A Sociolinguistic Study of Conversations in Chinua Achebe’s A Man of the People
This paper examines sociolinguistic features of conversational interactions among characters in Achebe’s A Man of the People. The aim is to differ from the largely stylistic examination of the text, and therefore, to study conversations in the mediated arena of literature to see how societal stru...
| Main Author: | |
|---|---|
| Format: | Article |
| Language: | deu |
| Published: |
Editura Universităţii Aurel Vlaicu Arad
2017-05-01
|
| Series: | Journal of Humanistic and Social Studies |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://www.jhss.ro/downloads/15/articles/7%20Olaniyan.pdf |
| Summary: | This paper examines sociolinguistic features of conversational interactions
among characters in Achebe’s A Man of the People. The aim is to differ from
the largely stylistic examination of the text, and therefore, to study
conversations in the mediated arena of literature to see how societal structures
and beliefs are projected through the voices of fictive characters. For data, all
the conversations in the text were sampled and analysed, using ethnographic
theories with particular reference to Hymes’ SPEAKING.
Our findings reveal that social and contextual variables such as cultural
norms, topics, gender, situational impositions, etc. influence the interactions
between and/ or among the characters in the text. These, as our findings reveal,
constrain the linguistic choices made by the characters. These social-contextual
variables also facilitate readers’ understanding of both the text and the world
views advanced by the writer through the voices of the characters.
This paper concludes that analyzing literary texts most especially prose
works using Hymes’ SPEAKING aids a better understanding of the texts and
the world views projected in the texts. |
|---|---|
| ISSN: | 2067-6557 2247-2371 |