Archive for April 2018
A GRAPHOLOGICAL ANALYSIS OF SELECTED POEMS IN SEGUN ADEKOYA’S CHAMELEON AND CHIMERAS
KAYODE, EMMANUEL SUNDAY
EGL/2013/207
A LONG ESSAY SUBMITTED TO THE DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH, FACULTY OF ARTS, OBAFEMI AWOLOWO UNIVERSITY, ILE-IFE, OSUN STATE, NIGERIA IN PARTIAL FULFILMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE AWARD OF BACHELOR OF ARTS (B. A.) DEGREE IN ENGLISH LANGUAGE
APRIL 2018
CERTIFICATION
This is to certify that this research was carried out by Kayode Emmanuel Sunday under my supervision in the Department of English, Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU), Ile- Ife.
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DR. A. ADEGOJU DATE
SUPERVISOR
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PROF O. OKUNOYE DATE
HEAD OF DEPARTMENT
DEDICATION
This project is dedicated to Almighty God for His grace over me and those who surround me.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
All praises and adoration are due to Almighty God who in His infinite grace, mercy and favour has been guiding me right from my day one on this earth to the present moment. His grace on me and those who surround me has been quite unquantifiable and what I should really do is thank the great God heartily forevermore.
Having thanked God and placed Him first, I deem it fit to extend my appreciation to those people whom God has used as mechanisms for my success up to this level. Dr. Yemi Adegoju, my fatherly supervisor, should make the first entry on my list of appreciation. There were times when I had the conceptions that you are hateful and ever harsh to your students on purpose. In fact, some of my colleagues said with shudder that I was in soup when I told them you are my supervisor. It was until I was able to frequent your office as a supervisee that I had change in my prior conceptions that you are a Pan-Africanist, disciplined academically and love to instruct for one to be useful effectively for societies for good. How apt in this regard is the Yoruba saying that it is in pain and throb that one goes through the process of beautifying laceration which would eventually be a source of joy. It is still surprising you could speak with me in a jovial manner on serious matters. You would at times call me “Kay baba” and that always makes me smile for real. Thanks so much my Oga, for establishing the familiarity and for instructing us all masterly and adequately from day one.
How much appreciation is ever sufficient for one’s parents who have looked after one right from pregnancy come this far? Words will never be able to appreciate you, Chief Joseph Sunday Kayode and Mrs. Elizabeth Kayode and my step mother, Mrs. Monisola Kayode for everything you have done in my existence. I thank you all for giving birth to me, bringing me up, instilling morality in me, and sending me to school to be useful. May the Almighty God give you the opportunity to have the brightest harvest of your toil and moil on me!
Thank you once again, Dr. Yemi Adegoju. May this acknowledgement never end if the names of those other lecturers who have made positive impact on me for the last four years have not appeared yet in this business of appreciation! The list in this regard should include: Prof Babalola, Prof Segun Adekoya, Dr. Mosobalaje, Dr. Akande, Dr. Faleye, Aya Faleye, Prof Atoye, Dr. Mrs. Hunsu, Prof Adeoti, Dr. Raheem, Dr. Muhammad Ademilokun, Dr. Coker, Dr. Omigbule, Dr. Bamigbade, Dr. Ayeomoni and Mr. Babalola.
I should also not forget the support of my elder brothers and sisters such as Oluwagbenga (RIP), Femi, Nike, Bunmi, Kemi, Ayodeji, Olumide, Olamilekan and Oluwatosin. I specially thank you for your financial assistance from the first day we met, Mr. Tayo Ogunsola and Mr. Gbenga Awodire; may God enrich your purse the more henceforth!
The onus is on me to acknowledge those organisations within and beyond OAU, Ile-Ife which made positive change in my life while I was on campus. These organisations are: Association of Campus Journalists Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile Ife (ACJ OAU ILE IFE) (under which I was the Assistant General Secretary for one academic session), OAU Peeps (where I was the General Secretary for one academic session), OAU; Association of Nigerian Authors (ANA), Creative Writers’ Association of Nigeria, Osun State Chapter (CWAN) (as Osun State Coordinator yet) and Pengicians worldwide.
Finally, I appreciate you my wonderful friends back home who were there during tough times: Ayomikun, Tayo, Sulaiman, Hafeez, Abiodun. I love you all my friends, whom I met on campus: Alexander, Ebo, Marcus, Victor, Gbemisola, Raphael, Tolu, Oluwadaminiola, Quadri and Ibrahim. Thanks for being there, when there is food and when there is no food, thanks for making my four years entertaining and academically adventurous. I thank Moyosoreoluwa for being there passionately. May God bless you all always! The greatest part of this appreciation should go to those whom I did not remember to mention in this long essay.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
CERTIFICATION…………………………………………………………………..………….….i
DEDICATION………………………………………………………………………….…………ii
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS…………..…………………………………………………………..iii
TABLE OF CONTENTS…………………………………………………………………………iv
ABSTRACT…………………………………………………………………….…………………v
CHAPTER ONE: GENERAL INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background to the Study……………………………………………………..………………..1
1.2 An Overview of Chameleon and Chimeras………………………….………………………..3
1.3 Statement of the Problem………………………………………….…………………………..5
1.4 Aim and Objectives of the Study………………………………….…………………………..5
1.5 Methodology…………………………………………………….…………………………….5
1.6 Theoretical Framework………………………………………….…………………………….6
1.7 Segun Adekoya: The Poet and His Works……………………...……………….………….....8
1.8 Plan of the Study………………………………………………………………………….…...8
CHAPTER TWO: LITERATURE REVIEW
2.1 Introduction…………………………………………………………………..……………....10
2.2 Style and Language…………………………………………………...………...……………10
2.2.1 Style and Meaning (or Content)………………………………………...…...…………..…11
2.2.1.1 Style and Meaning as One: a Monist Point of View……………………….………….…12
2.2.1.2 Style and Meaning as Two Separate Entities: a Dualist Point of View………………….13
2.2.1.3 Meaning as Function of Style: the New Pluralist View………………………………….14
2.2.2 Stylistics……………………………………………………….…………………………...16
2.2.2.1 Stages in Stylistic Analysis………………………….………………………………….19
2.2.2.2 The Literary Interpretation of Poetry………………………………………………….....19
2.3 The Language of Poetry………………………………………….…………………………..22
2.4 Graphology as a Level of Analysis…….…………………………………………………….25
2.5 Summary……………………………………………………………………………………..26
CHAPTER THREE: ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSION
3.1 Introduction…….……………………………………………………………………………27
3.2 Graphological Analysis………………………………………………………………………27
3.2.1 Use of Interjection………………………………………………………………………….27
3.2.2 Use of Italicisation…………………………………………………………………………31
3.2.3 Use of Capitalisation……………………………………………………….………………38
3.2.4 Use of Hyphenation………………………………………………………………………..41
3.2.5 Graphological Deviation…………………………………………………………………...44
3.3 Summary...…………………………………………………………………………………...46
CHAPTER FOUR: SUMMARY, FINDINGS AND CONCLUSION
4.1 Introduction…………………………………………………………………………………..47
4.2 Summary of the Findings…..……………………………………………………………..….47
4.3 Conclusion…………………………………………………………………………………...48
4.4 Suggestions for Further Studies……………………………………………………………..48
ABSTRACT
The objectives of this study were to identify the motifs in the selected poems; to describe and analyse the graphological features which project the motifs; and evaluate the place of graphology as a significant level of analysis in poetic appreciation. With the view to realising the objectives of the research, the study was aimed at investigating how Segun Adekoya deploys graphological features in the selected poems to aid the overall meaning of his message(s).
The method adopted for the data for this study was qualitative method as against quantitative method. The primary data were the selected poems in Segun Adekoya's ‘Chameleon and Chimeras’ while the secondary data used are the data order than the primary data in the study. The theory considered for the research was Ferdinand de Saussure's Paradigmatic (and Syntagmatic axes) model as adopted by M. A. K. Halliday in his Systemic Functional Linguistics.
It was revealed, based on the findings that conclusion has been reached that the primary motive of Segun Adekoya in 'Chameleon and Chimeras' is to bring about social reform by adequately painting the picture of the contemporary Nigerian society, using various rhetorical and graphetic means to influence the common man in Nigeria to bring about the change.
In conclusion, the study had painstakingly identified the motifs in the selected poems of the collection; the description and the analysis of the graphological features which project the motifs had been done justice for the understanding of the author's intentions and the evaluation of the place of graphology as a significant level of analysis in poetic appreciation had been effected rigorously.
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background to the Study
Style of language use in stylistics cannot be studied scientifically outside language itself. Thus, that brings us to what is meant by language. Language in precision means the means of communication among living entities. It has though been defined broadly by different scholars around the world. Chomsky (1957) cited in Amuseghan (1997), for instance that, “Language is a set of specific universal principles which are intrinsic properties of the human mind and form parts of our genetic endowment. Language can thus be defined as an arbitrary system of conventional (spoken or written) symbols by means of which human beings as members of social group communicate.” In linguistics phraseology, style is in connection with language use. Lawal (1997: 26) sees style as a general way of doing things, such as when a person’s style of dressing is referred to and this can either be positive or otherwise. This sense of style is neutral, non-valued or broad. The study of stylistics is important to every other kind of writing especially literature. It has been assumed by some linguists that stylistics is a pattern of linguistic features distinguishing categories of writing from another. It is on these bases that we will follow in the stylistic concept of deviation at the level of graphology as deployed in selected poems from Segun Adekoya’s anthology ‘Chameleon and Chimera.’
The stylistic analysis of texts is quite systematised. This is due to the fact that the sole purpose of doing any form of analysis is to comprehend the contextual items of information which could be implicit in a particular piece. Due to that, there are different levels of analysis under stylistics and they basically are: Graphology (the study of what is written. For instance, as a way of learning about somebody’s character or style of his writings: contracted forms, commas, stops, question marks etc.), Phonology (the study of sound system of a language and also describes formal rules of pronunciation. It focuses on analysing sound patterns, utterance of different words and forming systemic use of sound in language in order to know about the meaning, ideas, focuses and idiosyncratic behaviours in a text. Its devices are alliteration, repetition, consonance, assonance, etc.), Grammatical level (it is also referred to as syntactic level. It includes grammar, parts of speech, clauses and phrases used in writing), Lexical (has to do with the total amount of vocabulary items and use of words in a piece of text. It includes the study of individual words and idioms in different linguistic contexts), Semantics (is the study of meanings in a language. Meanings are judged through the analysis of context, social and individual point of views. Pragmatics is also a branch of semantics which allows us to find out the meanings to be judged by the reader through the environment created by the poet in a poem) and Discourse Analysis (which is concerned with the study of text language and conversations. When we concentrate in linguistic description, we focus on accurate representation of form and meaning within the text).
As there is language specific for every occasion so there, is for the art of poetry as well, and it is technically referred to as poetic language. It is different from ordinary language –the words and phrases we use in our everyday lives. While the goal of using ordinary language is simply to communicate a message, the goal of using poetic language is to convey a deeper meaning, feeling or image to one’s audience. It purposefully includes imagery and figurative language to create this effect. The language of poetry, in brevity, is ever condensed unlike the rest genres of literature: drama and prose, whose languages are verbose. Poetic language refers to a more artistic form of ordinary language.
Leech (2014) believes that graphology goes beyond orthography. According to him, “It refers to the whole system of writing, punctuation, spacing as well as paragraphing”. Moreover, Alabi (2007) has the opinion that “among all other features graphology also entails the foregrounding of quotation marks, full stop, colon, semi colon, comma, hyphens, ellipses, capitalisation, spacing, question marks etc.” More so, graphological analytic approach deals with the foregrounding of paralinguistic devices as Adegoju (2008: 60), painstakingly emphasises that “Graphology concerns such matters as spelling, capitalisation, hyphenation, a text’s layout, lists, font choices, underlining, italisation, paragraphing, colour, etc. which all create different kinds of impact, some of which will cause the reader to reflect differently.” Accordingly, Jimoh (2013) states that, “a poet normally strives to recapture the original spoken situation of a poem in the written form through the various choices he makes in the management and presentation of the graphic features such as lineation, orthography and punctuation devices like dash, hyphenation, capitalisation, caption, and so on. It is therefore essential that this graphological approach, through linguistic signal(s) stretch past literal grounds to affect people’s lives for better.
Consequently, graphology is necessary in the study of style and meaning. Graphological level of analysis serves as leverage for imposing pragmatic meanings on ordinary linguistic items by drawing the attention of the audience to the specific words in use by the author. It serves as a useful tool to the poet as one of the motifs in bringing the poet’s intention into reality within the context of the author’s text. It aids critics to be able to comprehend and then indicate the psychological state at the time of writing, or evaluating personality characteristics.
1.2 An Overview of Chameleon and Chimeras
To any discerning reader, even, from the title of the collection, ‘Chameleon and Chimeras’, the wary reader would be able to comprehend some facts about the poetic motifs in the text and as well as the intended message(s) of the poet. From the picturesque representations of the two images –Chameleon and Chimeras – the reader would be able to infer all sorts of negative notions within the figment the reader’s imagination. Chameleon is famous for its sluggishness like a slug, it is inconsistent in the colour of its body and several other odd characteristics. Chimeras on the other hand is an ugly beast which looks like a devouring lion, with a horrible snake to its tail. These in short connote horror, menace and ills in the society, politically, economically, psychologically, socially and the like. Succinctly, the collection could be referred to as everything as per the waywardness of the society put in precision, in just 147 pages.
Each of the poem opens cogent factors and necessary hidden facts about the art of human existence – individual freedom and choice – and how the decisions and the choices made by an entity could in turn affect the whole family tree of human beings, by extension. Right from the first poem, titled “Agemo” – “Chameleon, a symbol of regal power, fertility, deity, death cult and the paradox of continuity and change in perpetuity in Ijebuland” as explicated by the poet himself. The beauty and the beastie creatures are made reflected in almost every lineation of the poetic collection. The poem in particular shows that there is no way it can be conceivable for a society or even a community to be without the two. Nonetheless, in the case of this text, the beastie part is the victorious while beauty suffers consequences of decisions it did not decide. According to the this messages in this masterpiece, time, which only waits for nobody, keeps wasting with little or no changes attained in the society.
Additionally, there are inferential documentations to times past in order for the reader to reason deep and to juxtapose. The text makes inferences to historical documentations, locally and globally. There are instances of Yoruba legends and myths discursively discussed about alongside Greek’s and Rome’s own. The language encourages musicality through profuse use of pun. There is the effusive use of alliteration. Through metaphor, metaphorical remarks literally adopted make the collection much more detailed with multi-dimensional effects.
1.3 Statement of the Problem
Most stylistic (and of cause literary) analyses of Segun Adekoya poetry have concentrated on the poet’s other old publications or collections such as Here and There, Inner Eye, Guinea Bites and Sahel Blues and Homage to Paradox. Nevertheless, there is a dearth of study on his Chameleon and Chimeras whose publication was in 2011. It is nevertheless with the view to interpreting selected poems in Segun Adekoya’s ‘Chameleon and Chimeras’ poetic collection from a scientific point of view that this research has come into being to use the context therein the selected poems to specifically see-through the problems in the political system in Nigeria and proffer solutions to them by suggesting solutions.
1.4 Aim and Objectives of the Study
The aim of the study is to investigate how Segun Adekoya deploys graphological features in the selected poems to aid the overall meaning of his message(s).
The objectives of the study are to
(i) identify the motifs in the selected poems;
(ii) describe and analyse the graphological features which project the motifs; and
(iii) evaluate the place of graphology as a significant level of analysis in poetic appreciation.
1.5 Methodology
The main source of data for this research is ‘Chameleon and Chimeras’, a collection of poetry by Segun Adekoya published in 2011. The method used in the long essay is such through which the general statements could be made about the publication as a whole. Since all the poems in the publication would be too cumbersome for this study, there is the need to find representatives for them and this is the reason seven poems which can conveniently represent the intended messages in the collection as a whole were selected. Seven poems from the whole collection are examined. These include Kongi, Osun – Bembe music in the background, Udje Dancer, Ogunba, Agbowo, A signifying tourist and Agemo. The exact number of poems in the collection is sixteen. Albeit, the sixteen poems are divided into three categories and each category is with a title. The first is Tributes contains six poems, Fancies contains seven poems and Transitions contains seven poems; all totaling sixteen poems.
The analytical methods used in this study is descriptive and interpretative. In the analysis, each extract will be cited by making reference to the specific lines of the lineation or stanza(s) of the selected poems. The selected poems will be analysed using Michael Alexander Kirkwood Halliday’s Systemic Functional Linguistics applicable concepts.
The data analysis would be divided into two parts. In the first part, selection, analysing and description distinctively prominent or linguistically foregrounded elements motivatedly injected into the poem by the author would be done. These elements given prominence shall be analysed and described using M.A.K Halliday’s Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL). The second part would deal with qualitative analyses, where the importance of the foregrounded elements shall be merged in similitude with the happenings in Nigerian society.
1.6 Theoretical Framework
The linguistic theoretical framework used for the analyses in the essay is that of M. A. K. Halliday’s Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL). Halliday’s Systemic Functional Linguistics regards text or an instance of language use by making choice a core concept of his theory, where choice in the language system is between meanings rather than structures. This was possible in his concept through the adoption of Ferdinand De Saussure’s Syntagmatic and Pradigmatic axes in the theoretical analyses of texts. M.A.K Halliday foregrounded the Paradigmatic axis in his concept which has to do with the analyses of the context of texts based on paradigm of choice of words by the author.
In continuation, Halliday himself has successfully, through Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL), transformed views about language by making choice the necessary means for analysis, where choice would only be the language system and not structure to the analyst. His most popular work, Introduction to Functional Grammar (1985/1994/2004), shifted the focus of linguistics out of the “syntactic age” into what we might now call the semiotic age.
In furtherance, Halliday’s Systemic Functional Linguistic through the adoption of Ferdinand de Saussure’s Paradigmatic and Syntagmatic axes model, regards the text or an instance of language use as having three major meta-functions: textual function, ideational function, and interpersonal function. Textual function describes language as being an input in making texts as the text is seen as whole entity comprising bits of language and having a unity within itself; ideational function refers to the function language performs in representing ideas; while the interpersonal function describes language as a means of meaning making between an addressee and an addresser. According to Trask (1993), systemicists constantly ask the following questions: 1. What is this writer (or speaker) trying to do? 2. What linguistic devices are available to help him (or her) do it and on what basis does he or she make his choices? Recognising their importance in a stylistic description of texts, we are guided by these questions in accounting for the total significance of the discourse under this study.
1.7 Segun Adekoya: The Poet and His Works
Segun Adekoya is a writer who is also a Professor who teaches and specialises in African Literature in the department of English, faculty of arts, Obafemi Awolowo University Ile-Ife, Nigeria. The exceptional writer has, with his intellectual proficiency, life experience and literary exposure through intense researches, contributed or give back to his immediate society by far via his literary prowess. The same dazzling-prolific writer and juggernaut in the literary world, in this third millennium has even tried with his style, to stretch his themes to the nooks and crannies of other parts of the world, apart from his immediate society. He is a proud ‘Ijebu man’ who has exerted incredible efforts to canonise his home town by making epical and apical references to the same, through his use of his hometown’s maxims and paradoxes.
In furtherance, Segun Adekoya, a dramatic presenter, is the author of Chameleon and Chimeras whose publication was in 2011. He is as well the author of the Inner Eye: An Oriel on Wole Soyinka’s Poetry. His third collection of poems, Guinea Bites and Sahel Blues was published by Kraft Books in 2004, Current linguistics and literary issues in digital communication in the globalised age in 2014, Here and there in 2012, You could be a missionary in 1995, Homage to paradox in 2008, Death and the King’s Horseman: Soyinka’s Defense of Yoruba Cosmology and Culture. The bard is also responsible for the writing and saw to the publication of noteworthy articles such as Soyinka, art, the artist and the interpreters, Malcochon and the definition of man, A picture of the Big Apple – Article… He is married and has two children.
1.8 Plan of the Study
This work focuses on Segun Adekoya’s ‘Chameleon and Chimeras’ which was published in 2011. The study aims at exploring the selected poems in the publication. The first chapter is the general introduction of the work; the second chapter is the review of literature where we examine and trace the state of knowledge on the topic under discussion; the third chapter features the analyses of the selected poems while the fourth chapter captures our summary, findings and conclusions.
CHAPTER TWO
LITERATURE REVIEW
2.1 Introduction
In this chapter, we look at the state of knowledge in this area of research. We look at basic terms in the field that will directly or indirectly help our understanding of the arguments put forward in the essay.
2.2 Style and Language: Evaluative or Descriptive?
Many definitions have been given by scholars in literary and in linguistic fields who in defining what it means in relation to language and literature have looked at it from one perspective to another. To Samuel Wesley, style is “the dress of thought” (Crystal: 2007: 66). Style in this sense refers to any linguistic form in which a meaning has been put. Jonathan Swift defines it as “proper words in proper places” (Crystal, ibid). In the definition, we can see that style is perceived to be appropriate linguistic form used in appropriate context, suggesting that when a linguistic form is not used in an appropriate context, it cannot be regarded as style. According to W.B. Yeats, style is “high breeding in words and in argument” (Crystal, ibid). This particular definition is in corroboration with that of Aristotle who saw style as the ornament adorning the plain use of language. In an attempt to delimit the definitions that literary critics, linguists, and writers have given to the concept of style into easily referable categories, scholars such as Enkvist (1964) have recognised roughly seven different perceptions of style and they are: Style as choice, Style as a set of collective characteristics, Style as use, Style as ornament, Style as adopted, Style as matter and manner and Style as deviation.
However, one needs to add that in all the conceptions of style above, the notion of style as choice is popular. This is attested to by Wales (1990) cited in MIKOV (2003):
“Clearly each author draws upon the general stock of the language in any given period; what makes style distinctive is the choice of items and their distribution and patterning.”
In another attempt to further categorise the definitions of the concept called style, Crystal (2007: 66) classifies them into two broad types: evaluative and descriptive. He defines style in the evaluative sense as “the features that make someone or something to stand out of an undistinguished background” while style in the descriptive sense is described as one which “lacks value judgement and simply describes the set of distinctive characteristics that identify objects, persons, periods or places.” We extract meanings out of a text, from a descriptive point of view so as to avoid evaluative assessments which may make our interpretation subjective. Style, according to Leech and Short (2007: 10), can manifest in both spoken and written, literary and non-literary varieties of language, but by tradition it is particularly associated with written literary text. This thus implies that style can be regarded as an instance of language use or variation in language use and can be taken, in a broad sense, as language, agreeing with Mikov (2003) that “Stylistic features are basically features of language, so style is, in one sense, synonymous with language (i.e. we can speak equally of the language of Ode to a Nightingale).”
2.2.1 Style and Meaning (or Content)
The second paradigm of the conception of style is the one between it and meaning. We have seen in 2.2 how style is conceived in relation to language, a manifestation of which it is. We shall now, therefore, look at its relationship with meaning or content. We have in chapter one defined language as a mode of communication serving as the haven for style. In brevity we could say that the relationship among language, style and meaning is that language could be regarded as a mode of communication, then style through meaning could be regarded as the variation of such mode.
To now focus on the primary concern of this unit, let us examine the basic conceptions of the relationship between meaning and style. These conceptions of style in relation to meaning are that style and meaning are the same (monism), that there is a glaring difference between meaning and style (dualism) and that meaning is just a function of style (pluralism). We shall go through these three conceptions and see which one would readily provide the background to our proposed treatment of style from a descriptive point of view.
2.2.1.1 Style and Meaning as One: a Monist Point of View
Monism is seen by theorists as “a point of view within metaphysics which argues that the variety of existing things in the universe are reducible to one substance or reality and therefore that the fundamental character of the universe is unity.” The conception of style and meaning as one is a monist (also organist) view of the relationship between style and meaning. It posits that style and meaning are inseparable, predicating this on the assumption that there is no way the style employed in the conveyance of a meaning would be changed that there would not be a corresponding change in the meaning expressed. Flaubert cited in Leech and Short (2007:13) that “It is like body and soul: form and content to me are one.” Following Leech (1987: 77): It has also been emphasised (and Jacobson is particularly insistent on this) that one function may be in a subordinate relation to another -such that, for example, an utterance which is dominantly conative like an advertisement or a political slogan – may be secondarily poetic. Within this framework, poetry (or literature...) is definable as that kind of text in which poetic function is dominant over others.
The monist argument from this juncture is that as we move from the first expression to the second and then to the third, there is a commensurate change in the meaning expressed. The further argument they often make is that since a change in what is regarded as style often brings about a proportionate change in the meaning expressed, then style and meaning must be the same. As a result of the fact mentioned above, some monists believe that there is only one style to conveying a meaning as a change in a style is necessarily the introduction of a new meaning. This is particularly noted in Short and Leech (2007: NP).
The above view of form and content as being the same thing has, however, met several criticisms from other scholars who believe such view to be too narrow. Osundare (2003: 10), for instance, opines: “However, the organist tend to carry their creed to a pathological extent when they argue that form cannot be separated, even for one single argumentative moment, from content.” It should be possible to contemplate and analyse the formal properties of a work of art without doing violence to the content. In summary, the monist view of the relationship between style and meaning is one which regards the two as being one and which is more convenient with poetry than prose, poetry being a genre which readily provides the validity for their argument.
2.2.1.2 Style and Meaning as Two Separate Entities: a Dualist Point of View
Another point of view of the relationship between meaning and style is the dualist view: that meaning and style are two different entities and that the latter could change when the former is held constant, relying on some transformational tools of grammar such as passivisation. The point here is that an idea is capable of being expressed in several ways and these ways are what we refer to as styles. This view is against the monist view that there is just a style for a meaning as any alteration in style brings about a new meaning; and is, more than the monist view, in line with the commonplace definition of style, agreeing with Leech and Shorts (1987:13) that some such separation is implied in the common definition of style as a “way of writing” or a “mode of expression”. This approach may be called dualist, because it rests on an assumed dualism in language, between form and meaning. Some other people refer to those who hold this view, instead of dualists, as ornatists. Dualism in philosophy is a theory that states that the universe is explicable only as a whole composed of two distinct and mutually irreducible elements.
It must be said that dualists approach to the concept of style, compared with the monists’ view, is more convenient with prose works where language is relatively less complex than in poetry. In summary, the dualist conception of style and content or meaning is one which holds that meaning and style are two separate entities and that a meaning can be expressed in more than one style.
2.2.1.3 Meaning as a Function of Style: the New Pluralist View
The pluralists, among whom M.A.K Halliday, B. Havrnek, etc. can be categorised, rather than look at style-meaning dichotomy from monist or dualist point of view, see meaning as a function of style. To them, the meaning that can be squeezed out of a given text is moulded by the linguistic style in which the text is carved. The pluralists often attempt to differentiate between various kinds of meaning and this they do relying heavily on the styles which brought such meanings into being. To them, language performs a number of different functions, and any piece of language is likely to be the result of choices made on different functional levels. Hence the pluralist is not content with the dualist’s division between ‘expression’ and ‘content’: he wants to distinguish various strands of meaning according to the various functions (Leech and Shorts: 2007). This is one of various differences pluralism maintains with dualism. Similarly it defers from monism in a respect that it does not treat style and meaning as the same thing; it only concentrates on how the style a speaker or writer employs helps perform different kinds of functions. Many scholars have identified various stylistic functions; a brief survey of those functions may help facilitate our understanding of this long essay. I. A. Richards for instance in his book, Practical Criticism published in 1929, distinguishes between four kinds of the functions of language. They are sense, feeling, tone and intention. Meaning as a function of language (style to be precise) refers to the meaning which language conveys; feeling refers to the emotion which language can be used to express; tone refers to the effect which language brings out of a listener (this may be willingness to do something); while intention is the function language performs as clear road into the individual mind. Jacobson (1961) cited in Leech and Short (ibid) however recognises six different functions: referential, emotive, conative, phatic, poetic, and metalinguistic.
In Adegbite’s (2006) words, he describes the function in which “the focus is on the person(s) addressed. Most typical of this function is the use of vocatives and imperatives to call the attention of another or requiring them to carry out some actions”; phatic function describes the fact that language is used to establish and maintain human relation; poetic functions relates to the fact that language can be a means through which we enjoy ourselves; while metalinguistic function of language describes the fact that language can describe itself; that is, language functions as a means of talking about itself. A more recently developed set of language functions than the two already mentioned is M. A. K. Halliday’s functional model. Halliday identified three major functions of language to be ideational function, textual function, and interpersonal function. The ideational function refers to the function of language as a bearer of ideas of whatever kind; the textual function refers to language as an ordered network of systems having its own structural patterning; while the interpersonal function describes language as a means of transaction between human beings. Though the three models identified and discussed may look overtly disparate, they have some features in common, which we will not attempt to discuss. Among the three models, Halliday’s seems the most widely used as well as the most effective. Leech and Short (ibid) recognise its effectiveness and resolved to take it as the perfect example of pluralism: “We shall also take Halliday’s model as our example of pluralism, because its application to language, and in particular to grammar, has been worked out in considerable detail.” For this reason, this study employs Halliday’s functional model in treating its data. Though there are other models of the functions of language (or style) such as that of B. Havrnek, we have discussed just the three models because of time and space.
Therefore, we have gone through a number of the various conceptions of style. We have traced its relationship with language and with meaning (or content), and have thus maintained that the study adopts the pluralist view. We have also studied it against language and declared that in this essay we treat it from the descriptive point of view rather than from the evaluative point of view.
2.2.2 Stylistics
Stylistics and the teaching of literature have their roots in the works of Widdowson (1975), Collie and Slater (1986), Carter (1983), Carter and Long (1987), Short (1983), Lazar (1993), however, as is noted by Simpson (2004) stylistics in the early twenty-first century is very much alive and well. Upon the exploration of texts (may it be literary or non-literary) by the utilisation of stylistics, Simpson (ibid: 3) says “this method of inquiry has an important reflexive capacity insofar as it can shed light on the very language system it derives from; it tells us about the ‘rules’ of language because it often explores texts where these rules are bent, distended or stretched to breaking point. Interest in language is always at the fore in contemporary stylistic analysis which is why you should never undertake to do stylistics unless you are interested in language”.
Stylistics is the study of styles found in particularly literary genres and in works of individual writers. It is a branch of applied linguistics concerned with the study of styles in texts, especially (but not exclusively) in literary works. According to Katie Wales in A Dictionary of Stylistics, 2nd ed. (Pearson 2001), “The goal of most stylistics is not simply to describe the formal features of texts for their own sake, but in order to relate literary effects to linguistic ‘causes’ where these are felt to be relevant.”
Stylistics has been considered “a developing and controversial field of study” (Crystal & Davy, 1969, vii) for several decades. The existing approaches to stylistic analysis are numerous and diverse, causing difficulties to a researcher striving to apply methods of stylistic analysis and to draw distinct lines of demarcation between them as aptly pointed out by Hoffmannova (1997: 5), stylistics is a field of study which is not highly interdisciplinary but also considerably eclectic.
Stylistics is traditionally regarded as a field of study where the methods of selecting and implementing linguistic, extra-linguistic or artistic expressive means and devices in the process of communication are studied. Stylistics, an offshoot of linguistics studies has different styles of language use. It is concerned with such recurrent pattern of linguistic features which characterises the style of a text. Such a style may belong to the individual, writers or group. The concept ‘stylistics’ was coined from the word ‘style’. Hence, it can be concluded that stylistics is a relevant part of this study as it mirrors the structure of the speaker’s linguistic style and internal characteristics of the speech.
According to Ayeomoni (2003), “stylistics can be described as linguistic study of different styles.” In linguistics, style is concerned with language use. Stylistics is the study of varieties of language whose properties position that language in context. Also, Stylistics is the study of style. Just as style can be viewed in several ways, so there are several different stylistic approaches; this variety in stylistics is due to the main influences of linguistics and literary criticism (MISSIKOVA, 2003).
In the discussion of texts, Stylistics gives greater claim to objectivity rather than subjectivity. It is objective because it is not influenced by the opinions or personality of the assessor. It describes technical aspects of the language of a text, such as grammatical structures and the use of this data in interpreting and analysing of a literary text (Kuolie, 2010). Stylistic approach to literary texts does not only involve linguistic textual analysis, but also encourages readers to interact with textual structure to infer meaning (Tutas, 2006).
It is an established fact that language gives wide latitude of choice, the total of it colonised by individual from the language repertoire make up his or her style. According to Bayode (2010), these choices are however determined by situation, that is each situation constrains the individual’s choice of linguistic features, for instance, the linguistic features used in say a highly formal context such as classroom lecture will be inappropriate in an informal linguistic interaction between two friends. Stylistics seeks to identify such features with the situation which has called forth their choice.
When one reads a work of art, one would want to know why the utterances are given the form they have, the various facts about vocabulary, the syntactic movement, sentence patterns and other linguistic aspects that contribute to the success of the work. At times, we are aware that a certain work tends to command a tone of urgency, animation, dejection or frustration. But the question that arises: how best can we decipher and describe the awareness. This requires one to be grounded in relevant linguistic techniques. So, both the linguistic tools employed by stylistics and the extra-linguistic explorations employed by literary criticism are necessary towards better analysis and explication of a work of art (Devardhi & Nelson, 2013).
2.2.2.1 Stages in Stylistic Analysis
Stylistic analysis in this essay involves three basic things: linguistic description, interpretation, and the relation between form (of language) and content (in the language). The question of how to go about the three and that of which one comes before another becomes pressing, demanding immediate answer. Several stylistic analysts have devised ways of doing stylistic analysis. In Leech (1969), for instance, Leech scans for stylistic features in a poem which corroborate with a specific term under discussion. In it, analyses are done before interpretation. In Short (1996) however, stylistic analysis takes a new dimension, Short provides the interpretation of a poem first and then proceeds to give the stylistic features in the poem that validate the intuitive interpretation. Later, Leach and Short (2007) argue that there is no logical starting point to stylistic analysis, stressing that we bring to a literary text simultaneously: our ability to respond to it as a literary work and our ability to observe its language. This is what obtains in Widdowson’s (ibid) analysis of Robert Frost’s ‘Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening’, where Widdowson does analysis and interpretation simultaneously and this is the method that we use for the analyses in this essay, ‘We thus conclude that stylistics is the middleman between language and literature; it is basically required to study it.’
2.2.2.2 The Literary Interpretation of Poetry
It is essential for us to try and mark out the dividing the line between Stylistics and Literary Criticism as concepts for the assessment of poetry (one of the genre of Literature). Following Enkvist (1964:6), linguistics (stylistics) and literary criticism have clashed on the territory of style. Both of them experiment on style, that is, they study the same object but from different perspectives. On the one hand, to literary critics, Adekoya (2012: 380) for instance opines that “a reader should seek to know what is communicated in a poem, how it is communicated and the value of what is communicated.” Let us pay attention to the three concerns of a reader of poetry outlined above by a literary critic. First, ‘what is communicated’ refers to the meaning a poem has, ‘how it is communicated’ implies the style which is employed, while “the value of what is communicated” is meant to mean the significance of the meaning of the poem in the social context in which it operates. Amuseghan (1997) on the other hand, asserts that ‘the purpose of stylistics is to explicate the connection between language use and function: expressiveness and informativeness. As it must have been clear from the simple but indirect comparison of the two definitions above, one from stylistics and the other from literary criticism, the two approaches have some things in common. For instance, the two approaches are bent on determining what meaning (what is understood in the first definition as ‘what is communicated’ and in the second as ‘informativeness’) is contained in a poem, how the meaning is communicated as well as the social context to which the poem is attached. They only defer when it comes to the matter of how the ‘what’ in the poem is said – style. While the literary critic can outrightly wow a poem and rubbish another based on how they are composed and their language use, and establish how such style has aesthetically enhanced the meaning of the poem and contributed to its literary success or do – a practice which lacks scientific justification — a stylistician would only go ahead and describe the linguistic features that signal the meaning (thematic preoccupation or the subject matter) of the poem.
Since the stylistician does not evaluate the style but only describes it, the results the stylistician gets are usually as reliable as the results got through experiments in the natural sciences. The difference between the two approaches lies in the different points of view they maintain on style. Style is seen in Wales (1991: 436) as variation in language use whether literary or non-literary and this means that in terms of style, stylisticians and literary critics are dealing with variation in language use. Previously in this essay, style has been grouped into two following Crystal (2007): style in the evaluative sense and style in the descriptive sense. The former belongs to literary criticism and this is why evaluative or intuitive judgments which lack empirical backup are often made on poetry and literature in general; whereas style is seen in a descriptive sense by linguists (stylisticians to be specific) who in the analysis of a text’s style use scientific method in such a way that the result got is as dependable as possible. In conclusion, while literary criticism will attempt the interpretation and evaluation of a poem (or a literary work) based on intuition, stylistics will do so based on intuition which is adequately validated through empirical description. Though it is not the primary purpose of this work to trace the ‘war’ between proponents of stylistics and those of literary criticism over time, a brief reference of it may do some good.
When linguists first began to probe into the language of literature with their scientific equipment, the actors at the other edge of the summit of style had a kind of paranoia that the linguists were waging a war to wipe them out of their terrain (Osundare, 2003). However, in the contemporary time, such misleading myth is fast disappearing and linguists have since the second half of the twentieth century begun to clamour for the accommodation of literary critics’ interests in stylistic analysis. Till today, stylisticians are in the practice of outlining the benefits the application of linguistic tools can give to the study of literature – the benefits being mainly objectivity and systematicity. Prominent among those who have done this is H.G. Widdowson who in 1975 wrote Stylistics and the Teaching of Literature.
Concerned with the same objective, Ayeomoni (2003) demonstrates the role of stylistics in the study of literature. Citing Awonuga (1988), Ayeomoni writes: “…one important advantage of stylistics to the study of literature is the opportunity it provides the reader to systematise his response to the various works of literature he has cause to study.” In corollary to this, Freeman (1970) cited in Ayeomoni (ibid) asserts that Linguistic style in literary criticism is a theoretical underpinning necessary to the understanding of literature as mathematics is to physics. Ayeomoni (ibid) therefore submits, “We thus conclude that stylistics is the middleman between language and literature; it is basically required to study it.” However, to Leech and Short (2007:13), they agree that “the aim of literary stylistics is to be more relational in a more interesting sense than that already mentioned: to relate the critic’s concern of aesthetic appreciation with the linguists concern of linguistic description. (We use the term appreciation to comprehend both critical evaluation and interpretation although it is with interpretation that stylistics is more directly concerned).
In the light of the above, the analysis of the selected poems are done in a manner that we respond to it first as a literary critic and then as a linguist. This means that we allow our intuitions to first pop up while we make rigorous experimentable linguistic descriptions to help scientify and objectify our conclusions. Though interpretation from a linguistic point of view is our major concern in this essay, we shall seek to briefly, where necessary, explore some aesthetic functions that the poems may contain. Doing this will, in the words of Shorts and Leech (ibid), make us to be more relational in our application of stylistics to Segun Adekoya’s Chameleon and Chimeras.
2.3 The Language of Poetry
At the first hand, Wordsworth hailed that poetry “should be written in the real language used by men”. By real language, Wordsworth implied the language that people in rural and countryside area used. However, he later added that a “certain colouring of emotion” is necessary to make the common language poetry-worthy. Further, Coleridge reacted to that notion by Wordsworth. To quote him exactly: "The principal object, then, which I proposed to myself in these poems was to choose incidents and situations from common life, and to relate or describe them, throughout, as far as was possible, in a selection of language really used by men; and, at the same time, to throw over them a certain colouring of imagination, where ordinary things should be presented to the mind in an unusual way; and, further, and above all, to make these incidents and situations interesting by tracing in them, truly though not ostentatiously, the primary laws of our nature: chiefly, as far as regards the manner in which we associate ideas in a state of excitement." Another important factor which need being recognised to aid understanding of the language of poetry is that even poetic language cannot be made to fall short of linguistics (the scientific study of human languages). Poetry is rendered in a language as a means of making the thoughts comprehensible to the other individual or audience. This is the reason, in explaining clearly poetic language, linguistics is first emphasised as primary for analysis when practical stylistic approach is defined by Carter (1995: 4) as a “process of literary text analysis which starts from a basic assumption that the primary interpretative procedures used in the reading of a literary text are linguistic procedures”. Practical stylistics analysis focuses on learning about language for literary purpose, the workings of language in literature and on developing the confidence to work systematically towards interpretations of literary texts.
The language of poetry is also referred to here as poetic language interchangeably and it is quite different from the ordinary language, everyday language. The poetic language is condensed while everyday language could be loose. But there is a meeting point between the language of poetry and the ordinary language. The language of poetry has its own language from the ordinary language. Poetic language is thus not a brand of the standard. This is not to deny the close connection between the two, which consists in the fact that, for poetry, the standard language is the background against which is reflected the esthetically intentional distortion of the linguistic components of the work, in other words, the intentional violation of the norm of the standard. Let us, for instance, visualise a work in which this distortion is carried out by the interpenetration of dialect speech with the standard; it is clear, then, that it is not the standard which is perceived as a distortion of the dialect, but the dialect as a distortion of the standard, even when the dialect is quantitatively preponderant. The violation of the norm of the standard, its systematic violation, is what makes possible the poetic utilsation of language; without this possibility there would be no poetry. The more the norm of the standard is stabilised in a given language, the more varied can be its violation, and therefore the more possibilities for poetry in that language. And on the other hand, the weaker the awareness of this norm, the fewer possibilities of violation, and hence the fewer possibilities for poetry. Thus, in the beginnings of Modern Czech poetry, when the awareness of the norm of the standard was weak, poetic neologisms with the purpose of violating the norm of the standard were little different from neologisms designed to gain general acceptance and become a part of the norm of the standard, so that they could be confused with them. Such is the case of M. Z. Polák [1788–1856, an early romantic], whose neologisms are to this day considered poor neologisms of the standard. […] A structural analysis of Polák’s1 poem would show that [Josef] Jungmann [a leading fi gure of the Czech national renascence] was right [in evaluating Polák’s poetry positively]. We are here citing the disagreement in the evaluation of Polák’s neologisms merely as an illustration of the statement that, when the norm of the standard is weak as was the case in the period of national renascence, it is difficult to differentiate the devices intended to shape this norm from those intended for its consistent and deliberate violation, and that a language with a weak norm of the standard therefore offers fewer devices to the poet.
This relationship between poetic language and the standard, one which we could call negative, also has its positive side which is, however, more important for the theory of the standard language than for poetic language and its theory. Many of the linguistic components of a work of poetry do not deviate from the norm of the standard because they constitute the background against which the distortion of the other components is reflected. The theoretician of the standard language can therefore include works of poetry in his data with the reservation that he will differentiate the distorted components from those that are not distorted. An assumption that all components have to agree with the norm of the standard would, of course, be erroneous.
In sum, without the ordinary language, there would not have been the language of poetry which is based on creativity in order to reflect idiosyncrasies pertaining to individual writer of the genre of literature (called poetry) in the society in which he or she has found himself or herself. The collection we use as the primary data for this study is based on the notion believed by the author, Segun Adekoya, in constituting the society from his own point of view.
2.4 Graphology as a Level of Analysis
According to Crystal and Davy (1969: 15), levels of stylistic analysis include phonetic/graphetic, phonological/graphological, grammatical, lexical, and semantic levels. Graphology, which is the focus of this paper, is described as the “study of a languages writing system, or orthography, as seen in the various kinds of handwriting and typography” (Crystal & Davy, 1969: 18). Leech (1969: 39) believes that graphology goes beyond orthography as it “refers to the whole writing system: punctuation and paragraphing as well as spacing”. Graphological patterns play a significant role in the interpretation of poetry. Perhaps this is why Carter (2005: 65) avers that it “is the strong view of most stylisticians that it is at best naive to assume that the patterns and structures of language play no significant part in the interpretive process.” Poets foreground patterns of graphology through deviation in order to make readers contemplate the structure of words and symbols so that they may begin to read meaning into unusual graphic patterns. Just as sounds denote meaning in onomatopoeia, graphology is the arrangement of words to denote their meanings.
Crystal and Davy (1969: 156) affirm that the “main graphological devices one can make use of are paragraphing, spacing, and capitalisation, alongside the normal range of other punctuation marks”. We must bear in mind that unconventional use of these devices creates stylistic effects and draws special attention to the parts of the text where it is deployed. Simpson (1997: 28) explicates that graphology “exerts a psycholinguistic influence on the reading process…” to such an extent that visual elements sometimes “…are as important as the text” (Simpson, ibid). In fact, the genre of writing known as concrete poetry relies almost exclusively on manipulation of the visual medium of language (Simpson, 1997: 27). Graphological deviation is conscious violation of the system of writing, “discarding of capital letters and punctuations where conventions call for them, jumbling of words, eccentric use of parentheses, etc.” (Leech, 1989: 47). These deviations in graphology need to be looked into because they not only foreground the various parts of the poems but are also devised to bring to the fore the preoccupations, connotations, and beauty of the poems under analysis. To us, markers of graphological deviations in poetry may be identified by such patterns as absence, rarity or overuse of punctuation marks, strange patterns of paragraphing, use of sub-headings, fragmentation/spacing or cluster of words, omission of letter(s) in words, ellipsis, strange/unusual capitalisation (of words or letters), underlining, using words and sentences to create shapes, unusual stanzaic patterns, and so on.
2.5 Summary
In this chapter, the concepts which are basically needed to aid the analyses in the subsequent chapter have been discussed extensively. Each concept serve essentially as part of a whole to drive home the meanings, the messages based on linguistic elements given emphases. The chapter contains the exposition of concepts and sub-concepts such as style, stylistics and literary interpretation, the language of poetry and graphology as a level of analysis.
CHAPTER THREE
DATA ANALTSIS AND DISCUSSION
3.1 Introduction
In order that a clear progression of the linguistic analysis is maintained, the analysis has been limited in a way that the selected poems are approached from a single linguistic level. The level of analysIs in this chapter is that of graphology. The focus is to see how the poet has employed graphological resources to drive home his purpose or message and to lend artistic creativity to his voice.
3.2 Graphological Analysis
Certain aspects of graphology (which may be defined as the scientific way of studying how what is said is represented graphically in order to assess, the trait, the personality or the psychological state of the writer) are foregrounded in the poems. The aim in this section is to examine how Segun Adekoya has used graphological rules or broken them to pass across his message. We want to see how his observance and non-observance of the rules have contributed to the process of meaning making in the poems.
3.2.1 Use of Interjection (!)
In the poems under consideration, the poet makes use of interjection in few poems. Almost all the stanzas of the prolix poem, “Kongi” began with interjection to introduce the stanza to the audience and there is interjection in “Ogunba –with accompaniment of an elegiac Osugbo)” as well and we are to consider these two poems for analysis for interjection. This is understandable in the sense that every sound has real life implications with the people in the society. Thus, it is because the use of interjection is foregrounded that interjection is recognised graphologically for analysis. Examining the poems, in “Kongi” we would notice that stanzas number 1, 3, 9, 24, 32 and 36 of pages 10-39 are the only stanzas not starting with interjection and on Page 128, an interjectory monometer stand as a stanza for emphasis. The following are the foregrounded stanzas for interjection.
Extract 1: “Thunderclap!
A bud burst into flames
Of rich red rose petals...”
(Page 10, Kongi, Stanza 2)
Extract 2: "O!
They said your art was a device –
Inspired by a myriad of mad modern mice…"
(Page 12, Kongi, Stanza 12)
Extract 3: "Pah!
Theys ay you’re an ape that’s ailing
Because you’ve inhaled too mucha alien ale..."
(Page 12, Kongi, Stanza 5)
Extract 4: "Gosh!
What they couldn’t chew was chucked up – chaff;
What they can’t count they call cant;…"
(Page 10, Kongi,Stanza 2)
Extract 5: "Ah!
Pity poor prodigals who come home stunned
To prod laggards with slag and slander…"
(Page 13, Kongi, Stanza 7)
Extract 6: "Ouch!
Even your malediction mart is marred
By plethora of limitation curses…."
(Page 14, Kongi, Stanza 8)
Extract 7: "Ack!
They say you’re a hack, how I wish
You hacked their heads with a hatchet..."
(Page 15, Kongi, Stanza 10)
Extract 8: “Mark!
A class of Marxists insists you’re a leprous lecher
That wastes time washing blighted barren buttocks…”
(Page 16, Kongi, Stanza 11)
Extract 9: “Gee!
They’re still lost everywhere
In the labyrinths of lust;…”
(Page 17, Kongi, Stanza 12)
In extract 1 above, the author begins the stanza with the interjectional lexical nominal element “Thunderclap!” with the aim of formally introducing the context of the stanza peculiarly. The exclamatory sign, “!” takes the semantic implication of the word beyond denotative notion of a shock of thunder. Connotatively and inferentially, the interjectional remark is wariness or a nudge unto the impending doom capable of “the British Empire” in the hands of “the Queen of England”. After which comes the pelt of “syphilis”, “fright”, “fire”, “flames” in the “colonies”.
In extract 2 above, “O!” is another interjectional remark which naturally connotes an expression of surprise. It could be assumed to be the feeling the persona has toward the current political atmosphere in his ambience. This further indicates a grave level of shock from the persona due to a class oriented society between the alien “Europeans” and the indigenous “Africans”.
In extract 3 above, there is expression of outburst to contempt the said assumption based on the view of the persona towards the addressee –Wole Soyinka –against the traditional rulers and political elements which are the devices of the White, oppressors. The persona hinted the oppressors have come in guises of “priests” but yet fear like savages without famous code. But now that there devices have been understood and decoded, thus “pah!” – you all are raven-dovish fakes.
In extract 4 above, there is the expression of surprise or emphasis on a particular referent. Inferentially the concrete referent here is in the world of the author. Through, the interjectional code though the persona could be said to be remarking about the indifferent attitude which is “people’s politico-economic” in nature by and from the White hands.
In extract 5 above, the interjection part of speech is once again beginning the stanza. Its phonic effect is of surprise, shock or sadness as a result of the unexpected. The expression could be inferred to “pity poor prodigals” - Africans or better still Nigerians - who have long suffered to fit into the Western ways. However, the last 6 lines were contemptible against the makers of servitude and that was ironically thwarting.
In extract 6 above, is an expression of self’s own physical pain or an expression of physical pain of another’s. This interjection seems abstract and contextually with the stanza it is beyond so as the referent here is being felt painful for for lack of creativity but reliance on remnants it is been presented with after long services arduously.
In extract 7 above, structurally, it begins with “Ack!” interjection which is not indigenous and thus a causer of infamous for us. In retrospect, intertextually to Kongi Harvest by Wole Soyinka, it would be recalled it is based on x-raying traditional leaders” and the new political leaders errors due to alien influence. “Ack!” Interjection is way alien in experience it connotes trepidation due to the influence crippling all facets, making benediction mean “malediction”.
In extract 8 above, is of exclamation implying emotively art and the need to at the moment make a juxtaposition between the good and evil, between those the persona represents and the whole ideologies the persona mad at. Thus, the use of images and metaphors of “snails”, “slime”, “beasts”, “rapists”, “racists”, “cycysts”. Snails, Africans are slow and boring with their slime and thus beasts, British leverage on their shortcomings.
In extract 9 above, is an interjection of awe as well. It appeals to shock inferentially with the particular stanza as the persona expresses his rather gory knowledge, part of his experiences. The particular experiences are marked with negation so the awe is rather a hyperbole or a deliberate misconception to understand the intensity of the “growing groin” with the populace… “the leaks of liquid dreams”, “the eccentric economy” - now when snake, monkeys, even, are said to have been capable of swallowing the country’s money. Who is fooling who! The persona’s expression which is of surprise opens up ridiculous activities in the state, “planet Earth” by extension.
3.2.2 Use of Italisation
In this collection of poetry we are considering, there are several instances of italicised expressions for emphasis stylistically. This is to draw the attention of the reader to the words and to give further meanings to just ordinary conventional spellings of linguistic items. The following are few of the many italicised words which are significant for meaning in the text.
Extract 10: “My head boom of doom and fled.
My heart heaved at the crash and broke.
My mi-story missed, slipped into his his-tory
A hunted hunter hounded a hart
That farted and shat in my sacred river...”
(Page 40, Ọ̀sun – Bèmbé music in the background)
Extract 11: “The cratered crap of crass capital
The bilious hypocrisy of bioethics
The dodo in the doodoo of the degenerated,
Doing good to the deballed,
The chichi chic of college chicks,…”
(Page 18, Kongi)
Extract 12: "Every tick-tock of the clock is picked on the screen
Of a proletarian radar, transmuted and Karl Marxed;
Evert tic-tac-toe on the field of play is recorded…”
(Page 124, Ògunba – with the accompaniment of an elegiac Òsùgbo)
Extract 13: “Ogun shakes your hand
And your hand turns to sand
Yeeeeeeepaaaaaaariiiiiiipaaaaaaaooooooo!
Ogun shakes your hand
And your hand turns to sand…”
(Page 128, Ògunba – with the accompaniment of an elegiac Òsùgbo)
Extract 14: "And lepidary lay grist and become dolls,
Feted by foes and coveted by courtiers.
But, Negritude or tigritude, the Black world wobbles
About, its moorings, morning-glories., offerings— all lost…"
(Page 25, Kongi)
Extract 15: “Individualise the lays of the laity
And universalise the lies of a cleric.
Does Madmen and Specialists not individualise
Depravity and universalise the insanity of power?
Does the crazy portrait not pock…”
(Page 22, Kongi)
Extract 16: “Dredge up pity with the pick-axe of poetry;
Drill their teeth with corn, sterilise their mouths
With hot booli, big like an equine penis
That cauterises all marks of misery that mar
The tact and tackle of each ebony body…”
(Page 99, Agbowo)
Extract 17: “The farts of which proclaimed the upstarts spoilt.
Ogogoro goes down well with robo
At motor parks, combed by stout thugs and touts.
Smoke of cigarettes clears drivers’ heads of doubts…”
(Page 100, agbowo)
Extract 18: “Maggoty mushrooms, smelly fish, mouldy bread,
Almighty gari, grown grey, yet the king
Of the rabble’s delicious delicacies…”
(Page 101, Agbowo)
In extract 10 above, the first prominently injected element is “mi-story” then ‘hi-story”. They are new words formed on the ground there is poetic licence in poetry. They both words as compounded or punctuatedly dashed "-" makes their semantic implications to be complicated or rather multi-dimensional. Contextually, the poetic documentation has the tone of lamentation thus though the mood of bearer of "My" seem valiant the same mood could be assumed to yet being enveloped in pain and grave loss. The pain and loss have been because of rather intentions of "A famished farmer" who "felled forest tree" which destroys or thwarts all, "dye and pots", "bowels", "kids", which make the "My", a singular possessive pronoun, unhappy. This possessive pronoun, which served as the marker of the adjectival clause- "My mi-story missed..." is historically or mythically referring, intertextually or allusively to Yèyé Òsun (a river goddess which is worshipped annually in the same city) of Osógbó in Yoruland of Nigeria herself lamenting and narrating her ordeals in the hands of men. Men at large represented by, for instance and in inference, "the farmer", "his", "hunter" and so forth. Therefore, "mi" grammatically is monosyllabic and semiotically a life figure whose former appraised self record or story has missed as it "slipped" into the bad hands of "his" care as he believes so in his own story. Intertextually, there is decision made by one entity and a lot more, even a goddess takes part in suffering the consequence. Not only the goddess, even her "kids" "fled" at the "crash" of the "felled" "tree" and sacredness lying in their mother's purity being shattered by an "hunter" who "farted" "and shat" –lexical verbs – without caring for others like the flowing "river", "Òsun" and her "kids" themselves. There's the idea of selfishness in the system by this. In the course to satisfy oneself many bear the brunt. This reveals, iconically, what transpire in our immediate society, Nigeria. Few munch the whole wealth while those owning the resources, the masses, who put them there with their rights, are the ones suffering the consequence.
In extract 11 above, the graphically italicised element semantically implies the ills in the state. The "doodoo" could have been replaced with 'problem' simply and directly, but is not so with the poet as he intends to linguistically channel musicality for his intention. Thus, the alliteration and the playing upon words with the word "dodo". Alliteration because of the consonant "d" as alliteration means the repetition of consonant sounds in a line of poetry. The "doodoo" significantly socially implies the famine, injustice, kidnapping, looting, rape etc. rampant in our society yet.
Graphological analytic approach deals with the foregrounding of paralinguistic devices as Adegoju (ibid), painstakingly emphasizes that “Graphology concerns such matters as spelling, capitalisation, hyphenation, a text’s layout, lists, font choices, underlining, italisation, paragraphing, colour, etc. which all create different kinds of impact, some of which will cause the reader to reflect differently.” Therefore, in the extracts above are paralinguistic devices which have been graphologically foregrounded through italisation. These ones selected could then be termed to have been stylistically prominent and significant for meaning intertextually inferentially.
In the extract 12 above, the notion of economic concept is emphasised. The italicised lexical item which is a proper noun but yet grammatically made an open class word having been suffixed with “–ed” to morph into a verbal element connotatively implies extortion of the majority by the minority at the top. For quintessence, Capitalism, which elevates a classed society would best be in similitude with the prominent element which has been injected into the lineation on purpose by the author to aid the audience be able to pinpoint that in Nigeria, the majority (who are singularised as “proletarian”) suffer the more while the minority (the bourgeoisie) enjoy wealth in overflowing rate the more as they oppress the more “…for the Devil” without considering the “…ever vexed God” at least, for equity.
In the extract 13 above, the italicised word, “Yeeeeeeepaaaaaaariiiiiiipaaaaaaaooooooo!” is interjectional grammatically and stylistically semantically implicative. It is an exclamatory cry that denotes horror and terror. With it, ritualists announce their presence and warn non-initiates to beat it. The expression bears the connotation of impending horror or evil omen to happen if adequate care is not taken. Exactly, there is a famous adage that “to before warn is to before harm.” Another one holds that “prevention is better than cure.” Consequently, every system having to do with the society by extension to individual entity if narrowed down would have specific ruling strictures. Going against such would cause curse as the guilty would be dealt with accordingly with his “hand” cursed or charmed into “sand” –waste.
In extract 14 above, as prominent lexical sign through italisation in the text. It is likely adopted from the saying that “A tiger does not proclaim his ‘tigritude’, he pounces.” So, semantically it connotes terror or horror capable of our leaders in Nigeria. Tigritude is used as a metaphor for those championing every course of the conundrums in the state, from the top to the grass-root level. They are author the starvation in the country, even as their’ ‘operation feed the nation’ has failed woefully. In spite that, the hungry masses still fast while the minority at the top keep enjoying feast upon feast on purpose.
In extract 15 above, in semiotics, what the words communicate in denotation is the characteristics, capable of African mad men on the streets sides. They both albeit could be said to have x-rayed, semantically and intertextually the kind of trait our leaders carry beneath their selfish skins. It explains they have lost it and not politic. It emphasises that our leaders are insane as they are not leading ruling without consistent direction. A madman is reeking, so, by the word ‘mad men’ the poet tries to inform us that our political leaders’ ways are purely unclean –they laugh washing their hands in our bloods.
In extract 16 above, the italicised word is an indigenous remark which is a common noun. In the English language it is referred to as ‘Roasted Plantain’. It is one of those things workers or civil servant regard as their last resort in the stead of good diet for meals when they are not paid their merited salaries. This, the poet tries to ex-ray by foregrounding the linguistic item which is written in the Yoruba language. Thus, it shows that our government is corrupt as they loot into their selfish pockets the resources – the national cake of the country. So, workers suffer. Many component states today are still owing workers many months salaries and retired people die in the course of fighting for pension which few individuals are lavishing the ways they see fit.
In extract 17 above, the word is an indigenous code, italicised for emphasis. The poet here tries to complement the “gari” which he would later mention in the course of the line of the poem. “Robo” is popularly known as the poor use to take the “gari”, although, even some poor people could not afford the two at the same time. So, they take the “gari” alone with their fingers in dirty and broken containers. The poet tries to give the imagery penury which is killing the country. This the poet has been able to achieve through italicising the linguistic item to be significant for meaning.
In the extract 18 above, the italicised lexical item and another proper nominal element meaning ‘Cassava Flour’ in the English language. As a Yoruba word, to the Yorubas, “gari” is basically meant for the poor and not the rich. They would only care to take the same once in a while alongside lists of delicacies which a pauper would never be able to afford in years (so, what is the difference?). The word semantically implies poverty which majority are pinning with today in Nigeria. Even of recent, the same food which only the poor could afford got sky-rocketed due to the failed system of government we are having. They claim they are changing for good. Where is the ‘change’ for goodness sake when hunger are killing many? The same hungry stomachs still for good while our governors “feast” on fine cities overseas with our looted lucre.
3.2.3 Use of Capitalisation
Due to the fact that graphology has to do with handwriting or what is written; in the poetic collection we are considering for this study, there are some capitalisations (within A-Z) of English alphabet injected in order to communicate significant meanings having been foregrounded. The poet deliberately adopts writing them separately and on paradigm of lineation to help drive home some explanations in relation to trending matters in our society. We are going to use some of these graphological instances for analysis. The following are the selected extracts related to the foregrounded alphabets.
Extract 29: “A rigid replete capital ego,
P that parodies a bum on a thigh,
A hails a house ladder with one step,
L looks long at a loony leg.
(Page 63, Udje Dancer)
Extract 30: “P that parodies a bum on a thigh,
A hails a house ladder with one step,
L looks long at a loony leg
Look at nature, learn the alphabets!
(Page 63, Udje Dancer)
Extract 31: “It inscribes on parched parchments
Natural objects that form alphabets:
S that coils twice like a serpent,
Y fractured like a forked tree…"
(Page 63, Udje Dancer)
Extract 32: “ S that coils twice like a serpent,
Y fractured like a forked tree,
O rounded like the full moon,…"
(Page 63, Udje Dancer)
Extract 33: “W that winks at a bird on wing,
Z that walks zigzag like lightning
K that mocks a knock-kneed man,…”
(Page 63, Udje Dancer)
In the extract 29 above, the English alphabet symbolises ladder for reaching high. It has one way up and one way down. This in relation to a democratic state like Nigeria explains the famous definition of democracy (government of the people, by the people and for the people). In democracy, through the process of election, the masses, the majority vote in the political leaders through one way and could vote them out through another way (by not voting for them) when they fail they do well. The poet, through the alphabet tries to nudge the people in the society, not to forget their power.
In extract 30 above, the alphabet sign semiotically presents us with the imagery of the structure of “long” leg. It semantically explains most things here are based on familiarity as against meritocracy (no wonder we are yet undeveloped in all facets). There is the slang ‘long leg’ in Nigeria, it means connection where and what meritocracy cannot favour some people, because they are connected in a network way or the other, they will get it while those merit the same would be suffering and might probably die like that. Such is our society. Thus, the ‘long leg’ policy should go down to the drain for meritocracy and fair judgment.
In extract 31 above, the shape of the alphabet semiotically and connotatively imply danger or poison capable of snake in every system of the nation but its denotation is just an alphabet. Therefore, naturally and for the safety, the “S” needs to be killed for peace and rest of mind to exist.
In extract 32 above, the letter graphically symbolises tree and semantically explains how stunted growth has eaten into the fabrics of the economic, social, religious, ruling systems in African continent and Nigeria, specifically as she serves at the giant of Africa.
In extract 33 above, there is another sign communicating and painting the political scenario in world’s politics by extension, and specifically in Africa, there is deceit in their serving activities. Virtually, it explains there is something bad wrong with every system as there is no honest and politic people in almost every facet of life in our communities.
3.2.4 Use of Hyphenation
In the collection under consideration, the poet makes use of hyphens. These could be found in almost all the poems in the collection. This is done on purpose in order to aid his motif in driving home his intention artistically. The following are the instances of hyphenation in the text.
Extract 34: “My crest completes his rich royal costume
And tells the rest of a resplendent story.
My forked-feet look forward and backward–
A pack of three toes and pack of two,
Strong like lion’s paws, grip tree branches like tongs…”
(Page 1, Agemo”)
Extract 35: “Heels that are hills feel
Leap for joy and roll
Like a yoyo in a toy-boy role…”
(Page 123, Ogunba)
Extract 36: “Whose tics and tactics seek the peak of kicks
His microscopic eyes scan the peak of kicks.
Telescope its far-flung parts, fire missiles
That shatter the stars’ chatter and draw them down…”
(Page 111, A Signifying Tourist)
Extract 37: “By contortionists into gentle gestures,
Metamorphosed into generous melodies,
By drug-crazed, money-razed musicians,…”
(Page 66, Udje Dancer)
Extract 38: “Whose spleen spills in bars on college campuses;
The hollow humanism of cool capitalists;
The marred martyrdom of Marxist-Leninists;
The blandishments of Casanovas on heat;…”
(Page 68, Udje Dancer)
In the extract 34 above, the poet tries to artistically and grammatically marry two words together through the word formation process of hyphenation to adjective in order to drive home his message. The base word of the first part is ‘fork’ and suffixed with ‘-ed’ which morphs into verb, ‘forked’. The second part is a common noun – ‘finger’. The fusion of the two words gives, “forked-finger”. Thus, the attention of the reader is drawn, through the visual imagery which it gives. A fork, normally has 3 points, therefore, intertextually inferentially, the notion of the three arms of government comes into play. We could see that the poet tries to creatively inform the people making up: the Legislature, the Executive and the Judiciary to get their hands deck clean and rake the society of its filth on time.
In the extract 35 above, we could see that the author chooses to foreground the word through hyphen. It is done by the author on purpose so as to link his motive to the psyche of the reader. “Toy-boy” is formed by the coming together of two common nouns: toy + boy = “toy-boy”. We could thus note, connotatively that the poet is trying to send a note of warning to watch out to the male thugs which the politicians toy with like “yoyo” to commit arson and all other sorts of atrocities in the society through victimisations of political opponents before, during and after elections. He meant to inform them they would use them like toys and dump them like toys later.
In the extract 36 above, the poet married two words for emphasis as the word is foregrounded to be significant for meaning. The word is formed through the combination of two lexical items, far + flung (‘far’ is adjectival + ‘flung’ is a verbal element in its past participle form) = “far-flung”, an adjective. The word given emphasis by the poet was to explicate the extremity of the alien kind who have come in their deceitful ploys guised with lots of beautiful propagandas to make Africans look like lummox. It explains, in furtherance the technical capabilities of the Westerners, as from the further distances, “far-flung”, they could trigger their auto drones to rain bombs on us while we sleep in the night. By extension, it explains the reality that Nigeria and Africa at large are far behind in technology. Thus the poet urges that inventions and innovations be allowed for real so that we might be fully independent someday.
In the extract 37 above, the hyphenised word is significant for meaning as it is foregrounded. It is formed through marriage of a common noun, ‘money’ + ‘razed’ (‘razed’ is a verb) = “money-razed. This hyphenation appeals to visual and tactile imagery. The image of our money been exhausted for the fun of it by those at the top and the pains which reflect in the physiques of the populace due to poor circulation of wealth.
In extract 38 above, we would note there is the marriage of two strong notions in the hyphenated word. It entails the fusion of two proper nouns. They both depict offices. It brought about historical allusion literally to the first and the second World Wars. They are both concepts of dictatorship. Thus, the poet tries to remind us the reality abound in Nigeria, that democracy is only practised in the book, what is in practise in autocracy and a system where the proletariat kings over the bourgeoisie.
3.2.5 Graphological Deviation
Another basis on which morphology could come into play is when the structure of particular linguistic items are arranged or structured textually in a strange way. The poet chooses to structure only one poem in a very distinct way in order to pass across specific meaning unto the audience. The only instance in the whole of the collection is analysed.
Extract 40:
“It’s
raining
cats
and
dogs and
now my
love
is
pouring like
down the
rain water
draining
the
clouds clearing
the
way
clerk
sky
drenching
the….” (Pages 104-109, A Wish)
In extract 40 above, the picture communicates rainfall. But it meaningfully implies the beginning common to the living. Even a bad or good government has to end someday as it has a beginning. For every rain to begin, it is automatic for it to stop to rain. As a rainfall could mean a good thing so could it mean evil! However, the kind of rainfall depicted here is a torrential rainfall and that makes it evil. A torrential rain hammers things apart. A bad government hammers or destroys the future of the nation. The citizens are always the ones found at the receiving end. Consequently, the poet tries to shower his angst against all forms of evil and that it is time it stopped to pelt.
3.3 Summary
In the analysis carried out and according to the selected extracts from the text, it was discovered that Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) model could go a long way in interpreting, graphologically, deviated linguistic resources meaningfully. Drawing from the data in context, we could see that words mean more than their ordinary forms when written or produced. In other words, the data analysed have increased our awareness that everything good or evil in the society could be contextualised through language use as a medium of communication based on idiosyncrasies and philosophies. These concepts help in establishing societal beliefs and the necessities of morality in Nigeria.
CHAPTER FOUR
SUMMARY, FINDINGS AND CONCLUSION
4.1 Introduction
This chapter gives the summary of the findings of the research. The aim of the study which is to investigate how graphological features in the selected poems in Segun Adekoya’s collection “Chameleon and Chimera” could establish societal issues and then the plausible ways out of them, alongside the objectives of the study. Additionally, we have examined how Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) is employed to establish and characrterise the influence of signs on the affairs of human beings in societies in our myriad forms. We have thus been able to proof with instances that Systemic Functional Linguistic by M. A. K. Halliday can be useful for analysis of literary text. We have as well identified and discussed discursively instances of other minor concepts in the course of the analysis that are, pertinent to the study for easy comprehension.
4.2 Summary of the Findings
We have been able to identify the motifs adopted in the collection by the poet in order to effectively convey his intended message(s) to the reader. The poet’s intended message is to use graphological features to make obvious the socio-political happenings in the contemporary Nigerian society as well as explore issues of human relation such as love, beauty, beast, philanthropy, justice, contentment, patience, humility and so forth. All this is possible through the graphological features foregrounded in the selected poems.
In our analyses, we have been able to describe those graphological features as significant for meaning in our immediate society. We have been able to understand that those motifs are deliberately injected into the poems to communicate different notions to the reader. Through the graphetic foregroundings employed by the lyricist we have been able to have the grasp of what Nigeria as an African nation is passing through politically, socially, economically, psychologically, religiously, culturally and ethnically.
Consequently, the motifs, the graphological features which project the motifs as well as the significance of graphological poetry have been examined in the study. And we have been able to evaluate that there is high importance of graphological level of analysis in poetry in order to communicate ideas, philosophies or idiosyncrasies pertaining to societies; without graphological features in any work of poetry, it is possible that the particular poem be deficient to some extent in contextualising the motifs of the poet.
4.3 Conclusion
This study therefore concludes that stylistic analysis of poetry (the first genre of literature) text are as important and literally delirious like the other genres of literature (drama and prose) in constituting and reflecting the affairs of the living and non-living under the sun. Graphology as a level of analysis helps to draw the attention of the reader to be wary of whatever is given emphasis in the poem(s) in question. This is the reason graphology is important for poetic analysis in helping the audience see the bigger picture through written context. Segun Adekoya in his collection, Chameleon and Chimeras has been able to explore graphology by foregrounding certain linguistic elements for prominence to show us what really are happening around us in Nigeria.
4.4 Suggestions for Further Studies
There are other levels of analysis which could be considered in detecting and explicating the intended messages of Segun Adekoya in his collection, 'Chameleon and Chimeras'. The graphological level of analysis has been considered in this research, scholars are urged, thus, to consider other levels of analysis such as syntactical, lexical, phonological, semantical levels of analysis for deeper understanding of the motifs coded in the text in question.
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