Isaac N Mwinlaaru
Isaac N. Mwinlaaru obtained his PhD degree from The Hong Kong Polytechnic University and is Senior Lecturer at the University of Cape Coast, Ghana. He has papers in internationally recognised journals, including Journal of Pragmatics, Language Sciences, Journal of English for Academic Purposes, Functions of Language, Research in African Literatures, Sociolinguistic Studies, and Power & Education, and WORD. His research interest areas include Literary Stylistics, English for Specific/Academic Purposes, Systemic Functional Linguistics, language typology, grammaticalisation, (Critical) Discourse Studies.
Supervisors: Professor Christian M. I. M. Matthiessen, Chair Professor of Language Sciences, Dr. Foong Ha Yap, and Dr. Marvin Lam
Phone: +233 (0)24 67 36 64 6
Address: Room AG 415, 4/F
Department of English
The Hong Kong Polytechnic University
Hung Hom, Kowloon
Hong Kong
Supervisors: Professor Christian M. I. M. Matthiessen, Chair Professor of Language Sciences, Dr. Foong Ha Yap, and Dr. Marvin Lam
Phone: +233 (0)24 67 36 64 6
Address: Room AG 415, 4/F
Department of English
The Hong Kong Polytechnic University
Hung Hom, Kowloon
Hong Kong
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Papers by Isaac N Mwinlaaru
Isaac N. Mwinlaaru
Department of English
University of Cape Coast, Ghana
[email protected]
Abstract
National anthems are one of the prominent national discourses of modern nations. They are emblems of national consciousness, nationhood, and the vision of a nation. Surprisingly, however, it is not until quite recently that anthems have received the attention of scholars in Applied Linguistics. A few studies have investigated the content, the generic structure, and lexicogrammatical choices in the anthems of several countries. This paper presents preliminary findings on an exploration of the anthems of English-speaking countries in Africa. This preliminary analysis is based on the anthems of the four English-speaking countries in West Africa, namely, Ghana, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, and The Gambia. The main objective of the study is to draw on systemic functional linguistic theory to examine the metafunctional profile of the anthems at the micro textual organization level. Lexico-grammatical resources of transitivity, mood and theme are employed in analyzing the data. The analysis reveals a number of issues. Three process types, namely, material, verbal and causative processes are most frequently used in the anthems. Entities, comprising God, countrymen/women and the nation, are assigned varying participant roles in the transitivity patterns to charge appropriate or preferred emotions and attitudes in audience. The preferred mood choices are declarative and imperative moods, with declarative as the most frequent mood. These mood choices are made to declare allegiance, exalt, express desideration, and to call countrymen/women to action and to collaborate. And finally, theme choices are influenced by the need to maintain a poetic and musical tone in the anthems. These findings contribute to the emerging body of literature on the discursive construction of anthems and have implications for further research.
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Following insights from stylistic studies on European literature and a few earlier attempts on the stylistic analysis of African literature, there has been a recent growing interest in the stylistic analysis of the African novel. The present study is meant to contribute to this growing body of studies by using transitivity, a Systemic Functional Linguistic framework, to explore Achebe’s Anthills of the Savannah. Since Halliday (1971) applied transitivity to Golding’s The Inheritors, it has been used to explore characterisation, power relations in texts, the generic features of texts, and the pragmatic organisation of narrative discourse. While many of these studies are based on European and American literature, only few attempts have been made on African literature. The present study first examines what foregrounded transitivity patterns associated with six characters in Anthills reveal about these characters and the thematic concern of the novel. In addition, the study investigates the relationship between point of view and the transitivity patterns in which a character is inscribed. The study demonstrates that five of the six characters, namely, Sam, Beatrice, Ikem, Elewa, and Agatha are stereotypes of key social actors in post-independence West Africa. These stereotype characters create a world that serves as a background for Achebe to foreground his socio-political ideology through his characterisation of Chris, the only dynamic character of the six. Through systematic changes in the transitivity patterns Chris is associated with, Achebe apparently urges the enlightened but apathetic citizen to rise up and transform his society through struggle, however, feeble it would be. The study also reveals interlocking power relations especially in relation to gender. Regarding point of view, the study shows that metanarrative functions are particularly performed by narrators in the first person point of view and that the process types used to realise these functions are mental, behavioural and verbal processes. It also reveals variations in the frequency of particular processes and participant roles associated with characters depending on whether they are narrators or not, thus, leading to different types of modality in the narrative. The findings of the study generally have implications for the Systemic Functional Linguistic theory, Narratology, explorations on the interface between language and literature, in general, and stylistic explorations on transitivity, in particular.
Affiliation is a relatively new theory developed within the Systemic Functional Linguistic framework. It is a theory of communal identity as it is discursively negotiated in text; a social process of aligning into communities around shared values and shared meanings. The theory has mainly been applied to analysing conversational humour (e.g. Knight, 2009, 2010), popular culture in television and film (e.g. Bednarek, 2010) and rap music (e.g. Caldwell, 2010). The present study extends it to examine a narrative text as a semiotic space for the development of bonds and the construction of group identity. Specifically, the study uses the theory to examine communal identity and social cohesion in Chinua Achebe’s Anthills of the Savannah (1987). It demonstrates that the polarization of discourse and the development of bonds in interactions among particular characters identify two social groups in the novel: the elite typified by Chris, Ikem, and Beatrice; and the less educated citizens, including Elewa and the taxi drivers. This group polarisation realises Achebe’s criticism of the detachment of the elite from the plights of the ordinary people. At the end of the novel, we meet a multi-social group whose interaction neutralises the polarised discourses and values, and the key role Beatrice plays here indicates Achebe’s call for the elite to connect with the ordinary citizens in a way that will make their knowledge useful to the less privileged.
Several studies have revealed differences and similarities in the generic structure and the linguistic encoding of gratitude in dissertation acknowledgements in different socio-cultural settings. Whereas some studies have highlighted the role of disciplinarity, not all disciplines have been given equal attention. The present study explores disciplinarity and sub-disciplinary variation in the rhetoric of the acknowledgement section of Masters’ Degree dissertations in three sub-disciplines of Education, namely, Guidance and Counselling, Educational Administration and Management, and Science and Mathematics Education. The findings show a linear three-tier move-structure, consisting of an optional reflecting move, an obligatory thanking move and an optional concluding move, across the three sub-disciplines. Second, there are some differences in the frequency of occurrence of moves and steps across the three sub-disciplines. Finally, the thanking move is assigned much textual space in all DAs, and there seems not to be considerable sub-disciplinary variation in the textual space allocated to the three moves across the sub-disciplines. The study has implications for the scholarship on disciplinarity and disciplinary variation, and further research.
Key words: dissertation acknowledgement, disciplinarity, education, genre, rhetoric
Following insights from stylistic studies on European and American literature as well as few earlier attempts on African literature, there has been a recent growing interest in the stylistic analysis of the African novel. The present study is meant to contribute to this growing literature by exploring Achebe’s Anthills of the Savannah from a functional-semantic perspective. Critics of the novel have emphasised that it represents Achebe’s most articulate ideology on the socio-political situation of post-colonial Africa, in general, and Nigeria, in particular. The present study sheds new meaning on the ideological import of the novel by exploring the interaction between transitivity patterning, the characterisation of Chris (one of the protagonists) and the theme of struggle. The study demonstrates that through systematic variation in the transitivity patterns Chris is associated with across three key passages in the plot of the narrative, Achebe apparently urges the enlightened but apathetic citizen to rise up and transform his society through struggle. The study has implications for studies on Anthills of the Savannah, stylistic analysis, and further research.
Keywords: African literature, Anthills of the Savannah, character, Chinua Achebe, functional-
semantics, ideology, post-colonial literature, stylistics, theme of struggle, transitivity