois Press. Freedman, C. (2000). Critical theory and science fiction. Wesleyan University Press. Leonard, A. E. (2006). Race and ethnicity in science fiction. In The Cambridge companion to science fiction (pp. 253–263). Cambridge University Press. Moonsamy, N. (2014). Life is a biological risk: Contagion, contamination, and utopia in African science fiction. Cambridge Journal of Postcolonial Literary Inquiry, 3(3), 329–343. Okorafor, N. (2019, October 19). Africanfuturism defined. Nnedi’s Wahala Zone Blog. https://nnediblogspot.com/?m=1 Omelsky, M. (2006). “After the end times:” Postcrisis African science fiction. Cambridge Journal of Postcolonial Literary Inquiry, 1(1), 33–49. Reid, M. (2009). Postcolonialism. In M. Bould, A. M. Butler, A. Roberts, & S. Vint (Eds.), The Routledge companion to science fiction (p. 256). Routledge. Roberts, A. (2000). Science fiction: The new critical idiom. Routledge. Rogan, A. M. D. (2009). Utopian studies. In M. Bould, A. M. Butler, A. Roberts, & S. Vint (Eds.), The Routledge companion to science fiction (p. 308). Routledge. Sargent, L. T. (1994). The three faces of utopianism revisited. Utopian Studies, 5(1), 1–37. Seed, D. (2011). Science fiction: A very short introduction. Oxford University Press. Suvin, D. (1979). Metamorphosis of science fiction: On the poetics and history of a literary genre. Yale University Press.
Pragma-Discourse analysis of the United States 20-Point Gaza-Israel Peace Framework
Isah Muhammad
Vol.12, 2025
Pragma-Discourse analysis of the United States 20-Point Gaza-Israel Peace Framework
By: Isah MuhammadEmail: info@caleljournal.com
Tel: 08063695290
Abstract
This study investigates the United States’ 20-point plan, unveiled in September 2025, which seeks to end the Gaza-Israel conflict and outline a conditional pathway toward Palestinian statehood. The main objective is to examine how linguistic and pragmatic choices within the plan construct peace, power, and legitimacy between the two parties. The analysis adopts Searle’s speech act theory, conceptual metaphor theory and critical discourse analysis as its theoretical framework, focusing on the performative and pragmatic functions of the speech acts embedded in each of the plan’s twenty clauses. Methodologically, the study employs a pragma-discourse analytical approach, treating each clause as a performative utterance to uncover implicit meanings and power relations. The findings reveal that, although the plan emphasizes humanitarian aid and reconstruction, it systematically prioritizes Israeli security concerns while deferring substantive Palestinian sovereignty. The study concludes by recommending that future peace proposals should adopt more balanced linguistic framing to ensure equitable representation of both parties and to avoid reproducing geopolitical hierarchies through discourse.
Keywords
Pragmatics, speech acts, peace process, Palestinian statehood, ideology
Introduction
Peace proposals and post-conflict frameworks are not neutral diplomatic instruments; they are complex linguistic artefacts that construct particular visions of reality through discourse. The words and metaphors used in such texts perform strategic acts of persuasion, legitimation, and identity framing. Within the Gaza-Israel context, where conflict narratives have long been contested, each proposal for peace is itself a pragmatic act, an attempt to re-define agency, morality, and responsibility through language. This study examines the United States 20-Point Gaza-Israel Peace Framework (2025) as a site of political communication, analysing how pragmatic and discourse strategies encode ideological meanings and shape perceptions of peace, security, and reconstruction. Political discourse analysts such as Fairclough (1995), van Dijk (1998), and Charteris-Black (2004) have shown that language in policy texts reflects and reproduces relations of power. Similarly, pragmatics scholars including Austin (1962), Searle (1969), and Grice (1975) argue that speech acts and implicatures reveal the performative intentions underlying communication. When combined, these perspectives illuminate how political texts do not merely describe social realities but enact them. In the case of Gaza, diplomatic discourse operates as both a performative commitment to peace and a strategic attempt to manage international legitimacy.
Content
Literature review Scholarly work on the Israel-Palestine crisis consistently demonstrates that the conflict is not sustained purely through military confrontation or diplomatic stalemate but through deeper historical structures, socio-political asymmetries, and discursive mechanisms that shape how actors, events, and responsibilities are represented. Foundational analyses by Bar-Tal (2013) conceptualise the conflict as an intractable socio-psychological formation, drawing upon collective memory, fear, and entrenched narratives of victimhood. His findings establish that political texts, policy frameworks, speeches, communiqués, play a central role in reproducing these repertoires by determining whose suffering is foregrounded and whose agency is backgrounded. Studies have traced how settler-colonial logics, territorial dispossession, and the long-term securitisation of Palestinian identity have shaped the linguistic architecture of peace proposals over many decades. Their analyses show that official discourse routinely recasts structural domination as security necessity or humanitarian intervention, thereby embedding asymmetry into the very grammar of diplomatic communication. These historical dynamics are mirrored in the contemporary political economy of Gaza (Khalidi, 2020; Pappe, 2006; Masalha, 2012; Shlaim, 2014). Roy’s (2011) extensive study shows that the enclave has been systematically transformed into a humanitarian space without sovereignty, where economic precarity is not an accidental by-product of conflict but the outcome of sustained political design. Her work shows that international aid frameworks, reconstruction plans, and technical policy language often function as instruments of governance, distributing resources while simultaneously constraining Palestinian autonomy. Peteet (2017) adds a spatial and bureaucratic dimension to this analysis, showing how checkpoints, mobility restrictions, and administrative regimes produce fragmentation not only on the ground but also in how Gaza is discursively constructed as an exceptional, securitised space requiring management rather than genuine political resolution. These studies collectively establish that any contemporary peace-related text emerges within a material context defined by occupation, blockade, and institutionalised asymmetry, and that such texts often naturalise these constraints through ostensibly neutral administrative vocabulary. Research on political communication deepens this understanding by showing how metaphors, framing devices, and lexical choices shape public perception and policy reception in the conflict. Farsakh (2011) demonstrates that debates around sovereignty, particularly the viability of one-state versus two-state models, are linguistically structured through demographic metaphors, territorial framings, and moral narratives that subtly guide interpretations of what constitutes a “realistic” solution. In parallel, Gordon and Perugini (2015) examine how human rights discourse itself can be mobilised as a technology of domination, lending moral legitimacy to practices that reinforce differential control. Their work reveals that even normative vocabularies of protection and accountability may displace or obscure structural violence when selectively applied. Collectively, these studies emphasise that political texts are not neutral containers of policy but ideological acts that allocate agency, distribute moral standing, and prescribe acceptable forms of political behaviour. Recent empirical analyses extend these theoretical insights into the 2023–2025 period, focusing particularly on Gaza’s representation during the escalations of those years. Corpus-driven and discourse-analytic studies identify recurring metaphorical patterns, Gaza as a wounded or diseased body, conflict as a virus requiring containment, peace as reconstruction or rehabilitation, that reinforce interventionist and securitised framings consistent with historical scholarship (Bar-Tal, 2013; Shlaim, 2000; Roy, 2011). These metaphors frequently appear in Western political briefings, international organisations’ reports, and official Israeli and Palestinian statements. Analysts note that such metaphors are not merely stylistic: they activate cognitive models that legitimise external oversight, technocratic governance, and incremental or conditional sovereignty. Furthermore, emerging commentary on the 2025 U.S. peace framework situates it within a long lineage of externally engineered post-conflict plans characterised by managerial peacebuilding, conditional sovereignty, and security-led sequencing. These studies argue that policy documents of this type often link peace to economic liberalisation, stabilisation forces, and supervisory international bodies. In this sense, they echo the concerns articulated by Roy (2011) and Gordon and Perugini (2015), suggesting that the grammatical structures and lexical choices of such plans, phrases like “capacity-building,” “pathway,” “reform,” “assessment mechanisms”, operate to normalise dependency and defer substantive sovereignty. Critics describe these frameworks as advancing a “new colonial peace,” in which reconstruction is framed as a benevolent gift contingent upon compliance, thereby aligning with Bar-Tal’s (2013) findings on delegitimising narratives and Khalidi’s (2020) account of historically entrenched asymmetry. Across these bodies of literature, a consistent gap emerges: while there is extensive scholarship on media representations, historical roots, and humanitarian dimensions of the Gaza–Israel conflict, systematic pragma-discourse analyses of full policy texts remain rare. Most studies analyse speeches, negotiations, or media excerpts rather than conducting clause-by-clause examinations of an official, contemporary peace framework. The integration of Conceptual Metaphor Theory, pragmatic speech-act analysis, and Critical Discourse Analysis has been proposed in theoretical discussions but remains underapplied in the context of formal policy texts issued by external powers. This absence is striking given the central role these documents play in shaping international decision-making, humanitarian strategies, and the conditions of Palestinian life. The present study directly addresses this lacuna by offering a comprehensive pragma-discourse analysis of the full 20-point framework. By combining metaphor identification, illocutionary analysis, and CDA, the study builds upon the historical and critical insights of the literature while providing a fine-grained account of how peace is linguistically constructed as a conditional, technocratic, and asymmetrically administered process. This approach situates the document not only within the geopolitical landscape of the conflict but also within the broader scholarly tradition that interrogates how language constitutes power, legitimacy, and political possibility in the Israel-Palestine crisis. 3. Theoretical Framework 3.1 Speech act theory: The performative power of policy language Originally developed by Austin (1962) and extended by Searle (1969, 1979), Speech Act Theory posits that utterances are not merely descriptive but performative, they do things in the world. Austin distinguished between three levels of speech acts: the locutionary act (the literal expression), the illocutionary act (the speaker’s intended function, such as requesting or promising), and the perlocutionary act (the effect produced on the hearer). Searle (1979) further classified illocutionary acts into representatives, directives, commissives, expressives, and declarations, each with unique felicity conditions. Policy documents, though formally written, operate performatively much like speech acts. Their clauses often serve as commissives (“Gaza will be redeveloped”), directives (“Hamas members… will be given amnesty”), or declarations (“Gaza will be a deradicalised terror-free zone”). Each clause enacts a commitment, an instruction, or an institutional fact once accepted by relevant actors. Thus, within this Framework, language itself constitutes political action, the textual act of constructing peace, delineating obligations, and legitimising authority. This interpretation aligns with Chilton’s (2004) and Cap’s (2017) analyses of international diplomatic discourse, where linguistic form serves as a medium of institutional performativity. In addition, Grice’s (1975) Cooperative Principle and conversational maxims, of quantity, quality, relation, and manner, assist in identifying implicatures and presuppositions. Policy discourse often violates these maxims strategically, creating implicatures that conceal coercive content under the guise of cooperation. For example, the clause “New Gaza will be fully committed to peaceful coexistence” presupposes that the old Gaza was uncommitted, thereby moralising the text’s ideological stance. These pragmatic mechanisms are therefore central to uncovering how policy language performs persuasion while maintaining an appearance of neutrality. 3.2 Critical discourse analysis Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) provides the ideological lens through which speech acts and implicatures are contextualised. CDA views discourse as a social practice that both reflects and constructs social relations of power (Fairclough, 1995; van Dijk, 1998). Its key assumption is that linguistic structures are neither arbitrary nor value-free; rather, they reproduce ideologies that sustain institutional dominance. Van Leeuwen (2007) identifies four major legitimation strategies, authorization, moral evaluation, rationalization, and mythopoesis, through which political texts justify authority and policy. Each of these strategies can be observed within the Framework’s language. For example, authorisation is visible in repeated references to the “Board of Peace” headed by named international figures, invoking institutional legitimacy. Moral evaluation occurs when the text contrasts “terror-free Gaza” with the presumed immorality of radical groups. Rationalisation emerges through technocratic and developmental terminology (“modern and efficient governance,” “economic development plan”), suggesting that intervention is justified by pragmatic necessity rather than ideology. Finally, mythopoesis, the narrative construction of moral exemplars and lessons, appears in the promise of “New Gaza” as a symbol of redemption and progress. By identifying these legitimation patterns, CDA helps reveal how the Framework disguises asymmetric power relations as humanitarian cooperation. Fairclough’s (1995) three-dimensional model, comprising textual analysis, discourse practice, and sociocultural practice, underpins this study’s analytical structure. The textual level involves clause-level examination of lexical, syntactic, and rhetorical choices; the discourse practice level considers production and consumption contexts (e.g., U.S. authorship, global media circulation); and the sociocultural level interprets ideological implications within the geopolitical and humanitarian fields. Integrating CDA ensures that pragmatic insights are not treated as isolated linguistic observations but as manifestations of ideological strategies that reinforce global hierarchies and political dependency. 3.3 Conceptual metaphor theory Conceptual Metaphor Theory (Lakoff & Johnson, 1980; Kövecses, 2010; Musolff, 2016; Semino, 2008) extends the analysis from linguistic pragmatics to cognitive representation. According to CMT, metaphor is not a mere stylistic device but a fundamental mechanism of thought by which abstract target domains (e.g., governance, peace, reconstruction) are understood through concrete source domains (e.g., medicine, architecture, commerce). These mappings structure the ways individuals and societies conceptualize political realities and, in doing so, normalise particular ideologies (Charteris-Black, 2004; Kövecses, 2020). Metaphor studies of political discourse reveal recurring patterns such as THE NATION IS A BODY, POLITICS IS WAR, and ECONOMY IS A MACHINE (Musolff, 2016). In post-conflict discourse, these metaphors often shift to therapeutic or technocratic frames, as in SOCIETY IS A PATIENT or PEACE IS CONSTRUCTION. Within the Framework, metaphorical mappings such as GAZA IS A PATIENT, GAZA IS A CONSTRUCTION SITE, and PEACE IS AN ENGINEERING PROJECT perform cognitive work by framing reconstruction as a technical, curative process rather than a political negotiation. Kövecses’s (2020) dynamic view of metaphor supports this approach by allowing the identification of “metaphor scenarios,” in which multiple lexical expressions cluster around shared cognitive models, such as healing, building, or managing, that encode ideological assumptions about agency and control. CMT therefore complements both Speech Act Theory and CDA. While Speech Act Theory explains what the text does (its illocutionary functions), and CDA explains why it does so (its ideological motivations), CMT reveals how these acts are cognitively framed to make them persuasive and naturalised. The three frameworks are thus not independent but hierarchically aligned: pragmatic structure (speech acts and implicatures) feeds into cognitive framing (metaphor), which is finally interpreted within the socio-political ideology (CDA).
Conclusion
Across the twenty clauses, a consistent pragma-discursive pattern emerges. Directive acts dominate, portraying Palestinians as subjects of reform and Israel as guarantor of order. Commissives function as rhetorical tools of moral authority, while conditionals encode hierarchy through dependency. Metaphorically, the Framework constructs peace as purification, development, and control, reinforcing Western managerial logic. Pragmatically, it redefines peace as compliance, not equality. Ideologically, it legitimises asymmetric governance through humanitarian and economic rhetoric. This study examined the United States’ 20-Point Gaza-Israel Peace Framework (2025) through a pragma-discursive lens, integrating insights from Speech Act Theory (Austin, 1962; Searle, 1979), Critical Discourse Analysis (Fairclough, 1995; van Dijk, 1998; van Leeuwen, 2007), and Conceptual Metaphor Theory (Lakoff & Johnson, 1980; Kövecses, 2010; Musolff, 2016). The analysis treated each clause in the framework as a performative unit, combining illocutionary force, cognitive framing, and ideological presupposition. In doing so, it illuminated how the language of peace functions not merely as description, but as linguistic action, performing power, shaping perception, and legitimising geopolitical hierarchy. The findings reveal that the 20-point text operates as a linguistic apparatus of control in which peace is defined and administered from a position of asymmetry. Through a predominance of directive and commissive acts, the United States projects authority and moral guardianship, while Palestinian agency is linguistically constrained. Clauses such as “Gaza will be a deradicalised terror-free zone” and “Hamas members who commit to peaceful co-existence will be given amnesty” construct peace as obedience, positioning Palestinians as the moral object of reform. Conversely, Israeli actions, such as “Israel will not annex Gaza,” are represented as voluntary benevolence rather than compliance with international law. Across the text, linguistic strategies of conditionality, enumeration, and bureaucratic precision reframe coercive measures as administrative fairness. Humanitarian promises and economic pledges, phrased through metaphors of healing (“redevelop Gaza for the benefit of its people”) and construction (“rebuild and energise Gaza”), encode an underlying technocratic paternalism. Pragmatically, the clauses convert structural inequality into moral logic, turning power into benevolence and dependency into cooperation.
References
Al Jazeera. (2025, September 29). Here’s the full text of Trump’s 20-point plan to end Israel’s war on Gaza. Al Jazeera. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/9/29/heres-the-full-text-of-trumps-20-point-plan-to-end-israels-war-on-gaza Austin, J. L. (1962). How to do things with words. Oxford University Press. Bar-Tal, D. (2013). Intractable conflicts: Socio-psychological foundations and dynamics. Cambridge University Press. BBC News. (2025, September 29). Trump’s 20-point Gaza peace plan in full. BBC News. https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c70155nked7o Chilton, P., & Schäffner, C. (1997). Discourse and politics. In T. A. van Dijk (Ed.), Discourse as social interaction (pp. 206–230). SAGE. Chilton, P. (2004). Analysing political discourse: Theory and practice. Routledge. Fairclough, N. (2001). Language and power (2nd ed.). Pearson Education. Fairclough, N. (1995). Critical discourse analysis: The critical study of language. Longman. Fairclough, N. (1992). Discourse and social change. Polity Press. Farsakh, L. (2011). The one-state solution and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict: Palestinian challenges and prospects. Middle East Journal, 65(1), 55–71. Fassin, D. (2012). Humanitarian reason: A moral history of the present. University of California Press. Gordon, N., & Perugini, N. (2015). The human right to dominate. Oxford University Press. Group, P. (2007). MIP: A Method for Identifying Metaphorically Used Words in Discourse. Metaphor and Symbol, 22(1), 1–39. Harvey, D. (2005). A brief history of neoliberalism. Oxford University Press. Khalidi, R. (1997). Palestinian identity: The construction of modern national consciousness. Columbia University Press. Khalidi, R. (2020). The hundred years’ war on Palestine: A history of settler colonialism and resistance, 1917–2017. Metropolitan Books. Kövecses, Z. (2010). Metaphor: A practical introduction (2nd ed.). Oxford University Press. Laclau, E. (2005). On populist reason. Verso. Magid, J. (2025, September 27). Revealed: US 21-point plan for ending Gaza war, creating pathway to Palestinian state. The Times of Israel. https://www.timesofisrael.com/revealed-us-21-point-plan-for-ending-gaza-war-creating-pathway-to-palestinian-state Masalha, N. (2012). The Palestine Nakba: Decolonising history, narrating the subaltern, reclaiming memory. Zed Books. Mearsheimer, J. J., & Walt, S. M. (2007). The Israel lobby and U.S. foreign policy. Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Musolff, A. (2016). Political metaphor analysis: Discourse and scenarios. Bloomsbury Academic Pappe, I. (2006). The ethnic cleansing of Palestine. Oneworld Publications. Peteet, J. (2017). Space and mobility in Palestine. Indiana University Press. Pugh, M. (2005). The political economy of peacebuilding: A critical theory perspective. International Journal of Peace Studies, 10(2), 23–42. Roy, S. (2011). Hamas and civil society in Gaza: Engaging the Islamist social sector. Princeton University Press. Said, E. W. (1993). Culture and imperialism. Vintage. Said, E. W. (1979). Orientalism. Vintage. Semino, E. (2008) Metaphor in Discourse, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Searle, J. R. (1979). Speech acts: An essay in the philosophy of language (Online ed.). Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511609213 Shlaim, A. (2014). The iron wall: Israel and the Arab world. Penguin. Steen, G. J., Dorst, A. G., Herrmann, J. B., Kaal, A. A., Krennmayr, T., & Pasma, T. (2010). Metaphor in usage. Cognitive Linguistics, 21(4), 765–796. https://doi.org/10.1515/COGL.2010.024 United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. (2023). Gaza: Humanitarian overview and impact of the blockade. UN OCHA. Van Leeuwen, T. (2007). Legitimation in discourse and communication. Discourse & Communication, 1(1), 91–112. https://doi.org/10.1177/1750481307071986 van Dijk, T. A. (1998). Ideology: A multidisciplinary approach. SAGE.
English language proficiency as a determinant of academic performance in Nigerian universities
Judith Chinedu Udeh
Vol.12, 2025
English language proficiency as a determinant of academic performance in Nigerian universities
By: Judith Chinedu UdehEmail: info@caleljournal.com
Tel: 08063695290
Abstract
Existing scholarship has long recognised the centrality of language proficiency in determining students’ success across academic disciplines. However, in the Nigerian university context, English language proficiency remains a persistent challenge, given the multilingual realities of the nation and the dominance of English as the official medium of instruction. This has created gaps in students’ comprehension, critical engagement and overall academic performance. The aim of this study is to examine the extent to which English language proficiency serves as a determinant of academic performance among undergraduates in selected Nigerian universities. Adopting a mixed-methods approach, the study employs surveys, standardised language proficiency tests and semi-structured interviews with students and lecturers across selected universities. The theoretical framework is grounded in sociolinguistic and educational performance theories, which underscore the relationship between language competence and academic achievement. Findings reveal a significant correlation between students’ English proficiency levels and their performance across core courses, with additional perspectives that inadequate proficiency exacerbates issues of exclusion, low confidence and poor critical thinking. The study contributes to extant academic discourses by highlighting the urgent need for curriculum redesign and remedial language support programs to bridge linguistic gaps, thereby fostering equitable access to quality education in Nigerian universities.
Keywords
English language proficiency, academic performance, Nigerian universities, multilingualism, sociolinguistics, language competence.
Introduction
Since colonial times, English has remained the official language of Nigeria and the dominant medium of instruction at all levels of formal education, including tertiary institutions. In Nigerian universities, English serves as the primary language for lectures, examinations, textbooks, and official communication, making competence in academic English a gatekeeper for access to curricula and assessment systems (UNICEF, 2023). This privileged status of English confers both instrumental advantages such as access to global knowledge, scholarship, and employment and structural barriers for students whose previous schooling did not adequately develop academic-English skills. Recent policy reviews have shown that assuming uniform English competence among undergraduates can produce inequitable learning outcomes across socio-economic and linguistic groups (UNICEF, 2023). Nigeria is one of the most linguistically diverse countries in the world, with hundreds of indigenous languages spoken across its regions. This multilingual reality shapes students’ early language socialisation and schooling experiences, consequently influencing the linguistic repertoires they bring to university classrooms. Empirical research highlights two interrelated patterns. First, many students face transitional challenges when instruction shifts from mother tongues or local lingua francas to English as the medium of instruction. Second, multilingual repertoires can serve as valuable assets when teaching methods adopt translanguaging and code-switching, but they may become barriers when curricula assume native-like proficiency in academic English (Obiakor, 2024). Thus, while multilingualism itself does not inherently hinder learning, the mismatch between students’ linguistic backgrounds and the academic language of instruction often affects comprehension, participation, and written expression. Studies from Nigerian and comparative contexts have linked limited academic-English proficiency to observable challenges in higher education. Students with lower proficiency levels frequently struggle with understanding lectures, reading complex texts, and producing discipline-appropriate written work. These difficulties often translate into reduced classroom participation, lower grades, and even attrition from academic programmes (Ozowuba, 2018; Achinewhu-Nworgu, 2024). Institutional audits have revealed that disparities in English competence reflect wider socio-economic inequalities, with students from under-resourced schools facing greater disadvantages. Consequently, the continued use of English as the exclusive medium of instruction has been increasingly debated, and scholars have called for bilingual or transitional models that address the language–learning divide (Ella & Mmegwa, 2024). These observations foreground a critical problem: while English is indispensable for academic mobility in Nigeria, inadequate proficiency remains a persistent obstacle to students’ learning and performance. The issue extends beyond language to questions of equity, access, and educational justice. Although previous studies have discussed undergraduates’ general struggles with English, few have empirically examined how proficiency levels directly correlate with academic performance across disciplines and institutions. Furthermore, there is insufficient attention to the moderating influence of socio-economic background, prior schooling, and institutional language-support mechanisms (Obiakor, 2024). These gaps constrain the design of evidence-based interventions to improve student outcomes. Against this backdrop, the present study seeks to examine the extent to which English language proficiency determines academic performance among Nigerian undergraduates. Specifically, it investigates the correlation between proficiency levels and performance across faculties, explores how inadequate competence affects participation and confidence, and proposes interventions such as remedial programs, curriculum redesign, and policy reforms to strengthen students’ academic-English foundations. (UNICEF, 2023; Ella & Mmegwa, 2024) In addressing these aims, the study is guided by key questions such as: What is the nature of the relationship between English language proficiency and students’ academic performance? To what extent does poor English proficiency hinder comprehension, participation and learning outcomes? And are there institutional or policy gaps in addressing these challenges? It is hypothesised that there exists a significant positive correlation between English proficiency and students’ academic performance, and that even after accounting for socio-economic and educational factors, proficiency remains a strong predictor of academic success. By integrating these questions and objectives into a single analytical framework, this study contributes to ongoing debates about language policy, educational equity, and pedagogical innovation in Nigeria’s multilingual higher education system. The findings are expected to inform evidence-based reforms that can enhance both linguistic competence and academic achievement among university students.
Content
Review of related literature: Sociolinguistic theories of language and education
Sociolinguistic perspectives view language not simply as a neutral medium of communication but as a socially embedded practice that reflects and reproduces power, access and identity in educational settings. In contexts such as Nigeria, where hundreds of indigenous languages coexist with English as the official language, sociolinguistic theories highlight how language choice mediates inclusion and exclusion in the classroom (Bourdieu, 1991; Hornberger, 2003). Language functions as a form of “linguistic capital” a resource that students must possess to succeed academically. Those with strong English proficiency are positioned advantageously, while those with weaker competence are structurally marginalised, regardless of their cognitive potential (Bourdieu, 1991).
Building on this, the notion of language ecology in education emphasises how multilingual environments can either serve as assets or barriers depending on institutional policies (Hornberger & Skilton-Sylvester, 2000). For example, translanguaging and code-switching practices can facilitate comprehension and foster deeper learning, but rigid English-only policies may hinder students’ ability to engage critically with academic material (Garcia & Wei, 2014). In Nigerian universities, this tension is especially pronounced: while students often rely on multilingual repertoires outside the classroom, institutional norms valorize English as the sole legitimate medium of knowledge production (Obiakor, 2024). These insights underscore why sociolinguistic theories remain central to understanding the role of English proficiency in academic achievement.
Educational performance theories provide a complementary lens for linking language proficiency to academic outcomes. Central to this is Cummins’ (1979, 2000) interdependence hypothesis, which posits that proficiency in a first language (L1) provides a cognitive foundation that transfers to second language (L2) academic learning. In multilingual contexts, students who develop strong literacy in their home language are more likely to acquire higher-order skills in English, which subsequently supports comprehension and academic performance. Conversely, weak literacy foundations in both L1 and L2 result in persistent academic struggles. Cummins further distinguishes between Basic Interpersonal Communication Skills (BICS) and Cognitive Academic Language Proficiency (CALP). While many Nigerian undergraduates possess conversational English (BICS), they often lack the advanced CALP skills such as academic reading, writing, and critical analysis that are essential for higher education success (Cummins, 2008). This distinction helps explain why students who appear fluent in everyday English still underperform in academic tasks.
Recent studies in African higher education have validated these theoretical claims, showing that limited CALP skills significantly reduce students’ ability to comprehend lectures, write scholarly essays, and engage critically with academic texts (UNICEF, 2023; Ella & Mmegwa, 2024). Moreover, research suggests that interventions targeting academic English proficiency, rather than conversational skills, yield the most improvement in students’ academic outcomes (Achinewhu-Nworgu, 2024). Collectively, sociolinguistic theories and educational performance frameworks provide a robust theoretical foundation for this study. While sociolinguistic approaches draw attention to the structural inequalities produced by language hierarchies in Nigerian universities, educational performance theories illuminate the cognitive processes by which language proficiency directly influences academic achievement. Integrating these perspectives enables a comprehensive analysis of English language proficiency as both a social and educational determinant of academic performance.
In the context of global perspectives, a growing body of international scholarship has examined how English (or another lingua franca) as the medium of instruction affects student learning in multilingual settings. Studies using administrative and survey data have produced mixed but instructive findings. Some large-scale quantitative investigations show that instruction in a second language can depress short-term attainment (especially in content-heavy courses) while benefitting long-term access to knowledge and global opportunities (Bernhofer, 2022; Pires, 2024). For example, research exploiting variation in language-of-instruction policies demonstrates measurable effects on grades and comprehension when the medium shifts from students’ first language to a foreign or second language.
Research with international students and multilingual cohorts highlights important nuances. Several studies find that simple measures of English proficiency (e.g., TOEFL, IELTS) correlate with GPA and retention for some student groups but that the strength of this relationship depends on discipline, assessment type, and the specific proficiency measure used (Martirosyan, Saxon & Wanjohi, 2015; Grain, 2022). In other words, proficiency tests predict certain academic outcomes (particularly those relying on reading and writing) more strongly than others (e.g., lab performance, oral-practical tasks). At the pedagogical level, translanguaging and bilingual approaches have emerged as promising practices to mediate the language–learning nexus. Studies of translanguaging in higher education argue that allowing strategic use of students’ full linguistic repertoires can improve comprehension, participation, and critical engagement—especially when instructors design scaffolded activities that move learners from familiar registers to academic English (García & Wei, 2014; Canagarajah, 2023). Conversely, other empirical work cautions that translanguaging without clear learning objectives or assessment alignment can complicate evaluation and disadvantage students in high-stakes, English-only examinations (Alfian, 2022).
Finally, systematic and comparative reviews emphasize the variability of English proficiency–achievement links across contexts: measurement choices (self-report vs. standardised tests), the timing of proficiency assessment (entry vs. during study), and institutional supports (ESL programmes, content-language integrated courses) substantially shape observed outcomes (Lim, 2021; Tankó et al., 2022). This heterogeneity suggests that local, context-sensitive studies are necessary to guide institutional policy rather than one-size-fits-all conclusions drawn from other countries.
Nonetheless, in Nigeria, the persistence of language-related learning challenges spans the education pipeline. Several national and program-level reviews point to uneven English literacy outcomes at primary and secondary levels driven by differences in teacher quality, language of early instruction, and resource inequality which carry into university preparedness (Ella & Mmegwa, 2024). At the tertiary level, empirical studies and institutional audits repeatedly document that a subset of undergraduates struggles with academic reading, essay writing, and lecture comprehension despite being functionally competent in conversational English (Ozowuba, 2018; Achinewhu-Nworgu, 2024). These findings echo educators’ reports that many entrants demonstrate BICS (everyday conversational fluency) but lack CALP (academic language) skills necessary for critical analysis and discipline-specific writing (Cummins, 2000). Recent Nigeria-focused empirical work further elaborates these patterns. Small- and medium-scale studies have linked students’ English proficiency with performance in specific courses (e.g., mathematics, social sciences) and found that remedial language support and curricular integration of academic English improve outcomes where implemented (Lim, 2021; Tankó et al., 2022; Jajere, 2025). Qualitative studies also show that lecturers frequently adapt by code-switching or simplifying materials, but that such adaptive practices are uneven across faculties and sometimes conflict with formal assessment standards.
Identified gaps and limitations in existing research
Despite these insights, the Nigerian literature exhibits several important gaps that justify further study:
1. Much empirical work uses small samples, single institutions, or single-discipline cases, limiting the ability to generalise findings to the diverse population of Nigerian universities. There is a scarcity of large-scale, multi-institution quantitative studies that pair standardised English proficiency measures with robust academic outcome data.
2. Studies differ in how they measure English proficiency (self-reports, local tests, international exams) and academic performance (course grades, CGPA, pass/fail), making cross-study comparisons difficult.
3. There is limited systematic examination of how socio-economic status, prior schooling language policies, disciplinary differences, and institutional remedial supports mediate or moderate the proficiency–performance relationship. Few studies deploy multivariate models that simultaneously control for these background characteristics.
4. While translanguaging and academic-English programmes are discussed, there are relatively few rigorously evaluated interventions (randomised trials or quasi-experimental designs) that show which remedial approaches are most cost-effective and scalable in Nigerian higher-education contexts.
5. The mismatch between classroom language practices (e.g., lecturers’ code-switching) and formal assessments (English-only high-stakes tests) is documented anecdotally, but systematic studies assessing the effects of this misalignment on fairness and validity of assessment are few.
These gaps indicate the need for a multi-method, multi-site study in Nigeria that (a) uses standardised measures of English proficiency, (b) links these to reliable academic outcome data (CGPA and course-level scores), and (c) models’ mediators/moderators such as prior schooling, socio-economic status, and availability of remedial supports. Such work would provide stronger evidence to inform institution-level language policies, curriculum design, and investment in academic-English programmes.
Methodology
This study employed a mixed-methods research design that integrates quantitative and qualitative approaches to investigate the relationship between English language proficiency and academic performance among Nigerian undergraduates. The quantitative component involved administering a standardised English proficiency test and collecting students’ academic performance data, while the qualitative component consisted of focus group discussions that explored students lived experiences with English-medium instruction. This approach ensured both statistical precision and contextual depth (Creswell & Plano Clark, 2018).
The population comprised undergraduate students in two neighboring Nigerian state, federal and private universities, Ebonyi State University, Alex Ekwueme Federal University Ndufu-Alike and Evangel University, Akaeze. A total of 120 students participated in the quantitative phase, selected through stratified sampling across departments to ensure variability in disciplinary language exposure. For the qualitative phase, 30 students (15 males and 15 females; ages 17–22; all in 200 level) were purposively selected to participate in focus group discussions. This ensured a balanced representation of gender and academic background and allowed for rich experiential contributions. Data were collected using three instruments:
1. Standardised English Proficiency Test: A locally adapted version of IELTS/TOEFL-based assessment measured reading, writing, listening and speaking abilities. Each participant received a composite proficiency score.
2. Academic Performance Data: Students’ GPA scores were obtained with consent and institutional permission. GPA served as the objective measure of academic achievement.
3. Focus Group Discussion Guide: Three focus group sessions (10 students per group) were conducted using a semi-structured guide. Questions explored comprehension challenges, participation difficulties, confidence levels, strategies for understanding course content and the influence of English proficiency on academic performance. All discussions were audio-recorded and transcribed verbatim.
Data collection occurred in two phases: In the quantitative phase, the English proficiency test was administered under controlled conditions over two days. GPA data were retrieved from departmental records after the test administration. And in the qualitative phase, the three focus group discussions were held in designated classrooms, each lasting 45–60 minutes. This sequential approach enabled the qualitative strand to elaborate on patterns observed in the quantitative results.
The quantitative data were analysed using SPSS (Version 25). The analysis consisted of descriptive statistics to summarise English proficiency scores and GPA distributions, Pearson’s correlation analysis to examine the relationship between the two variables. Significance was set at p < .05. and an additional interpretation considered the strength and direction of the correlation (positive, negative, or none). This ensured methodological rigour and produced replicable findings in line with correlational research standards. Furthermore, qualitative data were analysed using thematic analysis following Braun and Clarke's (2006) six-step framework: Familiarisation with the data, generating initial codes, searching for themes, reviewing themes, defining and naming themes and producing the report. Codes were systematically applied across transcripts, identifying recurring ideas such as comprehension difficulty, avoidance of classroom participation, reliance on peers and code-switching, and perceived institutional gaps in language support. Themes were validated through inter-coder agreement and were supported by direct quotations from participants to enhance credibility. All participants provided informed consent and anonymity was maintained using pseudonyms. Institutional approval was obtained prior to data collection.
Conceptual framework
The study is anchored, first, in sociolinguistic theories that view language as more than a tool of communication; it is also a medium of power, identity, and access to social opportunities. Scholars such as Bourdieu (1991) have argued that linguistic competence functions as a form of cultural capital, conferring advantages on those who possess proficiency in the dominant language of a given society. In the Nigerian context, English holds this dominant status as the official language and medium of instruction in higher education. Hence, proficiency in English is not simply about linguistic ability; it determines students’ access to academic discourse, participation in classroom interactions, and success in assessments. From this perspective, English proficiency becomes a gatekeeping mechanism, shaping who can excel academically and who faces exclusion.
The second theoretical lens derives from educational performance theories that link language competence to cognitive and academic development. Cummins’ (1979, 2000) language interdependence hypothesis posits that proficiency in a first language supports the acquisition of academic proficiency in a second language, provided there is sufficient exposure and instructional support. Conversely, weak linguistic foundations impede cognitive engagement and learning across subjects. Similarly, Vygotsky’s (1978) sociocultural theory highlights the role of language in scaffolding higher-order thinking and collaborative learning. Applied to Nigerian universities, these theories suggest that students with limited English proficiency struggle not only with comprehension but also with expressing critical and analytical thought in academic English, which directly affects performance in written and oral assessments.
Building on these frameworks, this study adopts a conceptual model that traces the pathway between English proficiency and academic performance. At the base level, English proficiency enables students to comprehend lectures, textbooks, and assessment prompts. This comprehension, in turn, fosters critical thinking and analytical skills, which are essential for producing essays, solving problems, and engaging in academic debates. Ultimately, these competencies translate into measurable academic performance, reflected in CGPAs, examination scores, and continuous assessments. Conversely, inadequate proficiency disrupts this pathway: poor comprehension undermines critical thinking, limits class participation, erodes confidence, and leads to lower achievement outcomes. The conceptual framework therefore positions English proficiency as a critical determinant of academic success in Nigerian universities, mediating both cognitive development and access to educational opportunities. This framing underscores the urgency of addressing language-related barriers if equity and excellence in higher education are to be achieved.
Discussion of findings
The quantitative component of the study showed a strong positive relationship between English language proficiency and academic performance. Pearson’s correlation indicated a statistically significant association between proficiency scores and students’ CGPA (r = .68, p < .01). Regression analysis further revealed that reading and writing proficiency were significant predictors of academic performance across disciplines. Students with higher proficiency achieved better grades in essay-based assessments, research projects and oral presentations, while those with lower proficiency consistently underperformed in tasks requiring interpretation, argumentation and academic writing. The data also showed institutional differences: students in private university, Evangel University, Akaeze, recorded higher proficiency scores and stronger academic outcomes than those in most federal and state institutions, reflecting the impact of institutional investment in language support programs.
Correlation between English proficiency and academic performance
The quantitative analysis indicated a strong, positive relationship between students’ English language proficiency and their overall academic performance, measured through CGPA and selected course grades. Pearson’s correlation revealed a statistically significant positive correlation (r = 0.68, p < 0.01), suggesting that higher English proficiency is associated with higher academic achievement. Regression analysis further showed that reading and writing scores were significant predictors of GPA across disciplines. Students with advanced proficiency consistently outperformed peers in essay-based assessments, research projects, and oral presentations. Conversely, students with lower proficiency struggled to interpret complex questions, structure coherent arguments, and adhere to disciplinary conventions in written work. These results reflect Cummins’ (2000) distinction between Basic Interpersonal Communication Skills (BICS) and Cognitive Academic Language Proficiency (CALP): although many students demonstrated conversational fluency, their academic language skills were insufficient for higher-order cognitive demands.
Institutional differences emerged in the quantitative data. Students in private university, such as Evangel University, Akaeze, where remedial English programmes and well-equipped language laboratories are common, achieved higher proficiency scores and stronger academic outcomes than their counterparts in some federal and state institutions, including Ebonyi State University and Alex Ekwueme Federal University Ndufu-Alike. This finding underscores the importance of institutional investment in language support as a mediator of the proficiency–performance relationship. These results align with international studies linking language proficiency to academic achievement in multilingual contexts (Martirosyan, Saxon & Wanjohi, 2015; Grain, 2022) to reinforce the role of English competence as both a cognitive and structural determinant of academic success.
Impact of low proficiency on student participation and confidence
Qualitative data from the three focus group discussions highlighted the academic and psychological consequences of low English proficiency. Students frequently reported challenges in following lectures, understanding technical terminology, and expressing ideas clearly in both written and oral formats. One participant stated:
“Sometimes I understand the lecture, but when I try to answer in class, I get stuck because I cannot find the right words in English.”
Another student explained the reliance on peers for comprehension:
“After class, my friends will explain in Pidgin or Igbo and that is when I finally understand.”
These barriers often discouraged active participation in discussions, group projects, and seminar presentations. Participants described heightened anxiety and self-consciousness, fearing judgment or misunderstanding, which led to silence and disengagement. A student recounted:
“I just stay quiet because I am afraid people will laugh if I speak wrongly.”
Lecturers corroborated these observations, noting that some students preferred rote memorization or peer explanations rather than asking questions, limiting opportunities for analytical engagement. One lecturer remarked:
“Some students know the answers but won’t speak up, they rely on memorisation or listening to their friends. It affects their ability to think critically.”
Code-switching emerged as a common coping strategy. Students and lecturers occasionally shifted to indigenous languages or Nigerian Pidgin to facilitate comprehension. While effective for immediate understanding, this practice did not necessarily improve academic-English proficiency. A participant explained:
“During lab sessions, we sometimes switch to Pidgin when the instructions are confusing, but it doesn’t help me write my reports in proper English.”
These narratives illustrate the dual role of English proficiency: as a cognitive resource, enabling comprehension, reasoning, and academic performance, and as a social resource, shaping confidence, participation, and legitimacy in academic spaces (Bourdieu, 1991; Cummins, 2000). Students with low proficiency are disadvantaged on both fronts, facing reduced participation, lower confidence and constrained opportunities for cognitive development.
The integration of quantitative and qualitative findings confirms that English proficiency is a central determinant of academic performance in Nigerian universities. The strong positive correlation between proficiency and GPA highlights the cognitive demands of higher education, while qualitative narratives reveal the socio-emotional costs of inadequate proficiency, including marginalisation, anxiety and limited engagement.
The findings validate the study’s conceptual framework: English proficiency enables comprehension, critical thinking, and analytical expression, translating into measurable academic success. In contrast, low proficiency disrupts this pathway, reduce both performance and confidence. Interventions should extend beyond remedial grammar courses to include structured academic-English programs, inclusive classroom practices, and strategies to reduce stigma associated with language difficulties that ensure equitable access to higher-order learning opportunities.
Variations across disciplines (sciences vs. humanities and professional programmes)
The study revealed notable variations in how English language proficiency influenced academic performance across different disciplinary contexts, as illuminated by both quantitative and qualitative data. In the humanities and social sciences, where assessments emphasize essays, critical analyses, and extended written projects, students’ proficiency in reading comprehension, argumentation, and academic writing had a direct impact on their grades. Humanities students with lower proficiency frequently struggled to construct coherent arguments, integrate secondary sources, and articulate abstract ideas clearly. One participant noted:
“When I try to write my essays, I know the ideas, but I can’t express them properly in English, so I lose marks.”
Another explained:
“I understand the readings but putting it all together in my own words is very difficult. Sometimes I just copy phrases I know, and I know it’s not enough.”
These findings support Hyland’s (2009) argument that academic writing is highly discipline-specific, requiring mastery of discourse conventions unique to each field. In these contexts, weak proficiency directly hampers students’ ability to meet the demands of critical thinking and extended writing.
In sciences and engineering, the impact of English proficiency manifested differently. While these disciplines rely heavily on formulas, diagrams, and practical demonstrations, comprehension of instructions, problem-solving questions, and research reporting still required adequate academic-English skills. Students with lower proficiency frequently misinterpreted experimental procedures or produced unclear laboratory reports. One science student shared:
“Sometimes the lab instructions are confusing in English, so I end up doing the wrong steps. It affects my report marks.”
Though less dependent on extended essays than the humanities, precision in language remained crucial for technical communication and research documentation. Lecturers in engineering highlighted that:
“Students may understand the concepts, but if they cannot write the report clearly in English, their grades suffer.”
Professional programmes such as law, medicine and business presented the highest stakes for English proficiency. These fields demand mastery of specialised terminology, case analysis, and oral communication. Students with weaker proficiency reported heightened stress, struggling to follow lectures, interpret professional jargon, and present confidently during moot courts, ward rounds or business simulations. One law student admitted:
“During moot court, I understand the case, but I get nervous speaking because I’m afraid my English isn’t good enough. I just freeze.”
Another business student commented:
“In group presentations, I often let others talk because I can’t explain my ideas properly in English. It’s frustrating.”
While students in the sciences sometimes experienced slightly more tolerance for lower proficiency compared to those in humanities, the findings underscore that mastery of academic and technical English is essential across all disciplines. This highlights the importance of discipline-sensitive language support rather than a uniform remedial approach.
Institutional gaps in language support programmes
The study also identified significant disparities in the provision of language support across Nigerian universities. Some private universities offered comprehensive English development programmes, including remedial courses, writing centres, peer tutoring schemes, and language laboratories. Students in these institutions generally achieved higher proficiency scores and stronger academic outcomes. A participant reflected:
“We have writing workshops and tutors who help with essays. It really makes a difference; I feel more confident in my assignments.”
However, even in these contexts, support often focused on surface-level grammar correction rather than deep engagement with academic discourse practices. In contrast, many federal and state institutions lacked systematic language support structures. Often, compulsory General Studies (GST) English courses were the only intervention. Students described these courses as overly generic, exam-driven, and disconnected from disciplinary requirements. One participant commented:
“GST English is just something to pass; it doesn’t help with our actual course work. We still struggle to write reports in our departments.”
Lecturers corroborated this view, noting that students are expected to enter university with adequate proficiency:
“We assume students already know English well enough. It’s not our role to teach them from scratch, but many are not prepared.”
This mismatch between institutional expectations and student realities reinforces Cummins’ (2000) and Hornberger’s (2003) assertion that academic language proficiency develops over time through structured exposure and support, rather than being automatically acquired. The lack of institutional investment in sustainable language acquisition infrastructure contributes to widening disparities. Students from elite secondary schools, often with strong English foundations, tend to thrive, whereas those from under-resourced backgrounds fall behind. One lecturer noted:
“Some students are already at an advantage when they enter university, and those who are less prepared struggle silently. The system doesn’t support them adequately.”
These findings highlight the critical need for systematic, scalable and discipline-sensitive language support strategies across Nigerian universities. Interventions should go beyond generic grammar courses to ensure equitable academic success and sustained engagement with disciplinary discourse.
Discussion on broader socio-economic factors influencing proficiency
Beyond institutional and disciplinary factors, the study revealed that students’ English language proficiency is deeply intertwined with socio-economic background and pre-university educational experiences. Both quantitative and qualitative data indicate that proficiency is not merely a product of exposure to English in the classroom but reflects broader structural and social determinants.
Students from urban centres who attended private or mission-owned secondary schools consistently demonstrated higher proficiency than peers from rural or underfunded public schools. One participant reflected:
“In my secondary school, we had English labs and daily essay exercises. I think that’s why I’m more confident in my writing than some classmates.”
This disparity stems from uneven access to qualified teachers, textbooks, language laboratories, and other educational resources, which directly shape early language acquisition (Adegbite, 2010; Akinremi, 2021). Parental socio-economic status (SES) further amplified these differences. Students from higher-income households frequently had access to after-school tutoring, private libraries, English media, and in some cases, overseas education, all of which strengthened their proficiency. In contrast, students from lower SES backgrounds often grew up in environments where English was rarely used outside formal schooling. One participant noted:
“At home, we spoke my local language most of the time. English was only for school, so I didn’t get much practice before university.”
These patterns align with sociolinguistic perspectives that view language proficiency as socially stratified, where economic inequalities translate into linguistic inequalities (Bourdieu, 1991; Brock-Utne, 2017).
Regional differences also shaped proficiency outcomes. Students from Northern Nigeria, where Hausa dominates social interactions, tended to enter university with weaker English skills compared to peers in Southern Nigeria, where English and Pidgin are more widely used in daily communication. A northern student explained:
“In my hometown, English is only used in school. Outside, everyone speaks Hausa, so it’s hard to practice.”
This reflects how multilingual environments, when combined with structural inequalities, can exacerbate barriers to academic success (Igboanusi & Peter, 2005). Broader economic conditions such as inflation, insecurity, and industrial actions disrupting schooling also contributed to inconsistent exposure to English instruction. Several students reported prolonged interruptions in learning due to ASUU strikes, which weakened their continuous development of academic language skills. One student shared:
“During strikes, I stayed months without classes. When school resumed, I felt I had forgotten a lot of what I had learned.”
From a gendered perspective, female students from rural and low-income communities were disproportionately disadvantaged. Cultural norms sometimes restricted access to English-language materials or extracurricular activities, reinforcing gendered inequalities in proficiency and academic achievement (Aina, 2020). A female participant from a rural area remarked:
“We were not encouraged to join debate clubs or read English books at home. Boys got more support in learning English.”
No doubt, these findings reinforces that English proficiency cannot be understood in isolation from students’ social and economic realities. Poverty, educational inequality, and regional and gender disparities intersect to perpetuate linguistic disadvantages, regardless of intellectual potential. Universities must therefore recognize that interventions targeting in-class language challenges are necessary but insufficient. Policies and programmes must also account for the broader socio-economic contexts that shape students’ linguistic trajectories, providing equitable access to resources, structured academic-English support and strategies that mitigate systemic inequalities.
Conclusion
This study investigated the role of English language proficiency as a determinant of academic performance among Nigerian undergraduates. The findings demonstrate a strong positive correlation between English proficiency and academic success, confirming that students with higher proficiency consistently performed better in comprehension, critical analysis and assessment tasks. Conversely, students with lower proficiency experienced reduced confidence and participation, often leading to passive engagement in classroom activities and limited opportunities for cognitive development. The study also revealed disciplinary variations in the influence of proficiency. Humanities and social sciences placed greater demands on reading comprehension, argumentation, and extended written expression, whereas sciences and professional programmes emphasised precise technical communication, comprehension of instructions and mastery of specialised terminology. Furthermore, qualitative data highlighted the socio-emotional costs of limited proficiency, including reliance on code-switching, marginalisation in classroom interactions and anxiety during oral presentations. Significant institutional disparities were observed. Private universities with structured English support programmes such as writing centres, remedial courses and language laboratories showed higher student proficiency and better academic outcomes. In contrast, many public universities offered only generic General Studies English courses, often disconnected from disciplinary needs, leaving students with weak foundations inadequately supported. The study further underscored the role of broader socio-economic factors in shaping English proficiency. Students’ family background, parental socio-economic status, type of secondary school attended, regional linguistic ecology and gendered opportunities collectively influenced their readiness for academic English. Participants from urban and resource-rich contexts reported higher proficiency levels, while those from rural, underfunded schools faced persistent disadvantages. These findings carry important implications for higher education policy and practice in Nigeria. English proficiency should be treated as a core academic competency, rather than a skill assumed to be acquired prior to university entry. Universities must adopt discipline-sensitive language support strategies, integrating academic-English development into curricula tailored to the specific demands of each field. Interventions should go beyond grammatical correction to include argumentation, research writing, technical communication, and oral presentation skills. To address institutional and regional disparities, universities should establish sustained, accessible, and structured support programmes such as writing centres, discipline-specific English modules, digital learning platforms, mentorship and peer-assisted learning schemes. Aligning secondary and tertiary educational policies will also help ensure smoother transitions for students entering university. Collectively, these strategies can foster equitable access to higher education, enhance student confidence, and strengthen academic performance across disciplines, ultimately bridging linguistic and socio-economic gaps in Nigerian universities.
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'Don't Look at him Down There': Euphemism as Politeness Strategies in Select Nigerian Novels
Vero-Ekpris Gladstone Urujzian
Vol. 11, 2020
'Don't Look at him Down There': Euphemism as Politeness Strategies in Select Nigerian Novels
By: Vero-Ekpris Gladstone UrujzianEmail: info@caleljournal.com
Tel: 08063695290
Abstract
This paper examines the use of euphemism as one of the conversational strategies deployed by Nigerian novelists to drive home the thematic concerns of their literary engagements. The analysis is anchored on Brown and Levinson (1978) face management theory, which explains how discourse interactants are mindful of how they use language in interactive situations. With the aim of reducing the potential harm of some forbidden expressions, which due to societal norms, are considered as either blunt or offensive to the hearer and reader. Four texts: Sefi Attah's A Bit of Difference, Abubakar Adams Ibrahim's Season of Crimson Blossoms, Chigozie Obioma's The Fishermen and Lihwu Betiang's The Rape of Hope were purposively selected because they have examples of how euphemism is deployed as a conversational strategy. The qualitative analysis involves random sampling of excerpts that contain euphemism across the four novels. Two major categories of euphemism are identified, namely, sex and death. Also, eight lexical euphemisms and twenty-six sentential euphemisms are found in the texts under study. The analysis shows that euphemism is a strong discourse strategy that is not only strategic to toning down the effect of an expression on hearer, but a linguistic modality which discourse participants activate basically for politeness reasons. Also, the analysis indicates that the Nigerian sociocultural context exerts monumental pressure on conversationalists' use of language, making the discourse participant to resort to the use of euphemism.
Keywords
Euphemism, Brown and Levinson, strategies, Nigerian novels, death; sex
Introduction
The Nigerian novel can be distinguished from other world novels using two interrelated criteria. First is the use of language. Every national literature has its peculiar language in that there is often a conjunction between the literary language and the non-literary language of the environment in which the literature is produced. In the Nigerian novel, for example, there is a symbolic parallel between the use of language in the Nigerian novel and the Nigerian sociolinguistic milieu. This means that, not undermining the concept of "literary language", the way literary characters use language is reflective of the way non literary characters use language in real life situation. It is along this thought that Adesanoye (2014, p. 46) argues that there is a variety of English known as “Literary Nigerian English” that is basically used by Nigerian writers. According to him, Literary Nigerian English defines the peculiar ways Nigerian writers use language in their literary works that makes their writings ontologically Nigerian. “What this signals”, argues Aboh, “is that the Nigerian literary environment exemplifies how English is adapting to sociocultural situations, depicting its various pragmatic uses and how the different contexts provide a framework for the propagation of a variety of English that many Nigerians can identify with, communicate through and express themselves in” (2018, p. 81). Over the years, as the English language moves from region to region and from country to country, it adapts to the new environment in which it finds itself. Thus, “Nigerian novelists’ use of language indicates that literature provides a fertile ground for the modifications of English” (Aboh and Uduk, 2016, p. 6). These modifications are often reflective of the Nigerian multicultural and multiethnic configurations. Delineating the intricate juncture between language and literary production, Wa Ngũgĩ (2018, p. 21) does not think that it is possible to divorce language from a literary tradition, for the language is the literature and the literature is the language. While this postulate can be interpreted from the politics of nationalism, it well underscores how a literature can be understood by its language. Beyond that, embedded in this kind of argument is the ideation that any theory that can be used to analyze real life speech can also be used to analyze literary language.
Content
Second, critics of Nigerian literature have argued that “Nigerian novelists see themselves as storytellers” who “tell stories of a particular kind and with a particular intent, however, for these writers understand themselves to be bearing witness to Nigeria’s social experience” (Griswold, 2000, p. 3). In other words, “Nigerians tell their own tales” (Griswold, 2000, p. 13). This view is upheld by Akung (2021, pp. 29–30), who argues that the Nigerian novel contains experiences drawn from the Nigerian region, and drawing its themes from the culture and tradition of the Nigerian people. Thus, the Nigerian novel is a committed effort targeted at transliterating the Nigerian traditional life into an artistic form. Consequently, a reading of the Nigerian novel can be taken as a reading of the sociology of Nigeria, for it “explores experiences relating to Nigeria within a Nigerian setting” (Akung, 2021, p. 31). Hall (1990, p. 222) puts it more trenchantly. He argues that “we all write and speak from a particular place and time, from a history and a culture which is specific”. This reechoes the fact that what a writer does with the systems or resources of language is inseparable from the social events and conditions which shape its production. This means that placing the language of a text within its socio-historical background has a way of enriching our understanding of the text’s thematics. People’s use of and interpretation of language is often linked with their context, the context of writing and existence. It follows that an analysis of the sociocultural embodiment of euphemism as used in the selected texts is equally an analysis of real speech in the Nigerian sociolinguistic context.
In the light of the foregoing, this paper examines how euphemism serves to function as conversational strategies in the works of the novelists under the purview of this study. Euphemistic expressions feature conspicuously in the transactional as well as interactional use of language in Nigeria’s literary works. Euphemism as used in interactive situations can be said to perform two important functions. First, it serves as a linguistic tool by which discourse participants avoid taboo language. Second, it is a set of discourse strategies which participants employ to save a co-interactant’s face wants. In the Nigerian sociolinguistic context, certain expressions are regarded as taboo, and therefore, discourse participants draw on euphemisms in interactive situations to avoid damaging the face want of a listener. This is the concern of this study.
...
Death Euphemism
Typically, a euphemism is used to avoid offending or upsetting someone, or to avoid talking directly about an uncomfortable topic. Death being an unpleasant situation is usually not talked about directly and whenever it occurs, people use different euphemistic expressions to discuss it in order to lessen the effect on the relations of the bereaved and other individuals. In line with positive politeness, people have different ways and methods of talking about death because the idea of death makes one uncomfortable, so no one likes to talk about death directly. Below are some examples of euphemisms relating to death as seen in the texts under study.
In the example taken from Difference, Seyi’s father announces the unfortunate death of his son to Deola’s family thus:
"Unfortunately, we have lost Seyi" Lost him where? She thought, (Difference p.32).
In the context of the novel, Lame and Seyi, who were great friends, had an accident on Kingsway Road, Lagos, while going home from a party. Lame is unconscious while Seyi died instantly. Seyi’s father in observance of the positive face want of his family and in order not be offensive, says we “lost him.” The lexical item “lost” in this instance is a euphemism for “death”. The use of “lost” has a subset in that in the Yoruba cultural context, it is an abomination for a child to die before his father. So, Seyi’s death is a loss name so as he has no one to continue his lineage. This is an irreversible loss; however, the effective use of the expression has been able to soften the weight of the loss.
In Crimson Blossoms, a euphemism is used to capture Dije Tsamiya’s childlessness:
No one, it seemed remembered what Dije Tsamiya’s married life had been like. Her husband had died many years ago and the last of her three children had passed on a decade before (Crimson Blossoms p.51).
The expression “passed on” is a euphemism for “died”. Being that Dije’s husband had died many years ago, the writer prefers a euphemistic expression to talk about the death of her three children. The sole aim for the preference for euphemism is to lessen the pain of a woman who has virtually lost all she has. Dije has seen many troubles in her life. Such a situation depicts someone in deep pains. But people have a way of managing communication in ways that the listeners are not overburdened by sorrow. Euphemism performs this strategic function. The narrator’s preference for euphemism is not only a conversational strategy, but also contextually determined. The context that is, Dije’s childlessness, calls for emotion in the use of language in describing her pathetic situation. This example is closely related to the excerpt taken from Fishermen:
The food I’d just scooped into my mouth was instantly forgotten at this news of Oga Biji’s death, for I knew the wasted man (Fishermen p.113).
In the above excerpt, Ibiabo informs Adaka of the untimely death of Oga Biji who was inadvertently killed by his wife. Benjamin is shocked by the news of the man’s death. The writer instead of repeating the word “death” or “died” uses the euphemism “wasted” which is an indirect way of saying that the man is dead. The euphemism as used here is a conversational strategy that helps the writer to avoid boredom and therefore makes the novel more interesting. The lexical item “wasted” labels more meaning to Biji’s death as even in his life time; he lived a wasted life of drunkenness.
We also find another example of euphemism referring to death in Fishermen. After the death of Ikema and Ibiabo, Adaka, their mother, is overwhelmed by grief and bemoans her fate at every available occasion. On one of such occasions, she lamented:
“Looked at the breast they sucked; they are still full. But they are no more” (Fishermen p.183).
A full breast signifies youthfulness which shows that Adaka, the bereaved mother, is still in her youthful age, and so, it is painful to lose two of her children. She shows off her youthfulness, that is, her full breast and euphemistically informs the sympathizer that the children who sucked the breast are “no more”. The words “no more” are an indirect way of saying that the children are dead. Death is a very painful experience and in most African cultures it is never mentioned directly. This could also be the reason why after Ikema’s death, Adaka on the phone tells her husband in Igbo:
“Then, Ikemamasara!” (Fishermen, p.151)
In her grief, Adaka could not utter the heavy word “dead” so she uses “anasar”, an Igbo word which translates to “gone” and which means death. In the Igbo worldview, death is seen as a rite of passage to the metaphysical world. It is regarded as a ritual journey that connects the family of the living with the dead. So, for Adaka, Ikema has gone to meet his ancestors but because death terminates familial bond between the living, it makes bereaved relatives especially sad. The author’s use of this euphemistic expression gives the reader a view of the cultural realities of the environment of the novel’s setting.
Conclusion
By working within the theoretical framework, this study shows that owing to the need to be polite, discourse participants employ euphemisms. In doing so, they achieve effective communication. The use of euphemism in the texts shows how language is used in the different instances and cultural contexts in line with the social convention of a people. We see how discourse participants employ euphemism to express pessimism and reluctance. Language is also deployed in these novels to portray the social, religious and cultural life of the people among other things. The use of euphemism in these novel demonstrates the robust semantic potential of Nigerian cultures.
References
Aboh, Romanus (2015). Euphemistic choices: Face-saving strategies and sexual disco in selected Nigerian novels. Journal of Linguistics and Languages Education. 9(2): 32-45. Aboh, R. and Uduk, H. (2016). The pragmatics of Nigerian English Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s novels. Journal of Language Education. 2(3): 6-13. Aboh, R. (2018b). Language and the construction of multiple identities in Nigerian novel. Grahamstown: NICS (Pty) Ltd. Akung, J. (2021). The western critic and the Nigerian novel since 1952. Ibadaka Kraft Books Ltd. Allen, K.& Burridge, K. (1991). Euphemism and dysphenism: Language used , shield and weapon. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Attah, S. (2013). A Bit of Difference. Massachusetts: Interlink Group. Bennet, W. (2015). Euphemism versus dysphenism in the construction of gend ideology in Nigerian novels. Retrieved From https://www.ru.ac.za/englishlanguageandlinguistics/. October 2018. Betiang, L. (2016). The Rape of Hope. Ibadan: Knatt Books Brown, P. and Levinson, S. (1978). Universals in language usage: Politene phenomena. In Questions and politeness: Strategies in social interaction (eds.) Goody, E. (pp. 56-310). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Crespo, F. E. (2005). Euphemistic strategies in politeness and face concern Pragmalinguistica. 13:77–86. Ezeife, A. (2017). Euphemistic language in the expression of gender issues Sefi Atta’s Swallow. University of Uyo Journal of English and Literature 9: 39-57. Griswold, W. (2000). Bearing witness: Reader, writers and the novel in Nigeria New Jersey: Princeton University Press. Ibrahim, A. A. (2015) Season of Crimson Blossoms. Lagos: Paeresia Publishers Kipkirui, L. (2021). A politeness model analysis of sex-related euphemisms selected Kipsigis songs of Kenya. MA thesis, Kenyatta University Kenya. Lakoff, R. (1975). Language and women’s place. New York: Harper and Row. Mensah, E., Nzuanke, S. and Adejumo, T. (2022). Giving a dog a bad name: The strategic use of labelling in contemporary .Nigerian political discourse. Communication: South AfricanJournal for Communication Theory and Research 48 (2): 1-22. Obioma, C. (2015). The Fishermen. Abuja: Cassava Republic Press. Opindi, K.O. and Kandagor, M.M. (2016). Linguistic analysis of sexual taboos and their politeness strategies among university students in Kenya. Linguistics and Translation 100: 43758-43762. Timothy, J. (1999). Why we curse. Retrieved 20 February 2015, from http://site.ebary.com.ezproxy.bibl.hkr.se/lib/kristianstad/Top?layout+document?nors=1 Wa Ngugi, M. (2018). The rise of the African novel: politics of language, identity, and ownership. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
Modern African Child and Agency for Decolonisation in Select Nigerian Novels
Charles Tolulopе Akinsete
Vol. 11, 2020
Modern African Child and Agency for Decolonisation in Select Nigerian Novels
By: Charles Tolulopе AkinseteEmail: info@caleljournal.com
Tel: 08063695290
Abstract
The paper extends beyond the portrayal of Chukwuemeka Ike's The Bottle Leopard as the postcolonial text which describes the colonialised African socicty and Chimamanda Adichie's Purple Hibiscus as feminist text. It interrogates the stronghold of colonial mentality and disillusionment that characterises the Modern African child in the quest for self-assertion and search for identity. Due to the colonial encounter, the indigenous identity of the African child has suffered disapproving retrogression, resulting into lack of confidence in African values. This paper, therefore, argues that the Modern African child today is still a victim of colonialism and remains at a crossroad in the unending search for selfdiscovery. It submits that the African child has been neglected and foregrounds Ike's stance that Western education, as well as Adichie's reflections on effects of Western religion, though part of the development phases of Modern African child, cannot continue to inhibit indigenous African ways of life.
Keywords
Modern African child, Decolonisation, Identity Reconstruction, Self assertion, Postcolonialism
Introduction
The study of child characters in novels has underscored great significance across literatures from different cultures. From the perspective of first-person narrative technique, the child character has been known to generate convincing ambience of innocence, credibility and transparency in any given story. Also, the stylistic import of bildungsroman, whereby the story requires both physical and psychological growth on the part of the protagonist, would have been impossible without the child character. Hence, whether as a narrative technique or style, the use of child character has no doubt added legendary flavour to the literary expression of creative writers across the world.
Content
However, the literary import of the African child goes beyond the abovementioned categories. African writers have spawned out accurate reflections of African experiences as a result of colonisation. Ben Okri's Famished Road is a quintessential specimen. Through the naive eyes of the young Ozoro, the novel presents a broad view about the socio-cultural, political and thematic preoccupations, prevalent in post-colonial Nigeria. It captures the historical moments, economic and political situation of the country. The narration continues with imageries of destruction, poverty, pain, sorrow, sickness, struggles, uncertainty, unemployment, worries, and finally, death. Before Okri's novel, there are other examples of novels across the world that portray child character for varied reasons. Examples include Camara Laye's The African Child, Alex Haley's Roots and in fact Charles Dicken's renowned eponymous fiction, Oliver Twist. These novels' successes today stem from the creative enterprise of the child character. Beyond style and technique, the child character is indeed "a powerful agent through which salient themes, such as poverty, brutality, alienation, religion and politics are surveyed"(John Mugubi, 2012). This research, therefore, interrogates the disillusionment that characterizes the Modern African child in the unending quest for self-assertion and search for identity as a result of the overbearing influence of the colonial encounter. Through critical analysis, it engages two renowned texts, Chukwuemeka Ike's The Bottle Leopard and Chimamanda Adichie's Purple Hibiscus in portraying the need for continuous process of decolonisation through the eyes of the novels' protagonists.
Conclusion
The Modern African child today is still much of a victim of colonialism and remains at a crossroad in the unending search for self-discovery. This assertion remains the thrust in this paper, as the two colonial victims, Ugochukwu Amobi and Jaja, struggle to discern, comprehend and control themselves in a complex world that keeps them perpetually confused about truth and reality. The novel in a way pontificates at the overbearing influence of Western empiricism over sacrosanct phases of African philosophy. As exemplified in Amobi, many African children today not only disregard their native culture, but also lack enough capacity to understand their roots, given the complexities that besiege the Modern African societies. This paper submits that an insurrection of African values must serve as necessary extension to Western education. It is only then that Modern African Child can fully understand as well as retain the African identity in the face of globalisation.
References
Achebe, Chinua. An Image of Africa. Research in African literatures, Indiana University Press, 1978, 9. 1. 1-5. Print Adichie, Chimamanda, Purple Hibiscus. London: HarperCollins Publishers Ltd, 2003. Print Appiah, Anthony Kwame. In My Father's House: Africa in the Philosophy of Culture. London: Methuen, 1992. Print Ashcroft, Bill, Gareth Griffiths, and Helen Tiffin. 1989. The Empire Writes Back: Theory and Practice in Post-Colonial Literature. New York: Routledge. Print Barry, Peter. Beginning Theory: An Introduction to Literary and Cultural Theory. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1995. Print Boehmer, Elleke. Colonial and Postcolonial Literature: Migrant Metaphors. New York: Oxford, 1995. Print Du Bios, William Edward Burghardt. The Souls of Black Folks: Chicago. A. C. McClurg, 1903. Print Eagleton, Terry. Literary Theory: An Introduction. Oxford: Basil Blackwell Ltd, 1983. Print Fanon, Frantz. Dying colonialism. New York: Grove Press. 1967. Print Gikandi, Simon, "African Literature and the Colonial Factor". African Literature: An Anthology of Criticism and Theory. Ed. Tejumola Olaniyan and Ato Quayson, Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing Limited. 2007. Print. Haley, Alex. Roots. Garden City, New York: Doubleday & Company Inc, 1976. Print Ike, Chukwuemeka. The Bottled Leopard. Ibadan: University Press Plc, 1985. Print Kehinde, Ayo. Indigenous Traditions and Modern African Writers. In: S. Ademola Ajayi (ed.) African Culture and Civilisation. Ibadan: Atlantis Books/Ibadan Cultural Studies Group. 2005. 301-324. Print Mugubi, John, G.O. The child character in adult literature: a study of six selected Caribbean novels. Kenyatta University Institutional Repository. 2021. Web. 29 October, 2018. Tyson, Lois. Critical Theory Today: A User-friendly Guide. New York & Long: Garland Publishing, 1999. Print Said, Edward. Culture and Imperialism. New York: Knopf, 1994. Print Viswanathan, Gauri. The beginnings of English literary study in British India. Oxford Literary Review 1987: 9. 1 & 2. Print
English Language Learning and the Challenges of Mechanical Accuracy Among Selected Secondary School Students in Delta State Nigeria
Daniel E. Ekoro
Vol. 11, 2020
English Language Learning and the Challenges of Mechanical Accuracy Among Selected Secondary School Students in Delta State Nigeria
By: Daniel E. EkoroEmail: info@caleljournal.com
Tel: 08063695290
Abstract
It is a known fact that the English language has established itself firmly in Nigeria, its importance therefore, cannot be over emphasized. Students with learning glitches are exasperated in their efforts at written expression because of problems with the mechanical accuracy aspects of writing. Problems with spelling, punctuation, and handwriting may draw attention away from the writer's focus on ideas. A teacher, therefore, needs effective ways of assisting students in overcoming the mechanical obstacles to writing. A total of 200 (two hundred) senior secondary school students were selected for the study which adopted S.P. Corder's approach on Error Analysis (EA). The result showed that most of the students had problems in the areas of spellings; punctuation errors and capitalization errors. The study recommended, among others, that teachers should adopt effective methods for helping students with learning problems overcome the mechanical obstacles to writing.
Keywords
English Language Learning, Mechanical Accuracy, Secondary School Students, Delta State
Introduction
Error analysis as an approach in language study has aroused the interest of several scholars because of its importance. According to Vahdatinejad (2008) error analysis can be imparted and it offers the essential data concern whatever is deficient in the student's capability. Vahdatinejad makes a difference among errors and lapses. He said, lapses are made also by indigenous users, and could be fixed by those who make them. On the spot rectification is recommended instead of remediation which is needed for errors. Olasehinde (2002) agrees that making errors by learners is unavoidable. He also suggested that errors are inevitable and an essential part of the scholarship curve. Mitchell and Myles (2004) claim that errors, if learned, can divulge an evolving structure of the student's second language and this structure is active and exposed to variations and reorganizing of limitations. This opinion is maintained by Stark's (2001) research, which reveals that instructors have to see students' errors confidently. Teachers ought not to take errors as the students' inefficiency to comprehend the rubrics and constructions but rather as a procedure to learning. Stark, keys to the notion that errors are usual and unavoidable characteristics of learning and are therefore an essential condition of learning.
Content
In a study by Sarfraz, (2011) to examine the errors produced by fifty Pakistani students in essay writing, the research revealed that the widely held errors are caused by mother tongue interference. Darus and Subramanian (2009), with Corder ideal on error examination, scrutinized errors in seventy-two written essays by seventy-two Malaysian learners. It was discovered that the learners' errors existed in areas of the singular and plural forms of verbs, verbal tense, word-choices, prepositional, concord and word arrangement. Abisamra (2003) examined examples of work written and collected from ten learners in class nine in an Arabic speaking community and categorized the written errors in 5 groups, viz., syntactic (prepositionals, articles, adjectivals, etc.); grammar (co-ordination, sentence pattern, word-order etc.); vocabulary (word choice), semantic and constituent (punctuations, capitalizations, and spellings); and dialogue errors. The outcomes showed that 1/3rd of the learners' errors revealed transferral errors from the indigenous language, and the utmost figures of errors existed in the classes of meaning and lexical. The remaining errors (64.1%) point to errors on over-generalization. In a similar study, Sawalmeh (2013) also investigated 32 Arabic-speaking Saudi learners of English and he identified 10 general errors, namely errors of verbs usage, words arrangement, singular and plural formation, concord, dual negations, spelling, capitalisation, article, structure breakage and prepositionals. The result of the study revealed that the highest frequency of errors was on verb tense. He concluded by saying that "most of the errors can be due to L₁ transfer" (p. 14).
Conclusion
The improvement of language teaching depends on learners' awareness to the learning process. The process of committing errors is the process of foreign language acquisition and the language rules. And error analysis tries to discover and sum up some rules in language learning by analyzing learners’ errors just as we did in this paper. The theory of error analysis, on the one hand, helps teachers understand the students' difficulties in learning, study the causes of their errors, and take effective measures to correct the errors. On the other hand, the theory will press teachers to adjust teaching strategy, teaching means, and develop teaching level wholly. Generally, the most dominant mechanical errors in the students' composition appear to be error in spelling, punctuation, and capitalization. The poor use of these tripartite aspects goes to show that most of the students were still at their primary stages of acquisition, and that there was still more to be done.
References
Abisamra, N. (2003). An analysis oferrors in Arabic speakers' English writing. In Mourtaga, K. (ed.). Investigating writing problems among Palestinian students studying English as a foreign language. Unpublished doctoral dissertation. Qatar University. Retrieved from http://abisamra03.tripod.com/nada/languageacq-erroranalysis.html. Accessed 15th Nov.,2015. Aronoff, M. & Fudeman, K. (2005). What is Morphology? Fundamentals of Linguistics University of Malaysia International Journal of Humanities and Social Science vol. 3 No. 11. Babatunde, S.T. (2002). "The state of the English Language in Nigeria" In Adebayo, L.L Longo Abanihe 1 and Obia 1 (eds). Brown, H. D. (2002). Principles of Language Learning (4th edition) London: Longman. Corder, S. P. (1981). Error analysis and interlanguage. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Darus, S. & Subramaniam, K. (2009). Error analysis of the written English essays of secondary school students in Malaysia. European Journal of Social Sciences, 8(3) 483-495. Eka, D. (2004). Elements of grammar and mechanics of English. Uyo: Samuf Educational limited. Ferris, D. (2002). Treatment of error in second language student writing. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. Fromkin, V. Rodman, R. and Hyms, N. (2003). An introduction to language. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, Inc. Mitchell, R. & Myles, M. (2004). Second language learning theories. New York: Hodder Arnold. Olasehinde, M.O. (2002). Error analysis and remedial pedagogy. In S.T Babatunde. and D.S. Adeyanju (Eds.). Language meaning and society. Illorin: Itaytee Press and Publishing Ridha, N. (2012). The effect of EFL learners' mother tongue on their writings in English: An error analysis study. Journal of the College of Arts. University of Basrah, 60, 22-45. Sarfraz, S. (2011). Errors analysis of the written essays of Pakistani undergraduate students: A case study. Asian Transaction on Basie and Applied Sciences. 1(3): 29-35. Sawalmeh, M.H.M. (2013). Error analysis of written English essays: The case of students of the preparatory year programme in Saudi Arabia. English for specific purpose, 14(40): 1-17. Stark, L. (2001). Analysing the interlanguage of American SIGN language natives. Newark: University of Dalaware. Vahdatinejad, S. (2008). Students' error analysis and attitude towards teacher feedback using a selected software: A case study. Unpublished Masters' thesis, University of Kebangsaan, Malaysia, Bangi.
Expose Theatre: African-American Drama and Social Revolution in Bullins Claras Ole Man and in the Wine Time
Michael C. Nwaiwu
Vol. 11, 2020
Expose Theatre: African-American Drama and Social Revolution in Bullins Claras Ole Man and in the Wine Time
By: Michael C. NwaiwuEmail: info@caleljournal.com
Tel: 08063695290
Abstract
Drama, as a literary genre, gives man the rare opportunity of sitting in judgment on his actions and inactions. African-American drama from inception has battled with the challenges of social engagement and aesthetics, notwithstanding the fear of the Blackman otherwise called, "negrophobia" mentality of the white audience. Although a great deal of African-American writing is literature of anger and strife, yet there is a strong assertion that their plays, in spite of the major challenges of being black in America, the playwrights decry the inhuman and social problems in the domestic African-American Society. This ranges from the evil of homosexuality and lesbianism to the ordeal of idle husbands of hardworking women and the process of growth, sexual promiscuity and drunkenness. This article in line with the African-American " Revolutionary Theatre", examines the representation of these social ills in the African-American drama especially in Bullins' Clara's Ole Man and In the Wine Time. The playwright represents the major phase in the development of African-American drama and theatre especially during the major outrage in the entire experience of the Blackman in America. Ed. Bullins, being an adherent to Amiri Baraka's Revolutionary Theatre represents the domestic front of the expose theatre of the Black Arts Movement of the African-American Literature especially among the African-Americans themselves.
Keywords
Expose Theatre, Theatre of Reality, Revolutionary Theatre.
Introduction
Any integral study of the plays of Ed. Bullins must pay attention to the understanding of his concept of "Theatre of Reality" in line with Amiri Baraka's Revolutionary Theatre. (Sander, 177) This concept complements Amiri Baraka's idea of the expose theatre of the revolutionary aesthetics. Bullins remains the prophet of the home front, warning his people against the dangers of self-inflicted destruction. His plays, among other values, make it clear that the whites are not always to be blamed in the problems of the African-Americans. Lenka Vanova has observed that, "Bullins' Theatre of Reality built up a sense of black world beyond the confines of the play script". (47) In fact, his plays are replica of life as are lived in the African-American streets. Vanova observes that “Bullins typically pictures unpolished black characters who are often involved in drugs and misdemeanour. He shows them as unworthy human beings, able to find justification in their lives while seeking their betterment relentlessly.” (20) Bullins’ basic concern is with the people’s values, aspirations and dreams as well as their future. He probes and questions clichés, stereotypes, and formal illusions to test what are of value in them. This paper is strongly against the inhuman social misnomer repugnant to human natural habitation, perpetuated by the African-Americans against themselves, either as a form of social protest or revolts that are detrimental to lives and development of the domestic African-American society and the American nation in general.
Content
Edward Artie was born on July 2, 1935 to the family of Edward Bullins and Marie Queen in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He was primarily raised by his mother. He attended predominately white schools and got deeply involved with gangs. Among the schools he attended was Franklin High School, where he nearly lost his life as a result of gang clashes. Later he quit high school for the Navy. During his stay with the Navy, he won a boxing championship and this motivated him to start reading. Ed. Bullins enrolled into a night school in Philadelphia until 1958, where he began an insight into the predominant ghetto life style of the African-American underclass. He even left his wife and kid for Los Angeles. One important virtue of Ed. Bullins which was his predominant clamour is self-development for a better future. After receiving his General Education Development (GED) in Los Angeles, Bullins enrolled into Los Angeles City Colleges where he began to write. Ed. Bullins was a product of the African-American underclass (lower class) that lived out his teachings on the appropriate freedom for the Blacks through personal development and positivity in action and attitude towards one another. Bullins’ plays include: Goin’ a Buffalo (1968), Clara’s Ole Man (1968), In the Wine Time (1968), The Electronic Nigger (1968) The Fabulous Miss Marie (1971), The Taking of Miss Janie (1975) and others. These plays are elaborate characteristics of African-American underclass exposed in the literary works. Mensor-Fur observes that, “Bullins explores the dark side of the African-American experiences in his ‘Black America,’ focusing issues and characters (like “common folk”, pimps, prostitutes, etc.) that many mainstream Americans and middle class African-Americans’s theatre patrons may wish to ignore.” (iv) However, the African-American plays were the core of the Black Arts Movement under the active control of Amiri Baraka’s “Revolutionary theatre” ideology
Conclusion
In conclusion, Worthen, W.B. in the preface to the brief edition of the Harcourt Anthology to Drama (2002) notes that, "studying drama is more than reading plays. It requires the study of where the plays were produced, the culture that framed those theatres and the critical and performance history that have framed the meaning of the drama over the time". (3) This entails a study of the symbols and the meanings especially in relation to the messages the play communicates to the first society that receives the drama. Worthen maintains that, "of the many kinds of literature, drama is perhaps the most immediately involved in the life of its community" (3). Drama confronts the audience in the confines of the theatre and lets them watch and judge their actions and inactions. Amiri Baraka in his concept of Revolutionary Theatre exposes the life lived in the African-American society with undoubtable condemnation of the Whites as architects of the Blacks misfortunes. In his Expose theatre plays, he enacts the various scenes and episodes of Whites inhumanity to Blacks, thus exposing the vulnerability of the Blackman in a White dominated society. Ed. Bullins in the same line but on the other hand, exposes the Blacks vulnerability at various streets of the African-American society in his Theatre of Reality. This is the complementary aspect of the revolutionary theatre, for Bullins gives the audience the side of African-Americans inhumanities to themselves. In other words, while Baraka is busy challenging the Blacks to rise against the Whiteman's inhumanity to Blackman, Ed. Bullins complements his vision by asking the Blackman to be careful with his choices against their fellow Blackman and against themselves.
References
Bailey, Peter "A look at the contemporary Black Theatre Movement" in Black American Literature Forum. 17 (1) 1983, 19-21 Baraka, Amiri "The Revolutionary Tradition in Afro-American literature in Selected plays and prose ofAmiri Baraka/le Roi Jones New York Marron 1979. 242-251. "The Revolutionary Theatre" in Afro-American Literature an Jovanovich Introduction. Inc. Robert Hayden et al (eds.) New York: Harcourt Brace 1971. 295-298. Baraka, Amiri and Larry Neale (eds). Black Fire: An Anthology of Afro-American Writing Classic Press, 1968. Barnes, Clive. "American Place Stages' Electronic Nigger" by Ed. Bullins.In New York Times 9 March, 1962. Bullins, Ed. Clara’s Ole Man” in The Drama Review. 12(4) 1968 159-171. Clark, Priscilla B. "Literature and Sociology”. Interrelations of Literature ed. Jean 122. Pierre Barricelli and Joseph Gibaldi. New York: MLA, 1982 107- Cruse, Harold. "Revolutionary Nationalism and the Afro-American" in Black Fire: An Anthology of Afro-American Writing: Amiri Baraka (ed.) Classic Press, 1968. Gates, Henry Louis and Nellie Y McKay (eds.) The Norton Anthology of African-American Literature. New York ww Norton Company, 1997. Grant, Lisbeth "The New Lafayethe Theatre. Anatomy of a Community Art Institution in The Drama Review: TDR Vol. 16, No. 4. Black Theatre Issue. December, 1972 46-55. Harris, William J. The LeRoi Jones/Amiri Baraka Reader.New York Basic Book, 2009. Menson-Furr, Ladrica C. Audience and the African American playwright: an analysis of the importance of audience selection and audience response on the dramaturgies of August Wilson and Ed Bullins. PhD Thesis, Louisiana: Lousiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College, 2002. Nwaiwu, Mishael Chinaecherem. Social Engagement and the African-American Aesthetic in the Selected Drama of Amiri Baraka and Ed. Bullins PhD Thesis University of Port Harcourt, 2015. Sell, Mike (ed. Ed. Bullins: Twelve Plays and Selected Writings. The University of Michigan Press, 2006. Sanders, Leslie G. The Development of Black Theatre in America: from Shallow to Selves. Baton Rouge: La, 1989. Stevens, Bonnie Klomp et al. A Guide to Literary Criticism and Research. New York: CBS College Publishing, 1987. Vanova, Lenka "The Power of Black Theatre: ImanuAmiri Baraka and Ed. Bullins' Play as Reflection of the Transformation of the Civil Right Movement in 1960. Masary University, 2009. Wellek, Rene and Austin Warren.Theory of Literature. Mitcham:Penguin, 1963. Worthen, William B. The Harcourt Anthology of Drama. Australia, Hernie Pub, 2002.
Memory in Selected Poems of Antjie Krog
By: Ifeyinwa OdimmaEmail: info@caleljournal.com
Tel: 08063695290
Abstract
For true healing to take place in Post- apartheid South Africa, the wounds of history have to be dehisced via the ambit of memory. A conscious move to address their traumatic past, the psyche of and daily reality of living in the new South Africa need to be addressed. This paper pays critical attention to painful remembrances of oppressive apartheid in selected poems of Antjie Krog. In engaging the past atrocities of apartheid, Krog tries to deal with the feelings of Afrikaner guilt engendered by revelations at the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC). This paper reads some of Krog's Post-apartheid poems in her two collections Down to my Last Skin (2000) and Body Bereft (2006). The essence is to interrogate memory as a personal imaginative apprehension of historical antecedent of a supposed South African society. This is a way of helping present society to come to terms with its past in order to forge a new society that is ironically built on the pains of the past. The paper leans on the eclectic theories of Postcolonialism, Psychoanalysis and New Historicism.
Keywords
Antjie Krog, Post-Apartheid poems, Memory, Apartheid, History, Afrikaner, Afrikaans.
Introduction
The South African literary milieu is basically shaped by the political and social evolution of the country. According to John Saul and Patrick Bond, the repressive apartheid law split the South African population into four official racial groups: 'Whites', 'Indians', 'Coloureds' and 'Blacks'. The Afrikaners defined each racial group's scope of action and interaction with the other. In the ideology of apartheid, White' equals 'good, human and civilised' while 'non-white' equals 'bad, inhuman and savage'. After decades of armed struggle, on 27th April 1994, independence became a reality for Republic of South Africa under the elected leadership of Nelson Mandela. Consequently, South African literary tradition as a social construct is inevitably shaped by their traumatic and gruesome history. Post- apartheid poetry engages themes like nation building, re-evaluation of identity question, reconciliation, femininity among others.
Content
The apartheid period was characterised by incessant killings, imprisonment, disappearances, exile for anti-apartheid activists. Victims of these villainous years include politicians, journalists and creative writers. Antjie Krog though arguably a white woman but an ANC activist, became an enemy of the apartheid regime when at seventeen she wrote the controversial poem “My Beautiful Land” which castigated the obnoxious regime thereby distancing herself from her racial group’s evil. What would be dismissed as a youthful vagary matured into a poetic voice that has withstood the test of four decades in consistently advocating for equality of all races in South Africa. Krog’s exposure as a journalist to the ugly revelations at the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) of inhuman treatments meted out on Blacks further heightens her poetic ardour in voicing the Afrikaner guilt. This creates a space for healing and for charting a course for a new South Africa
Conclusion
Antjie Krog's poetics remains incisive and relevant in relentlessly interrogating socio-political, gender and neo-liberal issues in contemporary South Africa. Her engagement with the historical to demystify the present for nation building is very apt in fulfilling her poetic role. James Oliver concurs that: "The reawakening of South Africa will be remembered through the words of her poets, writers and in the images of her painters and sculptors more than by the adjurements of her politicians or the lawmakers. Of all our writers, it is the poet who holds us most in thrall, for it is the poet who gives voice to our deepest thoughts and emotions"(Quoted in Ndlovu 2000:2). This paper reveals a poet's role as an impassioned chronicler of the past and as a recorder of the testimonies of those who might be forgotten. To the extent that Krog's evocation of memory, is, intended to promote individual healing so as to effect national healing. Rather than turning to the past repeatedly (which is, Freud has shown, an obstacle to remembering), the past should be exhumed for the sake of the future. Ricoeur argues that we have "a duty to remember and a duty to forget" (11). The duty to remember is a duty to use the past as lessons for future generations; the duty to forget is a duty to go beyond anger and hatred. This is pivotal to Krog's engagement with memory in the building of the new South Africa she so desires.
References
Baderon, Gabeba. Oblique figures: Representations of Islam in South African media and culture. Unpublished PhD thesis, University of Cape Town, 2004. Caruth, Cathy. "Introduction". Trauma Explorations in Memory. Ed. Cathy Caruth. London: The John Hopkins University Press, 1995. Coullie, Judith Lutage. "Remembering to forget: Testimony, Collective memory and the genesis of the 'new' South African nation in Country of My Skull". SA Lit Beyond 2000. Eds. Michael Chapman and Margaret Lenta. Scotsville: University of KwaZulu-Natal Press, 2011. (1-23). Davies, Merryl Wyn, Nandy, Ashis and Sardon, Ziauddin. Barbaric Others: A Manifesto on Western Racism. Middlesex: Pluto Press, 1993. Dix, Brett Garvin. "Cultural Memory and Myth in Seamus Heaney's Bog Poems, and Antjie Krog's Country of My Skull and Down to My Last Skin (An Unpublished MA Thesis)" University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2007. Gqola, Pumla. "Whirling worlds? Women's Poetry, Feminist Imagination and Contemporary South Africa publications". Scrutiny 2, 16 (2) 2011: Issues in English Studies in S.A. ... Osborne, John. Almost a Gentleman: An Autobiography: Volume II, 1955-1966. London: Faber and Faber, 1991. Ricoeur, Paul. "Memory and Forgetting". Questioning Ethics: Contemporary Debates in Philosophy. eds R Kearmey and M. Dooley. London: Routledge 1998. Said, Edward. Orientalism. London: University Press, 1978. Saul, John and Bond, Patrick. South Africa: The Present as History. Johannesburg: Knopf Publishers, 1990. Soyinka, Wole. The Burden of Memory, the Muse of Forgiveness. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999. Spark, Allister. The Mind of South Africa. Johannesburg: Knopf Publishers, 1990. Print. Steinberg, Robert J. Cognitive Psychology (2nd ed). Fort Worth: Harcourt Brace College Publishers, 1999. Veeser, Aram Harold. The New Historicism Reader. Ed. New York: Routledge, 1998. Print. Vogt, Isabella. "Born in Africa but..": Women's poetry of post-Apartheid Soutn Africa in English. Hochschulschriften: Suedwestdeutcher Verlaggwer, 2010.
"I Don't Send Anybody": Slang, Language Choice, and Resistance in Select Nigerian Novels
Daniel Udo
Vol. 11, 2020
"I Don't Send Anybody": Slang, Language Choice, and Resistance in Select Nigerian Novels
By: Daniel UdoEmail: info@caleljournal.com
Tel: 08063695290
Abstract
Slang is among the linguistic strategies Nigerian novelists employ in their narratives. However, studies on the use of language in the Nigerian novel are yet to pay critical attention to the multi-discursive functions of slang expressions. This neglect is mostly steeped in the canonical supposition that slang is an impolite linguistic expression; invariably proposing that slang is unworthy of scholarly investigation. Such a supposition undermines the creative and discursive function to which slang as a language variety is utilised in the Nigerian novel. To fill this research gap and, using three selected Nigerian novels: Waiting for an Angel, Arrows of Rain, and Under the Brown Rusted Roofs, this paper investigates the use of slang in order to illustrate that slang is a linguistic device that youths create and deploy to negotiate and construct resistance identity. Drawing significantly from Manuel Castells identity theory which accounts for how language is deployed to construct resistance identity, the analytical method involves textual and extra-linguistic analysis. Such an analytical methodology offers insights into the intricate bond between language and identity construction in literary situations.
Keywords
Slang, Resistance, Nigerian novel, Castells, Identity, Nigerian Pidgin Expression
Introduction
Nigerian novelists employ diverse linguistic strategies in their narratives so as to capture the wide-ranging dimensions of their literary engagement. Given the various linguistic strategies deployed by the Nigerian novelists in their writing vocation, the Nigerian novel has enjoyed a gamut of scholarly interpretations from the linguistic flank. However, slang, being one of the many linguistic strategies Nigerian novelists engage in presenting Nigeria's social experience in a picturesque manner, is yet to interest many a linguistic critic of the Nigerian novel. While this neglect tends to undermine the discursive functions of slang in a multilingual community like Nigeria, especially as a creative linguistic tool which language users rely upon to indicate resentment to actions and activities of others-actions that either lean towards being inimical or hostile to the slang users' existence, the neglect seems to be mostly steeped in the canonical conjecture that slang is an informal language of impolite discourse. If slang is taken as an inappropriate language facility, it devalues the meta-discursive significations that are embedded in the deployment of slang in interactive or conversational situations, as this seeks to explain.
Content
Examining resistance through language with this model enables an understanding of how language is a constitutive part of struggle. Identity is, then, a matter of self-concept, of construction rather than of social categories, of what people think of others. As Figure 1 above indicates, resistance is the most powerful stimulus for the creation and distribution of slang. What this means is that people use slang as a form of identity, group solidarity, and as a linguistic tool of resistance, as this article demonstrates. Although it is not every member of a group that is oppressed by a dominant pattern of life, people are naturally influenced by situational imperatives to invent a slang term which they consider theirs, resisting the linguistic as well as social behaviour of non-members of their group or those who stand in opposition to the expression of their desires. Bradatan, cited above, argues that "[y]our language is not just something you use, but an essential part of what you are" (4). Language, then, is a cite of cultural struggle. It is a “safe haven in a refuge of smoldering emotions" (Fanon, cited in Flores-Rodriguez 28). In a similar way, Pierre Bourdieu's (1977) concept of habitus points to those aspects of people's life that index the way they use language. Habitus describes the socially acquired proclivities which are performed in many ways and contexts of talking and writing. Thinking in a parallel direction with Bourdieu, language has been described as "a functional code for expressing valued feelings, attitudes and loyalties" (Oni and Oke 145).
Conclusion
The study of slang indicates that while the majority of the slang terms are "conventional" English words whose meanings are semantically extended/shifted to cater for the communicative needs of speech communities/communes, others are formed/derived from Nigerian Pidgin English expressions. These pidginised slang expressions speak to members of a commune in an acute manner, presupposing a tacit agreement among users in their community of practice. The implication is that the pidginised forms may not be accessible to non-members of a speech community. This act of linguistic "dismembering" is an ultimate reason for the social construction of slang in the first instance. It can, therefore, be argued that the slang terms function as discourse strategies which discourse participants work upon to resist people and situations they consider inimical to their existence, on the one hand and a discursive act of articulating a desire to do things the way one wants, on the other. This unveils the dynamic ways in which slang can be calibrated for the expression of dissent and the polemic contestation of identities. Slang is a concept that has social implications for the speaker and the listener. This goes a long way to counter the belief in certain linguistic quarters that slang is an impolite language used mainly by deviants. The investigation of slang words, as evident in the sampled Nigerian novels, shows that slang expressions differ considerably from standard language since there are obvious social, non-informal intentions of using slang. The use of slang in the Nigerian novel draws attention to the myriad of linguistic strategies Nigerian novelists rely upon in capturing the multi-faceted themes of their literary engagement.
References
Aboh, Romanus. "Lexical Borrowing as a Resource for the Construction of Identities in Selected 21st Century Nigerian Novels." Marang: Journal ofLanguage and Literature 22 (2012):51-70. .---- "Slang and Multiple Methods of Interpreting Sex and Sexual Identity in the Nigerian Novel." The African Symposium: An Online Journal of the African Educational Research Network (2015):15,1.91-97. ----- "Slang as a Repository of Ingroup and Outgroup Identity Marker in a Catholic Seminary." Kamalu, I. and Tamunobelema, I. Issues in the Study of Language and Literature: Theory and Practice. Eds. Ibadan: Kraft Book. 2015. 511-521. ---- Language and the Construction of Multiple Identities in the Nigerian Novel Grahamstown, South Africa: NICS (Pty) Ltd, 2018. Adelakun, Abimbola. Under the Brown Rusted Roofs. Ibadan: Kraft Books, 2008. Akmajian, A., Demars, R., Farmer, A. K. and Harnish, R. M. Linguistics: An Introduction toLanguage and Communication. 5th ed. Cambridge: MIT Press, MA, USA, 2009. Alimi, Modupe M. and Arua, Arua E. "Gender and Student Slang in the University of Botswana". Arua, A. E., Bagwasi, M. M., Sebina, T. and Seboni, B. English Language and Literature. Cross-Cultural Currents. Ed. New Castle. 2008.38-53. Benwell, Bethan and Stokoe, Elizabeth. Discourse and Identity. Edinburg: Edinburg University Press, 2006. Bradatan, Costica "Herta Müller's Language of Resistance." Boston Review (2014): 1-6. Castells, Manuel. The Power of Identity. Oxford: Blackwell, 1997. Eriksen, Mads Holmsgaard. Translating the Use of Slang. Aarhus School of Business, Aarhus University, 2010. Flores-Rodríguez Daynali. "Language, Power and Resistance: Re-Reading Fanon in a Trans- Caribbean Context." The Black Scholar 42(3-4) (2012): 27-35. Habila, Helon. Waiting for an Angel. Abuja: Cassava Republic, 2002. Ijaiya, Bola. S. "Slang and the Nigerian Army." Studies in Slang and Slogans. Eds. Babatunde, S. Odebunmi, A. Adetunji, A. and Adedimeji M. Muenchen, Germany: Lincom, 2010. 124-32. Joseph, E. John. Language and Identity: National, Ethnic, Religious. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004. Lamidi, Tayo and Aboh, Romanus. ""Naming as a Strategy for Identity Construction in Selected 21st Century Nigerian Novels." 3L: The SoutheastAsian Journal of English Language Studies 17(2) (2011): 35-47. Martiello, E. "The Pervasiveness of Slang in Standard and Non-Standard English." Mots Palabras Words 6 (2005): 27-41. Web. Feb 25, 2014. Meredith, Martins. The State of Africa: A History of Fifty Years of Independence London: Free Press, 2005. Ndibe, Okey. Arrows of Rain. Oxford: Heinemann Educational Books, 2000. Odebunmi, Akin. "Slang, Sexual Organ and Metaphor in Nigerian English" Studies in Slang and Slogans. Eds. Babatunde, S. Odebunmi, A. Adetunji, A. and Adedimeji M. Muenchen, Germany: Lincom, 2010. 47-70. Paltridge, Brian. Discourse Analysis. London and New York: Continuum, 2006.
Anthropomorphism and Biblical Literacy: Aids to Conceptualising the Nature of God
Sunday Tasen Okune
Vol. 11, 2020
Anthropomorphism and Biblical Literacy: Aids to Conceptualising the Nature of God
By: Sunday Tasen OkuneEmail: info@caleljournal.com
Tel: 08063695290
Abstract
This paper seeks to interrogate the anthropomorphic expressions as couched in the Bible used to describe God in the light of the fact that He is a Spirit Being, a fact which presupposes that He is not human. The declaration that "God is Spirit" (John 4: 24) and God's invitation to the co-creators of mankind, "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness...". (Genl: 26) pose a problem understanding the Holy Writ and conceptualizing the nature of God and hence raise a number of posers such as: "Is God knowable as man is since He is Spirit?" "Does He possess a corporeal substance the way man possesses members such as hands, eyes, ears, back and so on?" "Is God being literal or figurative when He semiotises His nature in anthropomorphic terms- when He makes reference to His hands, eyes, ears, back, and so on in His communication with men?" These posers become imperative in the light of Peircean semiotic theory, which this paper has adopted in its analysis, and which postulates that there is no direct relationship between a word and its referent. These are the questions this paper attempts to answer by interrogating the anthropomorphic terms that intersperse the Bible. The paper seeks to help Bible readers conceptualize God and so afford them biblical literacy, which knowledge Christians claim, can afford an enquirer salvation.
Keywords
Anthropomorphism, God, semiotics, salvation, biblical literacy
Introduction
The Bible abounds in instances of phraseology about God that are either contradictory and curious or seemingly inconsistent with His nature. The concept "God" decidedly conjures up in the mind a Spirit-being; that is one who is invisible and, hence, unknowable. The questions, "Is there God?" and "How can man know God?" cannot be adequately answered by man's intuitive method of search as postulated by the mystic religions such as Eckankar, AMORC, Grail Message, etc., nor by reason (epistemology), wisdom and understanding as postulated by philosophers.
Content
The questions cannot also be answered by the study of History, natural sciences, Literature, and Ethics or even by moralizing. God cannot be adequately known through these methods because His Being, which is metaphysical, is beyond man's methods of inquiry. Conceptualizing Him must, therefore, be by His own means that of 'special revelation' of Himself - through the Bible (Hammond 1968, p.18). Each of man's methods of inquiry about God may give imperfect glimpses of God. Only a special revelation can give someone knowledge of God and Christians claim it is this type of knowledge of God that can save mankind. By salvation it means redemption from damnation; i.e., from condemnatory judgment that unsaved people shall suffer. "Revelation", according to Lloyd-Jones (2003) "is the act by which Gop communicates to human beings the truth concerning Himself, His nature, will or purpose, and it also includes the unveiling of all this - the drawing back of the veil that conceals this, in order that we may see it" (p.13). This revelation avails man the character and the nature of God as composites of His saving grace. This special revelation is not like man's search for knowledge of God. While the first is an attempt by man to look for God, the second is an attempt by God Himself, of drawing back the veil that veils man and giving the latter an insight of Himself that leads to saving knowledge. This is called redemptive revelation. Christians assert that this is an exclusive preserve of people who submit to the redemptive revelation, i.e., Christians. Even the Christian knowledge of God cannot be exhaustive: God cannot be fully comprehended by man, nor can His nature be fully grasped by man's senses-the tactile, visual, auditory, gustatory and olfactory senses. God is a Spirit, a Supernatural Being. The notion of Spirit conveys the notion of intangibility, immaterialness, non-substantiality and formlessness, which cannot be "projected in discursive form and expression" (Langer 2014, p.139). А number of Bible verses corroborate this notion about Him: 'No man hath seen God at any time" (John 1:18); "Now unto the King, eternal, and immortal, invisible..." (1Tim 1:17); "You hath neither heard his voice at any time, nor seen his shape" (Jn 5:37); and "God is not a man that He should lie, or son of man that He should repent" (Num. 23:19). But in dealing with man, in His revelation to man - man who is tangible and whose discursive and expressive model attempts to capture every experience or abstraction in linguistic terms, God or his human channel or both may deploy human terms to communicate His message, His nature, His character and His works. And they are supernatural and metaphysical. This is what is technically called "anthropomorphism". It, therefore, "attributes human form, shape or other characteristics" to God. And when the reference is to his emotion, it is termed, 'anthropopathism' (Keith Schoville, 2018, Caird, 1980). Caird asserts that "...the transcendent does not come to finite creatures unmediated, but always under cover of something else..." (p.177). In the same vein, anthropomorphic imagery comes in handy to mediate God to finite beings linguistically speaking. He identifies five common anthropomorphic metaphors used "to express God's relationship with his worshippers as king/subject, judge/litigant, husband/wife, father/child, master/servant" (p.177).
Conclusion
Anthropomorphism is an attempt to pigeon-hole the cognition of God by man who has limited intelligence. Anthropomorphic terms constitute expressive form of semiotising God as having tangible parts as humans. They are signs pointing to the actual meaning, which is that God is a Spirit Being; transcendental. And this is beyond man's cognition. Only God is perfect in knowledge, wisdom, understanding and discernment. He knows all His creatures inside out. Man cannot know everything nor can he totally comprehend God. He can only know God or know about Him to that extent which God reveals Himself, the anthropomorphic language, notwithstanding. This is because in flesh man is limited. This attempt to 'embody' God contradicts His very nature. And any God that is known in all His ramifications ceases to be God. So, even though God gave man language and glimpses of Himself, man cannot fully comprehend God, for His ways are past finding. However, anthropomorphism in the scriptures helps mortal man to figure out a personal, holy, almighty, invisible and infinite God- a God who dwells in heaven and yet in human body, rather than in earthly building, and who inhabits the praise or His people. He is, indeed, an enigma, really a stumbling block to the logical and academic mind. Biblical literacy, therefore, tasks us to go beyond logic to the metaphysical realm, which demands that we understand the spiritual in anthropomorphic terms.
References
Abrahams, M. H. & Harpham, G. G. (2012). A glossary of Literary Terms (10h ed.). U.S.A. Wadsworth Cengage Learning. Bailey, K.E (2008). Jesus through Middle Eastern Eyes: Cultural Studies in the Gospels. Downers Grove, Illinois: IVP Academic. Berkouwer, G. C. (1972). The return of Christ. Grand Rapids, Michigan: William B. Eerdman Publishing Company. Blair, S. C. (n.d.). The Chaplain's Report. Journeys in Faith and Work Blog at Wordpress.com (Retrieved on 01/18/2022). Caird, G. B. (1980). The language and imagery of the Bible. London: Gerald, Duckworth & Co/Ltd. Chandler, D. Semiotics: The Basics 2nd edn. Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge. Durgin, C. (n.d.). Are you Bible-Literate? Confer for Hebraic Thought, King's College, New York. https://hebraicthought.org.bible-lit... (Retrieved 01/26/2022. Ellison, H. L. (1979). The Theology of the Old Testament. In New International Bible Commentary: Based on the NIV. Grand Rapids, Michigan; Zondervan, PP. 55-59. Hammond, T.C. (1968). In Understanding, Be Men: A Handbook of Christian Doctrine Revised and Edited by David F. Wright. London: Inter-Varsity Press. Kendall, R. T. (1996). Understanding Theology. Fearn, Ross-shire. Ladd, G. E. (1987). A Theology of the New Testament. Grand Rapids, Michigan: William B. Eerdmans. Langer, S. K. (2014). Expressiveness. In Timothy Naylor, Patricia Dansby & the English Department (Compilers) The San Jacinto Reader 2nd Edition. Pearson Custom Publishing, 135-141 Lloyd-Jones, M. (2003). Great Doctrines of the Bible: God the Father, God the Son vol.1. Wheatney: Crossway Books. McKeon, R. (2001). (Ed). The Basic Works of Aristotle. With an introduction by C.D.C. Reeve. (Originally published by Random House in 1941). New York: The Modern Library. Mikolaski, S. J. (1979). The Theology of the New Testament. in The Expositor's Bible Commentary with the New International Version, Vol. 1. Grand Rapid, Michigan: Zondervan pp.462-464 Mikolaski, S. J. (1978). The Theology of the New Testament. In The Expositor's Bible Michigan: Commentary Zondervan, with pp. the 457-480 New International Version. Grand Rapids, Nelson, F. (2011). The Importance of Biblical Literacy for the Next Generation (Paper presented at Children Desiring God Conference: Holding Fast to the Word of Truth) Retrieved 02/10/22. New International Version of the Holy Bible. Grand Rapids, Michigan. Zondervan Publishing House, 1986. Schoville, K. (2018). http://www.biblestudytools.com/dictionary/anthropomorphism/ retrieved 14 November. SparksNotes.com/plus 2022. Donne's Poetry. Retrieved on 24 September, 2022 Strauss, D. F. M., "God in Himself' and “God as Revealed to Us”: The Impact of Substance Concept".Acta Theologica 2010 30(1): 123-144 1015-87580 UV/UFS http://www.uovs.ac.za/actatheologica (1979). The Holy Bible Authorised King James, Nashville: Holman Bible Publishers. Tozer,A. W. (2003). The Attributes of God: Deeper into the Father's Heart, Vol. 2. Kaduna: Evangel Publishers Ltd.
The Diaspora and the Future of African Literature
By: Sule E. EgyaEmail: info@caleljournal.com
Tel: 08063695290
Abstract
In this paper, I interrogate the efflorescence of African diasporic literature, insisting that, much as it is welcomed and praised, it has negative implications for knowledge production on the continent. The premise for this conclusion is that literary works produced abroad, especially in North America and Europe, undergo certain material processes of production that undermine the realities of Africa. America and Europe, constituting a powerful literary capital, do demand a certain way of seeing, reading, and interpreting Africa. Their gaze invariably sanctions the kind of literature produced and the kind of Africa imagined, which in most cases is at variance with the reality of the continent. Thus, African diasporic literary works have the tendency to become a discursive formation with a powerful ideological positioning that throws up more questions than answers about Africa. I critically engage Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's short story "Jumping Monkey Hills" to illustrate the material processes of production that undermine knowledge production about and in Africa. Herself one of the most celebrated diasporic writers today, her story, I contend, is an ironic instrument for interrogating her works and those of others who are in the process of producing Africa for the Western gaze.
Keywords
Diaspora, Literature, Diasporic, Continent, Africa, Diasporisation
Introduction
At the turn of the twenty-first century, African literature, especially Nigerian literature, has experienced a boost in diasporic writing. No doubt, the diasporic genre has enriched our literature, in that some of the biggest names in African literature today emerged as diasporic writers, and their voices continue to be shaped by the diasporic condition. I refer to writers such as Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Vamba Sherif, Aminatta Forna, Yvonne Adhiambo Owuor, Biyavanga Wainaina, Helon Habila, Doreen Baingana, Leila Aboulela, Sefi Atta, Teju Cole, among others. Most of them live permanently abroad, some travel home now and then, but they are evidently concerned about the fate of their continent. But their living abroad throws up a crucial question of geo-determinism: how does their living outside Africa determines the kind of literature they write? (Julien 17-28). This question needs answering, and urgently too, especially in the context of knowledge assessment. We often hear statements such as the best of African writing today is produced outside the continent in the sense that conventional publishing and processes of knowledge productions are extremely weak on the continent (Adesanmi and Dunton 7-19; Shercliff 10-12).
Content
Expectedly, the diasporic turn is receiving critical attention through theoretical and analytical categories such as migration, transnationalism, multiculturalism, deterritorialisation, globalisation, hybridity, identity formation, among others. Most of the studies of diasporic literary and cultural production, especially those done in the west (see Okpewho and Nkiru's The New African Diaspora, Cajetan and Taylor's African Migration Narratives), often foreground how diasporisation has enriched global literary writing and scholarship, although it is obvious that what is often seen as “global" is what appeals to the Western literary capital. But other scholars (Graham Huggan; Eileen Julien 667-700, Amatoritsero Ede 112-129) have also been critical of the diasporic turn especially in the ways in which it exoticises, singularises and reduces African literature to a single story (to echo Adichie) in the West, and undermines literary production in Africa. While admitting the benefits of the diasporic turn to African literature, I would like to share my critical thought on it. I interrogate the diasporic condition from the perspective of knowledge production in Africa, wondering to what extent the diasporic turn has helped or harmed literary production at home. I am strongly of the view that the production of African literature and knowledge in the diaspora, much as some scholars praise and pose it as the best of African epistemology, has a negative consequence, one that affects both the version of literature produced abroad and the one produced at home. Although the diaspora has existed since slave trade or colonialism, I take the migration phase of the late twentieth century as the diasporic turn with which I am concerned. I use the Nigerian experience as a point of reference. My analytical reference is to a short story by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, perhaps the most celebrated African diasporic writer today. Reading her "Jumping Monkey Hill" I make the point, among others, that the Western legitimising machineries which enable and validate African literary production in the diaspora subtly manipulate the direction of African literature in a way many would consider as negative. Consequently, conteinporary African writers are confronted with a dilemma that, on the one hand, denies them an opportunity to get properly published at home; and, on the other, frustrates their desire to tell what they think is the authentic African story (contentious as the notion of authenticity is), not one mediated by the Western protocols for worlding continental particularities. Herself an example of a worlded or glabalised literary mind, Adichie ironically offers us a view with which we can rethink the notionof the diasporic mode ifAfrica is to fully decolonise itself and gain epistemological freedom.
Conclusion
My main argument has been that the diasporisation of African literature, much as it is praised in the present time, has its negative consequences on African knowledge production. The premise here is that creative writers are involved in fashioning African epistemological system, and as such the knowledge contained in their literary works about Africa can project the continent. For writers based outside the continent, or living on the continent but patronising Western publishers, what they produce of Africa needs interrogating. This is because they are put under pressures by the publishing protocols of other continents, especially the West. Knowledge production in Africa can only attain epistemological confidence and freedom if machineries and protocols for literary and cultural productions are based on the continent. Contentious as this conclusion may be, it remains one of the crucial methods with which Africa can attain full decolonisation, which is a panacea for the kind of development the continent needs to favourably conmpete with other continents of the world.
References
Adesanmi, Pius & Chris Dunton. "Nigeria's Third Generation Writing: Historiography and Preliminary Theoretical Considerations."English in Africa, vol. 32, no. 1, 2005, pp. 7-19. Adewale, Toyin. "Introduction." 25 New Nigerian Poets, edited by Toyin Adewale. Ishmael Reed Publishing, 2000, pp. iii-v. Adichie, Chimamanda Ngozi. The Thing around Your Neck. Lagos: Farafina, 2009. Azuah, Unoma. "Of Phases and Faces: Unoma Azuah Engages Sefi Atta and Chika Unigwe," Research in African Literatures, vol. 39, no. 2, 2008, pp. 108-116. Diala, Isidore. "Esiaba Irobi: Poetry at the Margins." African Migration Narratives: Politics, Race, and Space, edited by Cajetan Iheka and Jack Taylor, Rochester University Press, 2018, pp. 256-278. Ede, Amatoritsero. "Narrative Moment and Self-Anthropologizing Discourse." Research in African Literatures, vol. 46, no.3, 2015, pp.112-129. Huggan, Graham. The Postcolonial Exotic: Marketing the Margins. Routledge, 2001. Ibironke, Olabode. "African Writers Challenge Conventions of Postcolonial Literary History." Rethinking African Cultural Production, edited by Frieda Ekotto and Kenneth W. Harrow. Indiana UP, 2015, pp. 29-51. Iheka, Cajetan and Jack Taylor. "Introduction: the Migration Turn in African Cultural Productions." African Migration Narratives: Politics, Race, and Space, edited by Cajetan Iheka and Jack Taylor, Rochester University Press, 2018, pp. 1- 18. Julien, Eileen. "The Critical Present: Where is 'African Literature'? Rethinking African Cultural Production, edited by Frieda Ekotto and Kenneth W. Harrow, Indiana University Press, 2015, pp. 17-28. "The Extroverted African Novel, Revisited: African Novels at Home, in the World." Jowrnal of African Cutural Studies. DOI:10.1080/13696815.2018.1468241. Mudimbe, Valentin-Yves. The Invention of Africa: Gnosis, Philosophy, and the Order of Knowledge. James Currey and Indiana UP, 1988. Oguibe, Olu. "Esiaba Irobi: The Tragedy of Exile," Syncretic Arenas: Essays on Postcolonial African Drama and Theatre for Esiaba Irobi, edited by Isidore Diala, Brill, 2014, pp. 1-19. Ojo-Ade, Femi. Exile at Home. International Publishers, 1998. Okpewho, Isidore. "Introduction: Can We 'Go Home Again?" The New African Diaspora, edited by Isidore Okpewho & Nkiru Nzegwu, Indiana University Press, 2009, pp. 3-30. Olaniyan, Tejumola. "African Cultural Studies: Of Travels, Accents, and Epistemologies." Rethinking African Cultural Production, edited by Frieda Ekotto and Kenneth W. Harrow, Indiana University Press, 2015, pp. 94-108. Osofisan, Femi. "An Experience of Publishing in Africa.” The African Writers' Handbook, edited by James Gibbs and Jack Mapanje, Africa Books Collective, 1999, pp. 32-35. Shercliff, Emma. "African Publishing in the Twenty-first Century." Wasafiri, vol. 31, no. 4, 2018, pp. 10-12. Soyinka, Wole. You Must Set Forth at Dawn: a Memoir. Random House, 2007. Zeleza, Paul Tiyambe. "Diaspora Dialogues: Engagements between Africa and Its Diasporas." The New African Diaspora, edited Isidore Okpewho & Nkiru Nzegwu, Indiana University Press, 2009, pp
African Literature, the English language, and Emerging Diasporas: A Keynote Address
Ogo A. Ofuani
Vol. 11, 2020
African Literature, the English language, and Emerging Diasporas: A Keynote Address
By: Ogo A. OfuaniEmail: ofuaniogo@gmail.com
Tel: 08063695290
Abstract
The theme of our conference, to me, has five key words and phrases, namely: African, literature, the English language, emerging and Diasporas. The first four seem reasonably familiar, as I will show, and only Diasporas begins to sound confounding and to require further explanation. But how familiar are the first four? African is an adjective of geographical provenance that refers to the geographical continental mass that we all are used to and many of us here belong in. It is traditionally divided into four regions: North Africa, or the Maghreb, includes Egypt, Tunisia, Algeria, Libya and other countries; Southern Africa includes Zimbabwe, Angola, Namibia, South Africa and Lesotho; Kenya, Uganda, Malawi, Mozambique, Tanzania and others make up East Africa; and Nigeria, Ghana, Togo, Senegal and others constitute West Africa. These constitute the four geographical points of our beloved continent.
Keywords
African, literature, the English language, emerging and Diasporas
Introduction
Literature is the verbalisation of human experience using language. If taken with its adjective, "African," "African literature" would ordinarily refer to the disparate oral and written productions of numerous poets, raconteurs, singers, novelists, dramatists and so on that richly populate the continent, and have produced works and artefacts in African and non-African languages. We no longer have to prove that African literature exists, as was wont to be the case in the fifties, sixties and even the seventies in the twentieth century, when many writers strove to answer the question, "What is African literature?" and to define and explain "African literature" (Sample: Chinweizu, Jemie & Madubuike, 1980; Egudu, 1977; Moore, 1962; Ogungbesan, 1979; Roscoe, 1977; Wauthier1978; and White & Couzens, 1984).
Content
The current narrative is that there are, at least, three generations of African writers across the continent. The first generation include, among many others, Amos Tutuola, Thomas Mofolo, Leopold Sedar Senghor, Zeke Mphahlele, Sol T. Plaatje, Chinua Achebe, Wole Soyinka, Christopher Okigbo, J.P. Clark-Bekederemo, Ayi Kwei Armah, Ngugi wa Thiong'o, Okot p'Bitek, Taban lo Liyong, Jared Angira, Leslie Ogundipe, Zulu Sofola, Ola Rotimi, Olu Obafemi, la Guma, Nadine Gordimer, Dennis Brutus, Peter Abrahams, Bessie Head, Alex Sembene Ousmane, Kofi Awoonor, Lenrie Peters, and Buchi Emechata. The second generation include Niyi Osundare, Femi Osofisan, Ben Okri, Tanure Ojaide, Ahmoudou Kourouma, Harry Garuba, Ezenwa-Ohacto, Chinyere Okafor, third Tess Akaeke-Onwueme, generation Akachi Adimora-Ezeigbo, Wumi Raji, and others. The century: makes one think of writers beginning to write in the 21*h Simi Bedford, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Chris Abani, Segun Afolabi, Sefi Atta, Teju Cole, Helon Habila, Okey Ndibe, Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani, Chigozie and Chika Obioma, Ike Oguine, Irenosen Okojie, Helen Oyeyemi, Taiye Selasi & Unigwe (See, for instance, Adesanmi & Dunton, 2005, 2008; Ofuani "generationalisation" Okwechime, 2007). However, Emmanuel & Aboh (2015) reject the generations above of Nigerian literature. The names sampled in the three be overlaps because are an insignificant scratch on the surface as there are bound to world literatures.
Conclusion
We commenced our address by drawing attention, in very many words, to the problems of defining, identifying, classifying and documenting Diasporas. As our address progressed, it became obvious that, whether in the Bible, in historical documents, and in economic treatises, the term Diasporas has very many different significations. It also became clear that literature, African literature, attempts, in diverse fictional and imaginary formats, to present a realistic picture of the lives of the peoples of the different cosmological configurations they depict. We saw, for instance, how empirical studies have analysed the phenomena called Diasporas in the real space of the countries affected directly or indirectly. We see, too, that these emerging discourses, or responses, are very clearly related to the fictional reality of the worlds that their personae create in fictional creations. Whether this is in Niyi Osundare's City without People: The Katrina Poems, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's Americanah, Teju Cole's Open City (2014), Taiye Selasi's Ghana Must Go (2013), or Sarah Ladipo Manyika's Like a Mule Bringing Ice Cream to the Sun. Our point is that Africans, and Nigerians, and the rest of the world, for that matter, have experienced Diasporas. Their literary creations, from the Bible, through the Romantic literature of John Keats, to the more recent creations of African (and Nigerian) writers of all generations, have foregrounded and made prominent their different and, most often, divergent perspectives of human experience and reality.
References
Achebe, Chinua. No Longer at Ease. Ibadan: Heinemann, 1958. Adamek, Tayo. "The African Diaspora - What is it?" https://www.yukonyouth.com/the-african-diaspora-what-is-it/ Feb 15, 2018 Adesanmi, Pius, & Chris Dunton. "Nigeria's Third Generation Writing: Historiography and Preliminary Theoretical Considerations." English in Africa 32.1 (2005): 7-19. "Everything Good is Raining: Provisional Notes on the Nigerian Novel of the Third Generation." Research in African Literatures 39.2 (2008): vii-xii. Adichie, Chimamanda Ngozi. Americanah. Lagos: Kachifo Limited/ Farafina Imprint, 2013. Butler, Kim. "Defining Diaspora, Refining a Diaspora." Diaspora 10.2 (2001): 189-219. Chinweizu, Onwuchekwa Jemie, & Ihechukwu Madubuike. Toward the Colonization of African Literature. Volume One: African Fiction and Poetry and their Critics. Enugu: Fourth Dimension, 1980. Cole, Teju. Open City. London: Faber & Faber, 2012. Egudu, Romanus N. Four West African Poets. New York: Nok, 1977. Emecheta, Buchi. In the Ditch. London: Allison & Busby, 1972. Second Class Citizen. London: Allison & Busby, 1974. Emmanuel, Ima, & Romanus Aboh. “A Re-assessment of Generationalisations in Nigerian Literature: The Generationalisations Palaver." Okike: an African journal of New Writing 53 (2015): 143-164. Feldner, Maximilian. "Exploring the Limitations of Afropolitanism in Taiye Selasi's Ghana Must Go (2013).” Narrating the New African Diaspora: 21st Century Nigerian Literature in Context. London: Palgrave Maximillan, 2019. Imonlega, Ebehi Igho. Evenfall. Benin City: March Publishers, 2017. Kenny, Kevin. "10 things to understand about diaspora."s Diaspora: A Very Short Introduction. http://global.oup.com/academic/product/diaspora-a-very-short-introduction9780199858583 Ассessed 17/11/2019. Also Diaspora: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: OUP, 2013. Longley, Robert. "What is Diaspora? Definition and Examples". https://www.thouhtsco.com/diaspora-definition-4684331?print>. May 08, 2019. Manyika, Sarah Ladipo. Like a Mule Bringing Ice Cream to the Sun. London: Cassava Republic, 2016. Moore, Gerald. Seven African Writers. London, OUP, 1962. Ofuani, Ogo A., & Okey E. Okwechime. "Nigerian Women's Poetry: А Developing Tradition."
Linguistic Parallelism in Mariama Ba's So Long A Letter
By: Oby NnamaniEmail: info@caleljournal.com
Tel: 08063695290
Abstract
So Long a Letter as the title implies is a letter written by Ramatoulaye to a bosom friend, Aissatou. In the novel, Ramatoulaye recounts the sad details of her unsuccessful marriage to Modou Fall and her subsequent attempt to survive as a single parent. It is a story laden with pain and bitterness. In an attempt to capture this effectively, Mariama Ba does not depend solely on the conventional language code. She goes a step further to weave her language into unique patterns which adequately convey this sad mood to her readers. The linguistic technique Ba employs to achieve this purpose is known as linguistic parallelism. Kofi Yankson provides a definition of this vital subject.
Keywords
Linguistics, Parallelism, Friend, Bosom, Conventional
Introduction
By linguistic parallelism we mean the use of pattern repetition in a literary text for a particular stylistic effect. Parallelism operates at the three levels of linguistic organisation. At the phonological level, pattern congruity stress may take the form of alliteration; internal or end rhyme; or isochronity in two or more structures. At the semantic level, lexical items that occur in the same grammatical slot may be either related synonymously or anonymously (14).
Content
Let us now see how Linguistic Parallelism is harnessed for stylistic effect in So Long a Letter. The entire novel is a self-stripping exercise undertaken by Ramatoulaye. In the first passage for analysis, Mariama Ba establishes a only basis for this self-disclosure. Aissatou and Ramatoulaye are not childhood friends but are women who are forced to bring up their children alone because of their separation from their husbands. Hear Mariama her: Ba uses form and language to capture this affinity in destiny. The two adverbs yesterday and today are in paradigmatic relationship with each other. They are synonymously related under the general feature/ + time/. / + Time /. Similarly the two past participles divorced and widowed are related synonymously under the general feature / - husband. The literary significance of this pattern of language on the text is that form and language have been used to reinforce the message of the text. The correspondence inherent in the two lines above is reflection of the similarity in the plight of both women. a Another use of linguistic parallelism is exemplified when Ramatoulaye tries to avert her mind from her immediate sorrow by thinking of other people faced with graver misfortunes.
Conclusion
The analysis of the three selected passages from Mariama Ba's So Long a Letter reveals how patterns of language in the form of linguistic parallelism are functional to the understanding of Ba's view of betrayal in marriage and family institutions. While the normal code of language performs the primary function of telling, the manipulated parallel structures assist the reader to get at the very pulse of the main character and indeed the novel. a In the three extracts discussed in this paper, parallelism serves three main purposes. Firstly phonological parallelism chiming - lends musical quality to the text. Secondly, syntactic and lexical parallelism serves the purpose of driving home the theme by placing it at the forefront of the reader's consciousness. And finally linguistic parallelism represents the creative artist's search within the confining walls of the language code for an appropriate term to express the inexpressible. These, in sum, are the literary significance of the use of linguistic parallelism in Mariama Ba's So Long a Letter.
References
Ba, Mariama. So Long a Letter. Ibadan: New Horn Press, 1980. Eliot, T. S. Four Quartets, Burnt Northon: Faber and Faber 1959 Fowler, R (ed). Essays on Style and language. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul Ltd., 1969. Leech Geoffrey. A Linguistic Guide to Poetry. London: Longman's Publishers, 1969. Widdowson, H. G. Stylistics and the Teaching ofLiterature. London: Longman Publishers Ltd, 1975. Teaching Language in Communication. London: Longman Publishers, 1978. Yankson, K. E. An Introduction to Literary Stylistics, Obosi: Pacific Publishers, 1987.
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