Awka Journal of Linguistics and Languages

L’idéologie de la femme noire dans La Marmite de Koka Mbala de Guy Menga et Trois prétendants…un mari d’Oyono Mbia

Lilian Dooshima Dugguh — 2016-06-20

La présentation de la femme noire dans les œuvres romanesques africaines apparait d’être un thème qui occupe beaucoup d’écrivains. C’est une question qui se porte sur la place de la femme dans la société de la race noire suite à l’entendement de la l’infériorité de la femme vis-à-vis l’homme dans la société. Ceci suscite beaucoup de débats parmi les chercheurs voyant les points de vus variés qu’ils tiennent à l’égard du sujet. En nous tirant des exemples de certaines œuvres littéraires de la base africaine particulièrement La Marmite de Koka Mbala de Guy Menga et Trois prétendants…un mari d’Oyono Mbia, cette communication vise à critiquer et dénoncer la place de la femme dans la société où la subjectivité, la domination, l’exploitation abusive et la marginalisation sont toutes encouragées. Cependant, par la voie de cette critique, nous voyons une nouvelle prise de conscience chez la femme africaine. Une femme combattant qui se combatte contre les croyances fausses croyances de la culture qui servent comme tremplin de sa domination et de tout ce qui empêche son développement dans la société.

Poetry as language and ideological tool for environmental agitation: A stylistic study of Tanure Ojaide and Benji Egede’s poetry

Samuel Edem — 2016-06-20

Previous studies on Tanure Ojaide and Benji Egede’s poetry have concentrated on literary and linguistic features without paying adequate attention on the roles of linguistic-stylistic features that are crucial for the interpretation and description of their poetic discourse. This paper, therefore, examines poetry as language and ideological tool for environmental agitation in Tanure Ojaide’s The Endless Song, The Beauty I Have Seen and Benji Egede’s Testament of Hope and Songs of Fuellessness. The study reveals that poetry is a language and as well an ideological weapon aimed at unfolding the socio-political decadent of their time. From the poetic analysis, the study highlights the nature of discourse in the selected poetry in relation to social contexts, projecting what is communicated and how it is communicated. The theoretical approach adopted for this study is Halliday’s Systemic Functional Linguistic model which is concerned with the identification, description and explanation of textual features in a given discourse situation.

Indigenous musical instruments: Media of communication in Nigerian culture

Mabel Ugochi Okpara — 2016-06-20

This paper is aimed at giving an insight into some of the Nigerian musical instruments, their classifications, musical functions, mode of construction as well as their relevance as media of communication. The yearning in people’s hearts in recent times for the preservation of the Nigerian rich cultural heritage led to this research. Many indigenous Nigerian musical instruments communicate in languages which performers or dancers understand. This is to say that indigenous instruments such as the ‘qja’ (Igbo flute) and ‘iya-ilu’ (Yoruba talking drum) speak non verbal languages which only the performers understand; some of these instruments such as ‘qja’ (Igbo flute), and ‘iya ilu’ (Yoruba talking drum) sing praises to heroes and great achievers in the community which are clearly understood by the recipients. This research was conducted through library research and participatory observation. It is designed to enlighten the audience on the role of these indigenous musical instruments a means of communication in Nigerian culture, and the method of constructing them. It is believed that this work will add to the compendium of knowledge on Nigerian culture as well as enlighten the teaming unemployed Nigerian youths on how to construct these instruments and make a living out of this.

Affixes in Idemili and ?nicha

Amaka Yvonne Okafor — 2016-06-20

This article studies the morphological variations between Idemili and ?n?cha dialects of the Igbo language. The dialects are classified as the East Niger Group of Dialects (ENGD), Nwaozuzu (2008). The article identifies the morphological variations of affixes in Idemili and ?n?cha dialects under perfective, past tense, present participle, present progressive and negative constructions. As the authors are indigenous speakers of Igbo, the method of participatory observation and audio recording of data from different age groups of the native speakers of the Idemili and ?n?cha varieties were used for data collection; while descriptive analysis was applied for data analysis. From the findings, Idemili uses the affix ‘-na’ to indicate perfective marker, while ?n?cha uses ‘-go’. In indicating past tense, Idemili and ?n?cha use the same past tense marker ‘-l?’ or ‘-li’ as the case may be. Moreover, Idemili uses ‘-h?’ to indicate negation while ?n?cha uses ‘-r?’ for negation. Idemili and ?n?cha use ‘-ba’ to indicate present progressive construction. It is also observed that both dialects also use 'e-' and 'a-' respectively in portraying present participle. The article has established that notwithstanding that Idemili and ?n?cha dialects belong to one group of dialects, they have some differences in their morphological processes.

Graphic devices as signallers of meaning in Osundare’s Dialogue with my country

Isaiah Aluya — 2016-06-20

This paper focuses on graphic signs as signallers of meaning in Osundare’s ‘Dialogue with my country’. It has been observed that Osundare’s literary work mirrors Nigeria’s social and economic challenges of grave concern, as well as political issues of national importance. Therefore, the study examines how the essayist has employed language replete with a host of graphic markers to achieve his intentions pertaining to the essays’ thematic thrusts and forms. The data for analysis constitute the following essays from ‘Dialogue with my country’:“Tears for my country”, “Murderers be not proud”, “Truth of my politics”, “Abominations”, “When government steals”, “Leave the lawmakers alone”, “The unthinkable”, “Mad times” and “Scars of the season (I and II)”. The selected essays were analysed based on the principles of Halliday’s systemic functional linguistics (SFL). The analysis reveals that the following graphic symbols: capitalisation; italicisation and punctuations (i.e. exclamation, question mark, ellipsis dots; and the comma etc.,) are generously foregrounded and artistically deployed to communicate social meaning. Also, it is observed that the use of graphological devices prominent in the selected essays exhibits Osundare’s artistic potentials, his freedom in compositional pattern as well as highlights the meanings he makes with these devices. It therefore shows that a writer’s manipulation of these devices can either obscure or reveal meaning.

A contrastive analysis of English and Igbo syllable structures and its teaching implications

Osondu C. Unegbu — 2016-06-20

This work investigated the differences in the syllable structures of English and Igbo languages, and their pedagogic implications. This was achieved by administering an oral interview test on Twenty five (25) respondents randomly selected from Comprehensive Development Secondary School Owerri. A passage was given to them to read, and emphasis was on auditory perception of sounds in relation to the English syllable structure. From the passage, ten (10) tasks (words), which comprise initial and final consonant clusters of two to four, were singled out for observation. It was found out that consonant clusters, whether initial or final, present a major learning difficulty to Igbo secondary school learners in their internalization of the English syllable structure. This was evident from the result obtained which is 7%. It is interesting to note that as the clusters increase from two, three to four, so the level of difficulty in pronouncing the words. That is why number 6 task /stju:dnts/, which has the highest number of clusters (three initial and four final), constituted the highest level of difficulty. The behaviorist theoretical framework which emphasizes learning through habit formation brought about by imitation, reinforcement and repetition as propounded by scholars like Skinner, Corder, etc. was adopted. The research concluded that English language teachers in Igbo land and elsewhere should engage in a Contrastive Linguistic Analysis (CLA) in order to improve on their teaching. Secondly, the Government and other stakeholders in education should encourage the production of pedagogical grammar books, which are based on a thorough CLA of the Native Languages (NLs) and the Target Languages (TLs). This will not only improve pedagogy, but help English as Second Language Learners (ESL) learners/teachers to overcome most teaching and learning difficulties.

The varieties and features of Nigerian English today

Kenneth Uzor Eze — 2016-06-20

The domestication and nativization of spoken English in a multi-ethnic and multi-linguistic environment like Nigeria has given rise to the varieties of Nigerian English as affected by mother tongue interference notwithstanding the effort that is being made towards preserving and advancing the Standard English. This paper discusses the extant position of English as a world language and its advent in Nigeria. It goes on to examine the status as well as the constitutional provisions of it in Nigeria. These varieties of Nigerian English and the common features are discussed. Thus, Nigerian English is today one of the Englishes existing as a result of the interaction between the foreign English and the local languages in Nigeria. This paper concludes that these varieties of Nigerian English has come to stay and is now part and parcel of the Nigerian people and so should be integrated into the education and other sectors of the Nigerian society.