14 PDF
14 PDF
5 May 2013
Abstract
Problems based on the relationship between form and functions have remained a continual challenge. The
article aims to contribute to the understanding of speech in Emecheta’s narrative discourse. The focus is on
the pragmatic and stylistic dimensions of speech. The data comprises extracts of speech isolated for analysis
at the level of phonology and graphology. The result reveals the use of phono-graphological features to
indicate contrastive stress and focus information. Stress, intonation, contractors and other patterns of
speech also indicate informal situations in addition to disclosing themes. Theme structures in particular
reveal the choice of various linguistic and situational clues to convey a focused and continuous flow of ideas
centring on the author’s gender interest. The analytic approach of the study contributes to the growing
research on language and gender and reveals how phonological structures and systems bring out thematic
issues in the author’s gender interest.
1.1 Introduction
Bloomfield’s linguistics is strong in the areas of phonology, morphology but weak in semantics. Halliday’s
systemic functional linguistics stresses context, semantics, communication and social aspects of language.
Halliday sees meanings in the heart of everything in language (Bloor and Bloor 1995:2). Phono-graphology
is a sub-system of the systemic function all linguistics (SFL). The article examines speech in Emecheta’s
discourse to reveal the phono-graphological choices she made to get across her gender message. The article
presents a wide range of issues under the following sub-headings: systemic phonology, information and
theme systems, analysis and results.
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relations indicate how language is patterned. The relations display choices of meaning that are available to
the language user at given point of structure. Phonological choices could be meaningful at the level of
intonation but at other levels especially at the segmental level, they mostly reflect the form that the language
takes at the level of spoken physical substances.
2.1 Intonation
Intonation is often realized in tone units consisting of a sequence of stressed and unstressed syllables but on
occasion the unit may consist of a single pitch prominent syllable. Then peak of the greatest prominence is
called the NUCLEUS of the tone unit (Quirk, 1976).
Word and sentence stress are aspects of intonation. “Sentence stress is achieved by the use of gliding pitch
on-one of the stressed syllables of the utterance. Normally, this gliding pitch occurs on the last stressed
syllable of the sentence”(Adetugbo 1997:135). English stress also shifts from one word to another in a
sentence in order to stress, emphasize, correct, focus or contrast something that some has said in order to
create another meaning (Jowitt, 1998, Williams, 1990).
The foot and more especially the tone groups play an important part in the construction of meaning. The
English language has the Foot-Timing of Stress-Timing type of rhythm in which the tempo depends on the
foot. As a structural unit, the foot consists of one strong or salient syllable with weak syllable (s) depending
on it. There is a strong tendency in English for the salient syllables to occur at regular intervals so that all
feet tend to be roughly the same length.
2.3 Phonology
Phonology is the study of how speech sounds form systems and patterns in human language. It acts as a link
between the substance of a language and its form (Halliday, 1961:244). Some sounds in language change the
meaning of an utterance, for example, light and right. Variation in the sounds of language can be subdivided
into pitch, quality, loudness and length.
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Prosodies are suprasegmental sounds, such as, pitch, melody, tempo, pause, rhythm, stress and these, work
together with segmental sounds. Prosodies can include form, irony, emotion and emphasis. They could be
seen in pragmatics, sentences in context and in expressive forms of language. Their domain is the syllable
which is a collection of sounds grouped under ‘prosodic phonological structure’. Adetugbo(1997:70)
describes a syllable as “a unit of pronunciation larger than a single sound but smaller than a word”. Vowels
and consonant sounds, for instance, m, n, I, r can substitute a syllable. The prosodic phonology of a language
is responsible for the rhythm in an utterance as it gives an utterance its area as a set of related units
“interrupted by pauses” (Fabb, 1997:29).
“Oh Allah, on whose side is he now? Have you got a girl friend there at the Religious Revival?
One minute you condemn them, the next you want us to go and listen to their wailings and breast
beatings” (DY, 69).
Similar repetition of the phoneme /b/ appears in utterances like “Gosh”, you are a brain box” (DY, 27). The
choice of /r/ and /b/ rather any other sound is significant because the sound, are alternatives within sets “by
virtue of being a distinct sound in the English sound system” (Bloor and Bloor, 1995:242). A system is set
of paradigmatic choices which according to Tench (1992:10) indicates powerful ways of “displaying choices
in meaning”. Similarly, the repetitions of the following syllables, “dam” in “Oh, dam the Madam!” “ba” in
“… he was going to continue talking banalities until Ubani was ready to tell him what the matter was…”
and the repetition of the bound morphemes, -ing + s in “wailings and …beatings” bring a contrast between
these repeated morphemes and others in the text. The inflectional morphemes carry the grammatical
meanings of plural while also indicating “arbitrary union of sound and meaning”.
Contracted forms also feature the omission of vowels as exemplified with won’t. don’t, I’d, and you’II. The
ease with which Emecheta uses contracted forms in the informal speech for her characters reflect her high
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stand on the scale of bilingualism in view of Jowitt’s (2000:64) remark that the Nigerian English is a
restricted English lexically and syntactically because of “the underuse of contracted forms and contrastive
stress”.
Dialogue
“Is it from her?” A voice shouted at him from the other side of the room.
“Sh sh sh,” came another voice in an elaborate strange whisper. “He is in a deep
meditation” (DY, p.41).
The sound Sh sh sh imitates the whisper sound made by one of Ete’s friends. The effect is that of caution
because the two friends are trying to be careful, so as to watch Ete in his unconscious state of mind. The
sounds tik-tock in her “brain worked tick-tock” (SCC, p. 49) also echo the sounds the words refer to, that is,
the talking-clock. The effect is that of anxiety and fear. Ada’s heart beats fast as she thinks she thinks of her
sick child. Similarly, the sound ‘gbim, gbim, gbim’ in “Her heart was going “gbim, gbim, gbim” imitates the
quick beating of Adah’s heart and it also exophorically refers to the sound made by “a Nigerian wife
pounding yams in her Odo” (SCC, p. 125).
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“Stop at once”! What do you call this, bravery”? You make my stomach turn.” JOM, p.23.
“You will live to rock your children’s children, daughter of Agbadi and Ona. Go, daughter, and
bring your father’s best drink; and here, fill my pipe, also”. JOM, p. 28.
“You are a fool of a man, you are. Where will she take the money to? Her people, who did not even
come to congratulate her on the arrival of baby Titi? Her relatives, who did not care whether she
lived or died? The money is for you, can’t you see? Let her go and work for a million Americans
bring their money here, into this house. It is your luck. You made a good choice in marriage, son”.
SCC, p. 77.
In these utterances, the pauses indicated by the various punctuation marks, such as the exclamation mark,
the question mark, the full stop and the comma emphasize and highlight themes and the speakers’ idiolect.
In the first utterances, the lexical items, “ones”, “bravery” and “turn” which precede the exclamation mark,
the question mark, and full stop receive the nucleus and reveal the situation that is, Agabadi’s attempt to stop
his son from killing the slave girl in fulfillment of a mundane cultural belief. The text reflects Agbadi’s Igbo
idiolect. You make my stomach turn is an Igbo idiom that is almost periphrastic (E na eme afom a na atu ari).
Culture is seen here “a standardized and expected behaviour” (Thompson, 1991) of a society consisting of
ideas, values, artifacts, practices, modes of thought, traditions, institutions, material goods, technologies and
so on.
In the second extract of speech, the lexical items children and daughter receive the nucleus and feature two
times each to reveal the expected role of women in the society, such as, that of mainly looking after children.
In the third extract, Pa’s idiolect is marked by salient patterns of speech consisting of the repetition of
rhetorical questions and answers interspersed with punctuation marks which increase the tempo of Pa’s
speech. In Igbo culture, an old man is revered for his knowledge and wisdom especially as he is believed to
be in constant communication with the ancestors. His speech is often characterized by instruction and
admonition. And the nominal groups like her people, her relations, money here, this house make for an
effective communication of the Igbo speech patterns of an old man. The lexical items here and house in the
let construction “let her… house”, mark the climax of the speech and reveals Pa’s attitude towards working
class ladies whom he values for the wealth they bring to their marital homes. This choice of realistic speech
represents certain features of speech encountered in life and appropriate to an Igbo man’s idiolect. Ma’s
speech (SCC, p.7) and Pa’s speech (SCC, p. 77) are metonyms used to refer to the attributes of old people’s
speaking voice. The speechless are also symbolic and represent generally accepted manner of speech of the
aged.
The novel, according to Norman Page, (1988:98) recognizes six different uses of language in speech. The
first marks individual characters of speech, such as, speech as identification; the second marks exaggerated
or recognizable speech patterns, that is speech as parody, the third marks language used in real life, that is
realistic speech; the fourth marks conventional, stylized or neutral speech which is speech as social
idiosyncratic dialogue and is symbolic or metonymical; the fifth is speech as social behaviour and the sixth
is token-speech which is dialogue of accepted equivalents which is usually not represented realistically. The
different uses of language in speech are not mutually exclusive.
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The speech extracts under discussion are on epitome of Emecheta’s conversational style which is often
punctuated to produce apt descriptive utterances reflecting strong views and emotions. Emecheta uses
English to describe the language environment of her characters in line with Achebe’s (1965) and
Bamgbose’s (1995:20) observation that as the English language expands into new language environment, it
accommodates new cultures and behaviours resulting in the production of a new English like Nigerian
English which is a variety of English enriched by nativization, creativity and the influences of literal,
biblical and American English, including that of Nigerian languages. She writes to entertain both her
Nigerian and European audiences by balancing her style so that it reflects her “very English” style and
Nigerian English style.
3.4.3 Italics
Italics often foreground themes, idiolect and change in speech forms. The theme of insensitivity to the
family’s welfare is focused.The italicization on “Mammy Waater” in JOM, p.43 reflects Naife’s lower class
and idiolect. The spelling of water as Waater is a paradigmatic choice meant you reflect Naife’s linguistic
idiosyncracy. The common name “Mammy Waater” is used to focus on the beautiful bride sent to Naife as a
wife. In the Igbo belief system a beautiful bride is often cherished but the bridegroom needs not be equally
handsome, Italicization in these texts often signal a change of speech form from the indirect speech to the
free indirect speech.Uses of italics feature in SCC pp. 85, 103, 144 and JOM pp. 9, 13, 21, 24, 62.
Dialogue B
Nnu Ego: “But I am not a woman anymore! I am not a mother anymore. The child is there,
dead on the mat. My chi has taken him away from me. I only want to go there and meet
her…”.
A woman: “She is not mad at all”, the woman took it upon herself to inform the crowd in her
imperfect Yoruba. “She has only just lost the child that told the world that she is not barren”. (Joy
of Motherhood, p.62)
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Nnu Ego’s speech which is in direct speech form starts with an emotive and ironic tone to reveal her sense
of loss of being. Though the exclamation mark, Emecheta crafts into the discourse the actual feelings of Nnu
ego- that a woman’s value is simply measured by her production and retention of children. Nnu ego, too,
typically prioritizes the needs of her husband over hers which reflects her mode of thought and that of her
tribe.
4.0 Conclusion
The article studies phono-graphological features in selected narrative discourse. The focus is on the
pragmatic and stylistic dimensions of speech in the narratives. The concept of discourse-stylistics exposes
texts as pieces of information and reveals how utterances are intelligently used for the purpose of
communication. Systemic functional linguistics is based on the functions language user makes. The result of
the study indicates the use of contrastive stress to reveal the expected role of women in the society.
Similarly, repetition of consonants syllables and the omission of vowels in contracted forms give a ‘spoken
flavour and poetic effects to the utterances. Moreover, onomatopoeic words induce in the reader a particular
state of mind. Emecheta’s use of form of informal style enables her to communicate much using gender
rhetoric to appeal to the reader. The items of language here provide new messages on existing patterns of
language and form part of the choices she makes in order to transmit information from her characters to the
reader.
Graphological features reveal social aspects of language indicating the characters dialect and idiolect as well
as highlighting themes, social situations and culture. The culture cherishes children and expects every
woman to bear and have children. The features also reveal patriarchal structures and call for reflection on the
problems of culture, gender, inequality and the use of women as ‘baby machines’.
Punctuation marks increase the tempo of some characters’ speech in order to reveal strong view points and
identities. There are also marked uses of italics to indicate changes in speech forms and focus on themes,
such as, insensitivity of the male characters and the foregrounding of the ideology of feminism particularly
in Double Yoke. Exclamations feature frequently to craft the feelings of heroine characters into the discourse
as exemplified with the heroine character, Nnu Ego, in Joy of Motherhood who wants to commit suicide
because she feels she is no longer a woman. These phono-graphological features help in unveiling meaning.
The patterns and meanings also arouse interest and reflect gender messages. Other kinds of speech could be
studied in terms of prosody and comparism for more findings.
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