A PRAGMATIC ANALYSIS OF CHOICE OF LANGUAGE USED IN ADVERTISEMENT BILLBOARDS IN EBONYI STATE

A LEXICO-SEMANTIC ANALYSIS OF CHIMAMANDA NGOZI ADICHIE’S HALF OF A YELLOW SUN

ABSTRACT

This study is a lexico-semantic analysis of Half of a Yellow Sun (ọkara nke a odo anyanwụ). The aim of this study is to identify the organization and breakdown of detected lexical items, the differences and similarities in lexical semantic structure cross-linguistically and the relationship of lexical meaning to sentence meaning and syntax in HOAYS. Achieving this may be a feat of insurmountable tete a tete analysis using some debuting or re-appearing tools in the entire cologne Adichie had confidently portrayed in this novel. Comprehensive but more scrupulous reviews related to this feat/study was also visualized and acquired for the less supplemented but well nourished desire to set this study’s aim ablaze. This study had chosen HOAYS since not much had really been done towards the Lexico-semantic analysis of Adichie’s award winning novel. Some candid chapters were randomly analyzed using contextual sentences or phrases to portray Adichie’s narrative. At the end, the predominant devices found out to be used by Chimamanda are Compound sentences followed by Compound-complex sentences, Parenthetical expression, Italics, Transliteration and Code-mixing. It is then recommended that other young writers should adopt Chimamanda’s style since it improves the vigour of one’s writing. However, the style of a writer albeit creative may pose a challenge to readers. This study attempts a linguistic stylistic analysis of Chimamanda Adichie’s Half of a Yellow Sun with the aim of identifying some of the linguistic features the writer used and to understand the cultural and historical ideology behind the texts as well as appreciating her style.

INTRODUCTION

Language in its complex form has been a guiding tool or a convention structure used to interact or present suggestions and verbal expression of one’s mind. There are vehemently several ways one would and could express his/her ideals and ideas either using sounds, symbols as long as they are accepted as a Language form by those at the receiving end (other speakers and language users).

According to Lyons, Languages are: ‘The principal systems of communication used by particular groups of human beings within the particular society (Linguistic community) of which they are members’. Language, however, as a sole inheritance of humans have been used in so many ways in our society hence the delving of analysis of reputable and upcoming linguists into the analysis of the complexity of language(s) such as morphology, semantics, phonology, domestic discourse (dodi) and syntax as well as their employed uses (e.g Kakava, 2000; Odebunmi, 2003; Odebunmi, 2006; Odebunmi, 2007; Oni and Osunbade, 2009; Wallace, 2012).

Lexical semantics (also known as lexical semantics), is a subfield of linguistic semantics. The units of analysis in lexical semantics are lexical units which include not only words but also sub-words or sub-units such as affixes and even compound words and phrases. Lexical units make up the catalogue of words in a language, the lexicon. Lexical semantics looks at how the meaning of the lexical units correlates with the structure of the language or syntax. This is referred to as syntax-semantic interface (Pustejovsky, 1995).

The study of lexical semantics looks at:

The classification and decomposition of lexical items.

The differences and similarities in lexical semantic structures cross-linguistically.

The relationship of lexical meaning to sentence meaning and syntax.

Lexical items contain information about category (lexical and syntactic), form and meaning. The semantics related to these categories then relate to each lexical item in the lexicon (Loos et al., 2004) Lexical items can also be semantically classified based on whether their meanings are derived from single lexical units or from their surrounding environment. However, Leech and Short’s (2007) analytical checklist is used to breakdown randomly selected stylistic features into three categories, lexical, grammatical and context.

Lexical items participate in regular patterns of association with each other. Some relations between lexical items include hyponymy, hypernymy, synonymy and antonymy, as well as homonymy.

Hyponym and hypernym

Hyponym and hypernym refers to a relationship between a general term and the more specific terms that fall under the category of the general term. For example, the colors red, green, blue and yellow are hyponyms. They fall under the general term of color, which is the hypernym. Lexical units, also referred to as syntactic atoms, can stand alone such as in the case of root words or parts of compound words or they necessarily attach to other units such as prefixes and suffixes do. The former are called free morphemes and the latter bound morphemes (Di Sciullo and Williams, 1987). They fall into a narrow range of meanings (semantic fields) and can combine with each other to generate new meanings. This study connects the dots into investigating inherent and available comprehension to dodias well as a lexico-semantic discus as a form of narrative indeed to comparatively highlight the daily interactive activities of the everyday family sceneries, in Adichie’s Half of a Yellow Sun (NB: We use HYS).

Our choice of Adichie is motivated by a number of factors. Apart from being the new voice of Nigerian literature whose novels have attracted several awards, especially in the contemporary literary scene (suggesting that she is an embodiment of intellectualism who has gained a measure of success that eludes many writers), there is a close relationship between her writing and her world, her society and life (see Adebayo 1995: 64); and her works bear relevance to the espousal of the domestic experiences of the characters among other significant issues that the novels mirror in the depiction of the totality of people’s experiences in the post-colonial Nigeria.

This study data consisted of interactive dialogue between randomly selected casts/characters from the selected text (HYS). Some of the domestic discourses in the novels were sampled and analyzed for occurrences of implicatures, using insights from Gricean Pragmatics. Apart from enhancing a better understanding of implicit meanings of conversational discourse in the texts, the study is also significant for shifting literature on pragmatics forward, and providing a new theoretical insight into the interpretation and understanding of contemporary African fiction.

The graphic representation of sounds (speech sounds) on paper is called writing. Writing is done in different ways for various purposes and by different people. It is because of this that the study of stylistics as well as the lexical semantics becomes necessary and an important area to both linguists and critics. According to Syal and Jindal (2010), “Stylistics is that branch of linguistics which takes the language of literary texts as its object of study”. Stylistics is the study of various styles used in literary and non – literary texts which distinguishes the uniqueness of a writer from another. Style is a pattern of linguistic features that distinguish a piece of writing from another; it also distinguishes the personality of an author from another. No wonder the French scholar Buffon said “Style is the Man”. Syal and Jindal (2010) opined that:
Out of the many types of variations that occur in language, it is the variation in literary style that is most complex, and thus offers unlimited scope for linguistic analysis.

Stylistics is very important in Literature because each literary text represents an individual’s use of language which reflects his unique personality, thoughts and style. The study of literary styles shows the linguistics repertoire of a writer. We often hear of the style of Armah; the style of Milton and the simplicity that is associated with Wordsworth. Stylistics looks at the choice of words, the sentence patterns and figurative usage of words by a writer. Figurative expressions which are sometimes called “Rhetorical Expression” helps a writer to be vivid in his description of events and ideas.
According to Ezugu (2011), Figures of speech, sometimes called “rhetorical” figures are expressions, phrases or words used to convey more than their ordinary literal meaning. These figures, if properly used, not only enrich but strengthen and give life to our writing. Some of the features used in a achieving style include:

Diction, figurative usage and various sentence structures such as:

Parenthetical Expressions: These are words, clauses or even another sentence inserted at the middle or end of a sentence such as after thoughts.

Compound Sentence: A compound sentence is one which consists of three or more simple sentences joined together by a coordinating conjunction or semicolon.

Complex Sentence: A complex sentence consists of two parts; the main clause and one or more subordinate clauses.

Compound complex sentence: This consists of two or more main clauses and one or more subordinate clause.

Other features of style include:
Graphology: The analysis of handwriting to interpret character and personality. Aspects of which are “Italics, Bold sentence” and capitalization”.

Code Switching: A system of switching from one linguistic code to another.

Code – Mixing: A systematic way of mixing two or more linguistics codes in an utterance or writing.

Transliteration: This is the literal translation of the syntactic structure of a language into another language.

Although many works have been done on stylistics, little work has been done on lexico-semantic style used in Chimamanda Adichie’s Half of a Yellow Sun which was published in 2006. Most of the works done were based on general analysis of how her works reflect the realities of the society.

This study aims at an identification of the predominant lexico-seminar analysis devices used in Chimamanda Adichie’s HOAYS and the effect these devices have in the overall evaluation of the novel. This study will enable readers identify the predominant stylistic devices used by Chimamanda Adichie in her novel HOAYS as well as the effect achieved by the use of these devices. The study will, in addition, encourage writers to adopt the style of Chimamanda Adichie in their writing. Finally, it will provide materials for researchers in this field. This investigation is limited to an analysis of the predominant lexico-semantic stylistic devices employed in Chimamanda Adichie’s novel HOAYS. The novel comprises four parts namely: PART ONE: The Early Sixties; PART TWO: The Late Sixties; Part Three: The Early Sixties’ PART FOUR: The late sixties. These four parts are made up of a total number of the thirty seven (37) chapters but this study has randomly selected directions from random chapters for analysis. The study analysis is restricted to such stylistic devices as compound sentences; compound complex sentences, italics, code – mixing, parenthetical expression and transliteration which the researcher encountered several times in the course of reading the novel.

LEXICO-SEMANTIC ANALYSIS OF ADICHIE’S HOAYS

The following are some of the stylistic devices used by Adichie in HOAYS to capture the activities in this text.

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LANGUAGE AND NATIONAL DEVELOPMENT: CHALLENGES AND IMPEDIMENTS IN A MULTILINGUAL SOCIETY

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.0     BACKGROUND TO THE STUDY

Human Beings are social animals and language is an instrument of the society which is acculturated into a given society. Through the instrumentality of language, man identifies and make finding about his environment.

Thus, language, in the hand of man preserves, conserves, transmits and appropriates functions and does so across space and time, thereby enabling him to overcome those physical limitations to human endeavours and achievements.

Armed with his linguistic tool, man appropriates all that others before him have acquired, persuades and convince others to his line of reasoning and action, deceives and dominates others, controls his entire environment and exploits whatever is found therein, and also achieves as much as it is within his capacity.

The problems of man’s development and growth become increasingly complex and intricate when the individual is not monolingual and mono-cultural. The failure of any development programme becomes greater and more dismal when the individual has got to operate within a multilingual and multi-cultural community. It is these problems which Nigeria encounters as a result of her multilingual and multi-cultural composition that this research intends to highlight. At the end of the exercise solutions will be proffered in order to help solve the challenges we have as country.

1.1     STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM

Inspite of all efforts to unite and develop society such as Nigeria politically, economically and socially, the state remains an under developed state. This is due to her multilingual and multicultural nature. Language pluralism has generated a lot of problems in the state. Prominent among them include;

The communication gap between the various people, each sees his own language as important, thus creating an impediment to commerce and industry. A warped sense of nationhood whereby genuine unity becomes difficult due to suspicion as various ethnic groups pursue selfish and sectional interests. Picking a national language that is acceptable to the people therefore, becomes difficult.

1.2    HYPOTHESIS

The hypotheses of study are:

• Language is a hindrance to national unity
• Language is an instrument for National development
• How is language diversity a deciding factor toward national development?

1.3       AIMS OF THE STUDY

The aim of the research is to discover the effect of linguistic plurality in a given multi-ethnic society like Nigeria, particularly in Nasarawa State where I live and the University of Abuja where I school. It also intends to prove the success or failure of any society. And if language diversity has helped in national growth and development, such as economic, social, political, religious growth, and educational advancement of mankind. The study also hopes to attempt in resolving the issue of “lingua Franca”

1.4   SCOPE AND DELIMITATION OF THE STUDY

The scope of the research is on the use of language to achieve national development especially in a multilingual environment which is delimited to the sociolinguistics of language and society.

1.5   SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY

The importance of this study is that it will showcase how to promote ethnic harmony among all linguistically and ethnically diverse communities in Nigeria. The study is also significant because it will contribute to many of the existing works in this regard especially for both academic and social utilization respectively. It is also significant because it will provide the picture of the issue in question from the perspective of a university community.

1.6   METHODOLOGY OF THE STUDY

The methodology of the research is empirical in nature, in which the researcher intends to administer questionnaire as well as an observation within the chosen area of the study being University of Abuja, FCT.

The respondents to be administered with the questionnaire are selected through single random selection method of one out of every ten respondents in the delimited areas of the research.

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Summary of the Novel

Trafficked is a novel that deals with the issues of human trade, that is, women trafficking through a series of reminiscences. Nneoma, the leading female character in the novel shows the trauma that goes with human trafficking; the deceit, the lies, the cons, and the slavery or servitude that goes hand in hand with women trafficking because they all end up as sex objects to men, in order words, the pimps use them “the trafficked” as prostitutes.

The novel which is credited with twenty-nine chapters has each chapter unfolding the stories and circumstances of each of the characters portrayed in the novel. Nneoma after a slight hiccup in her relationship with Ofomata decided to leave her home town in Ihite-Agu and upon hearing from a friend that there were teaching vacancies in the United Kingdom and that she would be introduced to the agents in charge, Nneoma went straight to her friend and they both traveled down to Lagos to meet with the agents. Six of them were chosen (all ladies between the ages of seventeen and twenty) and were flown out of the country under the guise that a teaching job awaits them. Nneoma expresses her joy and thank her ‘Chi’ at this junction but little was she to know that danger lay ahead of her. However, before they were flown out of the country they were made to swear an oath before a shrine and that, “…if we disregard the terms of the agreement, disobey them or cut links without settling our debt….” (Pg: 128).

Only when Nneoma got to Italy did she know she had been trafficked. After a period of six years of been trafficked she was caught and deported back to Nigeria where the government had made provisions for the empowerment of trafficked women through the establishment of Oasis Youth Centre for Skills Development (OYCSD) her she stayed another two years before she could summon the courage to go back home to see her parents at Ihite-Agu. During her two years stay at the centre she was trained as a tailor and she was able to get an admission into the University of Lagos to study a teaching course. The novelist through this novel is able to skillfully and tactically bring to the attention of the reader the issue of female trafficking and the inhumanity of man towards the women, the need for women to be more educated and enlightened about the issue of trafficking and the dangers attached to it, as well as understanding the process of trafficking.

At the centre of the novel is a consideration for the place and effect of parental love in the life of a child. Nneoma parents are an example in this case. Nneoma father in the person of Ogukwe Eke loved his daughter deeply and he believed that it was the spirit of his dead mother that dwells in Nneoma. Nneoma grew up a loved and cherished child in a peaceful home in which she was the third child of four children. Ogukwe who was a clerk at the Internal Revenue Department in the Ministry of Finance regarded himself as a family man, having done his best to train his children in school and provide for them and their mother. Adaeze, his wife, made more money than he does by the nature of her work which is trading and brought home more income than he did. But these things were not voiced,

“…For a woman’s wealth belonged to her husband and she could lay no claim to it at any time in her lifetime or even after she died…”

The novelist here subtly voiced out the plight of the woman in the Igbo culture which is also obtainable in other cultures as well where the woman cannot claim anything fro herself even after she laboured to acquire the wealth, she has no say in its spending, giving rise to the voiceless nature of the woman which society and culture had imposed upon her.

However, upon Nneoma disappearance from home and her elder sister Hannah religious fanaticism which led her to the arms of Prophet Elias who abused and mistreated her and encouraged her in committing outrageous crimes against Ihite-Agu shrines, completely embarrassing the family, Ogukwe still showed his love for his daughters by receiving them back with opened arms and not overtly criticizing them. The novelist through this portrayal of parental love is able to show that love stabilizes a lot of atrocities and erases pains, loneliness, and sorrow as Ogukwe and Adaeze showed their daughters that they were willing to forgive and forget.

“Every day belongs to the thief but one day belongs to the owner of the house” (Pg: 145)

This is the case with Ofomata who was regularly besieged by Dr Komolafe, a lecturer at the University of Lagos who takes pleasure in extorting money and other forms of things from his students, not only Dr Komolafe but some other lecturers in the campus was reported and had been asked to resign without much publicity being drawn to the case after a two hundred level male student set a trap for him. Ofomata, who happened to be the love of Nneoma before she fled their home town, was used by the novelist to explore the angle of corruption and bribery even in the academic world and the trauma some lecturers make students go through all in the name of passing them in the various courses they handle.

The novel goes on to tell the readers the post-traumatic implication which trafficking has on its victims and how Nneoma grew to be weary of men and most things they stand for. Through the eyes of Nneoma we are able to understand the extent of female degradation and through her plight we are able to form in our minds the question as to whether prostitution is a form of male violence against women?

Whether therefore, prostitution is a form of male violence and show of domination on women or not, the fact still remains that women from all parts of the world are being trafficked everyday to serve as prostitutes in most European countries with the lure of a better life and some are just outright kidnapping.

In all, the novel Trafficked, is a book full of the show of love, culture and tradition, education, human trafficking, and a host of other issues which has culminated together to give the work a sense of identity which is common with most of Akachi Adimora Ezeigbo works. Akachi with this book therefore has been able to portray and illuminate more on the issue of human trafficking and other elementary issues that keep a society together.Download Full Material-N5000