A LINGUISTIC ANALYSIS OF MODIFICATION IN ZAYNAB ALKALI’S THE STILLBORN AND GEORGE ORWELL’S ANIMAL FARM
A LINGUISTIC ANALYSIS OF MODIFICATION IN ZAYNAB ALKALI’S THE STILLBORN AND GEORGE ORWELL’S ANIMAL FARM
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Date
2008-08
Authors
JACOB, HELLANDENDU.
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Abstract
The effective use of modifiers makes a difference between a dull sentence and an
interesting one. Modifiers breathe life into phrases, clauses, sentences and the entire
paragraph of a text. They are used for contrasts, emphasis, description and for shades
of meaning. Thus, both the syntactic and semantic meaning of a sentence is enriched
by the appropriate use of modifiers in sentence structures. Adjectives and adverbs for
instance are used for making comparisons without which it becomes difficult to show
similarities or differences between two or more things in any given language. The
components of modification that are considered for analysis in this study include:
adjectives, adverbs, prepositional phrases, quantifiers and intensifiers. Others are
qualifiers, idioms, adjectival and adverbial clauses. The relationships that exist between
the modifiers identified with the headwords were explained in the course of analysis of
each sentence. Chapter one presents the background information to this work,
examining some working definitions of modification, justification for the selection of
the set texts, feminism, themes of the set texts, motivation and statement of the
problem. Other highlights of the chapter are aim and objectives which include to
compare the effective use of modifiers in Alkali’s The Stillborn and Orwell’s Animal
Farm; to determine whether adjectives and adjectival clauses are more extensively used
than adverbs and adverbial clauses; others are prepositional phrases, comparative and
superlative adjectives; determine to what extent poetic and idiomatic expressions are
used to modify the works of Alkali and Orwell. And finally, to determine from our
analysis whether gender has effect on the text that he/she creates. Significance of the
study, scope and delimitation also concludes this chapter. Chapter two examines
literature related materials to this study. In this respect the materials selected for review
are modifiers as linguistic elements, structure of modification, ordering of modifiers,
traditional grammar, structural grammar, constituent structure grammar, immediate
constituent grammar, systemic grammar and the theoretical framework. Chapter three
presents the methodology for this research, elicitation materials, the sampling
procedure and sample analysis. The theoretical syntactic framework of Quirk et al’s
(1985:62), Halliday and Hasan’s (1976:40) semantic model and Bloomfield’s
immediate constituent (IC) analysis model were adopted and modified for the analysis.
The data are analyzed in chapter four and the same chapter discusses the findings. The
major findings have revealed that Alkali has used more modifiers than Orwell. Alkali
has used more adjectives and adjectival clauses than Orwell while Orwell has used
more adverbs and adverbial clauses than Alkali. Alkali has used more intensifiers than
Orwell which suggests that women use emotive language more than men and that
gender has effect on the creation of texts. This analysis identifies a number of
similarities and dissimilarities between Alkali’s and Orwell’s texts which are explained
in chapter five. Finally, chapter five examines the summary of the study in which the
findings are stated. The same chapter also concludes that modifiers are very crucial in
the modification of texts. Other aspects which the chapter also examines are
implications for the study and suggestions for further research.
Description
A THESIS SUBMITTED TO THE POSTGRADUATE SCHOOL IN
PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE
AWARD OF THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY (PhD) IN
ENGLISH LANGUAGE
DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH AND LITERARY STUDIES
FACULTY OF ARTS
AHMADU BELLO UNIVERSITY
ZARIA.
AUGUST, 2008
Keywords
LINGUISTIC ANALYSIS, MODIFICATION,, ZAYNAB ALKALI’S,, STILLBORN,, GEORGE ORWELL’S ANIMAL FARM.