Resistance Through Language Appropriation to Create a Reality for Oneself in the Postcolonial Nigeria
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.17507/tpls.1203.23Keywords:
Nigerian prose, resistance, reality, reconstructionAbstract
the paper explores the reasons behind appropriating the English Language to carry the native's experiences and the strategies deployed by the authors of Nigeria to reconstruct Africa's taunted imageries and cultures through their use of language. This article also examines the pattern that has been documented in Nigeria and re-evaluates some of the identified resistant strains that authors consciously or unconsciously integrate to ensure that their works are authentic. Author/Character/community or a nation is built through an indigenous choice of vocabularies that reflect the meanings of native society. Creative authors, especially with the postcolonial attitude, employ narrative strategies by using indigenous phrases and other signifiers to deviate from the standard variety to foreground the indigenized realities of the marginalized. Appropriations in the English Language help the colonized reconstruct their culture and history's lost and hidden truths. These strategies give the text an authentic identity representing the bare realities of the indigenous community. The indigenized medium of expression is also considered a form of resistance towards Eurocentric linguistic hegemony. The colonized writers articulate their native ideologies and beliefs without depending on the medium of a foreigner. The collection of criticisms in this paper will enable the upcoming writers to know and discover the elegance and inestimable elements in their native Nigerian literature than foreign literature with an alien culture that is hardly incomprehensive. The work also confirms the mimetic nature of Language and its interdependence with society.
References
Achebe, C. (1994). Things Fall Apart. Penguin Books.
Angela Carter. (1983). ‘Notes from the Front Line’, in Writing and Gender, ed. Michele Wandor. London: Pandora.
Belsey, C. (2004). Culture and the Real: Theorizing Cultural Criticism (New Accents) (1st ed.). Routledge.
Betiang, L. (2011). The Cradle on the Scales. AuthorHouse.
Crystal, D. (1997). The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language (2nd ed.). Cambridge University Press.
Dathome, O. R. (1974). African literature in the Twentieth Century, U. S. A.: Heinemann.
Dei, S. G. J. (2007). Racists Beware: Uncovering Racial Politics in the Post Modern Society. Sense.(3),32.
Deleuze, G., & Tomlinson, H. (2006). Nietzsche and Philosophy (Continuum Impacts). Continuum.
Emecheta, B. (1983). Second Class Citizen (Reprint ed.). George Braziller Inc.
Emenyonu, E. N., & Uko, I. (2004). INKA, the Artistic Purpose: Chinua Achebe and Theory of African Literature (Emerging Perspectives on Chinua Achebe, Vol. 2). Africa World Press.
Fanon, F., & Philcox, R. (2008). Black Skin, White Masks (Revised ed.). Grove Press.
Laurie, W. F. B., & Macaula, B. T. B. M. (2017). Sketches Of Some Distinguished Anglo-Indians: (second Series) Including Lord Macaulay's Great Minute On Education In India. Andesite Press.
Nayar, P. K. (2010). Postcolonialism: A Guide for the Perplexed (Guides for the Perplexed) (Revised ed.). Continuum.
Orwell, G. (1946). Politics and the English Language: By George Orwell. Sahara Publisher Books.print.
R. W. (1983). Toward Cultural Independence in Africa: Some Illustrations from Nigeria and Ghana. African Studies Review, 26(3/4), 119. https://doi.org/10.2307/524165
Saussure, F., & Harris, R. (1998). Course in General Linguistics (Open Court Classics) (Reprint ed.). Open Court.
Standley, F. R., & Pratt, L. H. (1989). Conversations with James Baldwin (Literary Conversations Series) (First Edition). University Press of Mississippi.
Thiong’O, N. W. (2007). Wizard of the Crow (Reprint ed.). Anchor.
Tutuola, A. (1993). The Palm-Wine Drinkard and My Life in the Bush of Ghosts. Grove Press.
Viswanathan, G. (2014). Masks of Conquest: Literary Study and British Rule in India (Twenty-fifth Anniversary ed.). Columbia University Press.
Viswanathan, G. (2014). Masks of Conquest: Literary Study and British Rule in India (Twenty-fifth Anniversary ed.). Columbia University Press.
Weber, Max. (1978). Economy and Society: An Outline of Interpretive Sociology. Berkeley: University of California Press.
