Ahyu: A Journal of Language and Literature

Socio-legal Discourse Analysis of a Selected Court Proceeding

Juliet Nkane Ekpang — 2024-12-04

Socio-legal discourse is an emerging interdisciplinary area of research in which laws or legal documents are analysed via a sociolinguistics’ lens. This paper identifies and discusses the relationship between language and law in a selected court proceeding. The researchers identify some features of discourse, which include exchange, move and act. The analysis adopts Sinclaire and Courlthard’s (1975) discourse rank scale and places court proceedings under the rank of lesson. A bottom-top approach is adopted in this placement such that at the level of discourse acts, the analysis focuses on informative, elicitation and directive acts. In the discussion, the paper examines some discourse elements such as "focusing and framing move," "opening and answering move," as well as "follow-up move." For the socio-legal components of the text, discourse cohesion and coherence are used as tools of analysis. This paper reveals that these discourse features used in legal documents help to unify the sequence of events during court proceedings. Thus, it concludes that an understanding of these socio-legal discourse structures will provide greater insights into the examination of legal proceedings in law courts in Nigeria.

A Cognitive Stylistic Analysis of Oswald Mtshali’s “Men in Chains”

Joy Isa — 2024-12-04

This paper presents a cognitive stylistic analysis of the poem “Men in Chains” by Oswald Mbuyiseni Mtshali (1968). Cognitive stylistics focuses primarily on explaining what happens during the reading process and how it influences the interpretations made by readers in understanding textual meaning. Though meaning is located in the formal structure of the literary text, readers can also approach meaning by deploying aspects of their previous background knowledge. Therefore, the study examines how a special configuration of language is used to realise a particular subject matter and a few selected figurative tropes to achieve a special aesthetic purpose. In the research, all primary data were sourced from the poem, and the secondary data were derived from related works and textbooks. The Schema Theory introduced by Richard C. Anderson (1977) and Conceptual Metaphor Theory by George Lakoff and Mark Johnson (1980) were used to analyse the data collected for the study. The analysis reveals that coherence among figures of speech and the use of extended and complex figurative expressions create new stylistic frameworks and metaphorical formulas that illustrate the idea of novelty and creativity in the poem. Based on the above, the work concludes that cognitive stylistics is effective in the study and interpretation of poetry. It can also be used in studying and teaching poetry to enhance better understanding and appreciation of any poetic texts.

Resisting the Norm

Dr. Hannah Woode Amissah-Arthur — 2024-12-04

This paper examines slave mother characters who defy the master narrative set by their communities and protect their children. The focus of this paper will mainly be on Linda Brent in Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl by Harriet Jacobs and Sethe in Beloved by Toni Morrison who are representations of emblematic slave mothers. These two characters challenge the stereotypical concept of motherhood and deviate from the dominant view of the definition of a mother as one who only protects her children from harm. They extend the definition of “mother” to one who can ensure her children endure pain and sometimes death to express or confirm their love for them. Employing the concept of motherhood through African-American feminism, this paper analyses the two characters in terms of their personalities, their unique ways of nurturing their children and their exclusive approaches to protecting them. The paper concludes that different thematic representations are employed to enable mother characters to help their children survive the absurdities and perversions of slavery.

Women and Nature in the Movie, "Black November"

Adachukwu Okafor — 2024-12-04

Issues about people’s natural environment have undeniably become an integral part of human existence. In this regard, a lot of literary scholars and social critics have unrelentingly written on how to curtail or end the numerous environmental degradations. Despite many studies conducted on environmental concerns in Nigerian literature, only little attention has been given to how Nollywood movies contribute to this cause. Using Jeta Amata’s film, Black November—an outstanding film with environmental underpinnings—this paper argues that there is a gender trajectory to the environmental issues in Nigerian literature. Specifically, in Black November. We find that women possess an innate ingenious heroism, which upstages the notion that the Niger Delta struggle was carried out by men alone. Drawing on an ecofeminist theoretical approach, this essay further explores the affinity between man’s domination of nature and the patriarchal domination of women. Considering the various resilient attributes of women in the movie towards a sustainable environment, the study concludes that women could contribute immensely towards curbing environmental issues if patriarchal authorities would give them more latitude to do so.

Alterity of “The Road” in Selected African Cities in Niyi Osundare’s If Only The Road Could Talk

Dr. Olusola Ogunbayo — 2024-12-04

This essay argues that the concept of “The Road” in certain cities is a constant pattern in Niyi Osundare’s If Only The Road Could Talk (2017). In this collection of poems, the recurrence of “The Road” reveals certain dynamic interplay between the “Self” and the “Other” as the poet journeys through Africa, Asia and Europe. Osundare’s odyssey opens an engaging space for him to re-think human experiences in the city life such as self re-assessment, boundary re-negotiation, neo-colonialism, migration and international politics as instances of alterity as the Self encounters the Other. Using the Alterity Theory of James Richard Mensch in Hiddeness and Alterity: Philosophical and Literary Sightings of the Unseen , therefore, this essay sees “The Road” in Osundare’s poems as a humanist pathway to discover the sameness in the “otherness” of cities in the world as the Self peregrinates other roads for alterities. Mensch’s Alterity Theory justifiably explains Osundare’s peregrinations because aspects of the theory support a literary comparison of the Self and the Other as well as how the Self encounters the Other in a journey. Germane issues like cultural diversity, ethical varieties, and re-examination of differences are few of the decipherable alterities in this transnational poetic trip on “The Road” of human cities.

Keywords: alterity, “The Road”, City, Self, Other

Urban Ambivalence and Female Autonomy

Theresah Patrine Ennin — 2024-12-04

ABSTRACT

The politics of self-empowerment and agency by women in an African city can be examined in Changes: A love Story (1991) and Americanah (2013). These texts describe women in the city negotiating relationships in a changing terrain that simultaneously propels and restrains their agency. It is important to foreground the extent to which gender shapes experiences and representations of the city and foregrounds the efforts of Aidoo and Adichie to create imaginative space for women. The struggle faced by the female protagonist to find autonomy in the urban environment often results in the quest of self-discovery and self-identity causing the city to become representative of rebirth and regeneration.