A LINGUISTIC STYLISTIC ANALYSIS OF CHIMAMANDA ADICHIE’S PURPLE HIBISCUS AND HALF OF A YELLOW SUN

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Date
2015-07
Authors
ORAKWUE, EKENE ELFRILDER
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Abstract
Style is one‟s way of doing a thing. It can be of dressing, speaking, acting, teaching and writing which is influenced by a lot of factors or ideologies such as history, religion and culture. However, the style of a writer albeit creative may pose a challenge to readers. This study attempts a linguistic stylistic analysis of Chimamanda Adichie‟s Purple Hibiscus and Half of a Yellow Sun with the aim of identifying some of the linguistic features the writer used and to understand the cultural and historical ideology behind the texts, appreciating her style. Halliday‟s functional linguistics approach is adopted as a theoretical framework where particular note is taken of the stylistic functional effects and thematic significance of the linguistic features in literary texts. Leech and Short‟s (2007) analytical checklist is used to breakdown randomly selected stylistic features into three categories, lexical, grammatical and context. Basil Bernstein‟s (1971) perspective on code switching and mixing is used to analyse how the writer‟s culture informs her choice as a form of stylistic expression. The study has been able to highlight the stylistic features in the texts, analyse how these styles were used to reveal Adichie‟s ideas, and highlight the extent to which Adichie‟s cultural and linguistic background affect her style of writing. Halliday‟s systemic functional approach is of the opinion that style is functionally motivated by a writer‟s choice of language in use. Therefore this study outlined the various features (linguistic stylistic) which Adichie has used to creatively present her novels. This research therefore recommends that young writers can use Adichie‟s style of writing since the aim of studying style is to improve the vigour of the writer‟s ability to communicate effectively.
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A THESIS SUBMITTED TO THE SCHOOL OF POSTGRADUATE STUDIES, AHMADU BELLO UNIVERSITY ZARIA IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE AWARD OF THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS IN ENGLISH LANGUAGE DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH AND LITERARY STUDIES, FACULTY OF ARTS, AHMADU BELLO UNIVERSITY, ZARIA
Keywords
LINGUISTIC,, STYLISTIC,, ANALYSIS,, CHIMAMANDA,, ADICHIE’S,, PURPLE HIBISCUS,, YELLOW SUN.
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