CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1 BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY
Language is the distinctive quality unique to man. It is what enables
man to express him/herself and communicate with his/her fellow man, and
it is acquired naturally. According to Fromkin et al “…language is the
source of human life and power” (3). They also state that “we use
language to convey information to others…, ask questions…, give
command…, and express wishes” (173). There are two specific media of
using language: oral – which is by words of mouth; and written – which
is a graphic representation of words on paper.
It is in the use of language that style comes in. Style shows the
difference between one piece of writing and the other. According to
Adejare, “style is an ambiguous term…” (1). He further states that the
term style means different things to different professions. Some
examples are: to a psychologist, style is a form of behaviour, to the
critic, style is individuality and to the linguist, it is the formal
structures in function (1).
Stylistics is the study of oral and written texts. It is the
description of the linguistic characteristics (which means features of
linguistics) of all situationally restricted uses of language.
Linguistics is the scientific study of language or of a particular
language. Linguistics is scientific because it applies the method of
objective observation, collection, classification and application of
facts to the study of language.
Stylistics focuses on texts and gives much attention to the devices,
parts of speech and figures of speech. It goes further to look into the
effects of the use of the devices on the reader.
Talking about the scope of stylistics, Onwukwe Ekwutosi gave four distinctive types of stylistics and they are:
1. General stylistics
2. Literary stylistics
3. Stylo-stylistics
4. Phono-stylistics
General stylistics deals with the non-dialectical varieties found
within a language. In other words, it deals with situational or
contextual use of language, that is, variation according to use. It also
includes variation of language according to field of discourse,
variation according to mode of discourse and finally, variation
according to style of discourse.
Literary stylistics deals with language use in literature, that is,
variations, characteristics of individual writer that made mark in
literature. Often, we hear people talk about the style of Shakespeare,
Milton, Achebe or Soyinka.
And also, stylo-stylistics deals with the qualification of stylistic
pattern. It studies the statistical structure of literary texts often
using computers. Finally, phono-stylistics is the study of expression of
aesthetic function of sound.
Stylistic features can be described as features that produce style.
They include linguistic features such as diction(writer’s choice of
words, such as clichés, archaism, polysyllabic, monosyllabic), sentence
structure such as loose and period sentences, parallelism, parenthetical
expressions and passive expressions. Other features are cohesion,
coherence, use of punctuation marks and figures of speech such as
metaphor, simile, hyperbole, metonymy and personification, slang,
colloquialism and connotation.
Diction: By diction, the reader looks at the simplicity or the difficulty of words chosen by the writer to express himself.
Sentence: It is made up of words that express a
complete thought. It is the basic unit of thought in any communication.
Both oral and written languages are made up of sentences. There are two
main kind of sentences; loose and periodic sentences.
Loose sentence: It is the kind of sentence that
states the main point at the beginning. Even when the statement is
grammatically complete, one or more explanatory clauses or phrases come
after it.
Periodic sentence: This kind of sentence keeps the
main point for the end. The sentence is not grammatically complete until
the end of the sentence.
Parallelism: It is the use of pattern repetition in a literary text for a particular stylistic effect.
Parenthetical expression: It is used to give more information and also as an after thought in a statement.
Passive expression: This is the use of words in the past tense to show the time of action.
Cohesion: It is a linguistic phenomenon which
explains the way discourse is structured or organized with regard to
message. It is a binding force that ties together stretches of
utterances.
Coherence: This is the arrangement of sentence in a logical order.
Punctuation marks: Are signs in writing to divide sentences and phrases and to make meanings clear.
Figure of speech: A figure of speech is an
expression used figuratively rather than literary. It gives a deeper
meaning to word. Some examples are:
Metaphor: Is a comparison between two dissimilar things which have something in common.
Simile: It is a clear comparison between two
dissimilar things. These two unlike items however share something in
common. It is this common characteristic that is emphasized by the use
of like or as …as.
Hyperbole: It is an overstatement where the speaker exaggerates what he is saying out of proportion.
Metonymy: This is using a word for something to refer to another with which it has become closely associated.
Personification: It is giving human quality to an inanimate object.
Slang: Very informal words and expressions that are more common in spoken language, especially used by a particular group of people.
Colloquialism: A word or phrase that is used in conversation but not in formal speech in writing.
Connotation: It is the additional meaning the word gains because of the different environment in which a word has been used in the past.
Archaism: This is the use of old and middle English
words which are no longer in general usage today.Some examples are,
“thereto”, “thou”.
Clichés: They are phrases or ideas that have been used so often that it no longer has much meaning and is not interesting.
A way of stylistic analysis is taking a text and analyzing it at the
various levels of linguistic organization – phonological,
morphological, syntactic, and semantic levels. It is the identification
of patterns of usage in speech and writing. It is usually made for the
purpose of commenting on quality and meaning in a text.
1.2 STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM
Though many works have been done on the style of Ngugi wa Thiong’o’s other novels, not much has been done on his style in Wizard of the Crow,
which is his most recent novel, published in 2007. Consequently, the
researcher intends to examine the style of Ngugi in this latest novel.
Secondly, most of the works did not use quantitative stylistic
analysis to determine the predominant or most frequently occurring
devices. They often simply listed out all the devices used.
1.3 OBJECTIVE OF THE STUDY
The objectives of this study is to identify the predominant devices used by Ngugi wa Thiong’o in his novel Wizard of the Crow and what he achieved by using those devices.