0% found this document useful (0 votes)
578 views

14 PDF

This summary provides an analysis of a scholarly article about a phonological study of selected narrative discourse by Dr. Susan Opara. [1] The article examines the use of phono-graphological features like stress, intonation, contractions and speech patterns in the works of author Buchi Emecheta to convey themes and indicate informal situations. [2] Key findings include the use of punctuation like quotation marks and capital letters to indicate contrastive stress and focus information. Repetition of sounds and contracted forms are also used to give Emecheta's works a poetic effect. [3] The analysis contributes to the growing research on language and gender by revealing how phonological structures in E
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
0% found this document useful (0 votes)
578 views

14 PDF

This summary provides an analysis of a scholarly article about a phonological study of selected narrative discourse by Dr. Susan Opara. [1] The article examines the use of phono-graphological features like stress, intonation, contractions and speech patterns in the works of author Buchi Emecheta to convey themes and indicate informal situations. [2] Key findings include the use of punctuation like quotation marks and capital letters to indicate contrastive stress and focus information. Repetition of sounds and contracted forms are also used to give Emecheta's works a poetic effect. [3] The analysis contributes to the growing research on language and gender by revealing how phonological structures in E
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
You are on page 1/ 8

International Journal of Arts and Commerce Vol. 2 No.

5 May 2013

A PHONO-GRAPHOLOGICAL STUDY OF SELECTED NARRATIVE DISCOURSE

Dr. SUSAN OPARA


Department of English and Literary Studies,
Faculty of Humanities,
Imo State University,
P.M.B 2000
Owerri, Nigeria
[email protected]
2348034350486

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.

KEYWORDS: Speech, Choice, Gender, Systemic Functional Linguistics.

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.

2.0 Systemic Phonology


System phonology is an approach to the description of the phonology of a language. It emphasizes chain and
choice relations of patterns of sounds with hierarchical networks of choices in meaning. The approach also
accepts other different systems appropriate to different components of both language and its theory (Tench,
1992:6).
The hierarchical structuring of the features relates to collocations and helps in keeping the related items
together and in ensuring that the iconic principle is upheld (Tench 1992; Leech and Short (1985).Choice

123
International Journal of Arts and Commerce ISSN 1929-7106 www.ijac.org.uk

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.

2.2 Information Theme Structures


The tone group realizes the unit of information in discourse. Rhythm and tone group organize discourse into
information units, with each information unit comprising the functions of Given-New. The area of emphasis
in a clause is shown by intonation and it is directed to what the addressee knows or what he does not know
(Melrose 1995:33, Halliday 2000:59).The known information tends to precede unknown information in tone
unit. The speaker usually starts speaking by giving information that is assumed to be shared by the hearer
before giving the one that is “new” to the hearer. The principle of End-Focus is a rhetorical principle which
facilitates the decoding of the message and influences different choices between different language systems.
Information structures relates closely with thematic structure. The speaker chooses the “Theme from within
what is given and locates the focus, the climax of the new, somewhere within the Rheme” (Halliday, 2000:
299). Although they are related, Given+New, and Theme+Rheme are not the same thing. The theme is what
the speaker chooses as his point of departure while the given is what the listener can recover from his
previous knowledge. The technique of thematization enables us to achieve an important discourse function.
The Given information is usually represented by anaphoric elements and deictic elements while the New
which has contrastive emphasis and carries the information focus is usually represented by contrastive
deictic elements. Both however are speaker-selected. The speaker selects and relates each of them to their
environment. The environment which often consists of rich verbal and non-verbal environment will “often
create local conditions which override the globally unmarked pattern of theme within Given, New within
Rheme” (Halliday 2000:300).

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.
124
International Journal of Arts and Commerce Vol. 2 No. 5 May 2013

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).

3.0 Analysis and Results


The analysis centres on how Emecheta organizes her information and reveals meaning in the speech of her
characters. It is guided by Halliday’s systematic phonology consists of the English sound system, intonation,
the rhythm units and graphology, which consists of the sentence, word and letter.

3.1 Stress in Words, Syllables and Phonemes


Emecheta places the nucleus in the speech of her characters so as to focus on a theme. This placement of
nucleus is often signaled by graphological features as in the contrastive stress on the word ‘tutorial’ in “he
sees her last so that they can have a longer ‘tutorial’ than the normal time allowed…” (DY, 146). The single
quotation marks emphases the close relationship between NKO and Professor Ikot. Similarly, the pitch
placement on the personal pronoun ‘You’ in “I thought you were on my side….” (DY, 99), reflects Ete’s
negative attitude towards the relationship between Nko and the Professor.The use of capital letters in the
word Anxeria Nervosa in “… some unfortunate girls in their desperate efforts to be admired, ended up being
victims of Anorexia Nervosa” (DY, p.103) creates a contrast between a normal disease and this strange one
which afflicts girls who starve themselves to get slim. Presence in “one could feel it, one could be directed
by it; unconsciously at first, until it became a reality, a Presence” (SCC, p.1) is also an indication of stress
placement using capital letters. The focus of these words places the “flavour of spoken” emphasis on them.
Repetition of consonants, syllables and the omission of vowels in contracted forms also feature prominently
in the utterances to give her works a poetic effect and a ‘spoken flavour’. The sound patterns reinforce
meaning. The phonemes /r/ and /b/ in ‘Religious Revival’ and ‘breast beatings’ are repeated in

“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
125
International Journal of Arts and Commerce ISSN 1929-7106 www.ijac.org.uk

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”.

3.2 Onomatopoeic Words


Onomatopoeic words in the utterances are used for effect. Words that imitate sounds are indicated in this
short conversation between two friends, Akpan and Ikem who watch their other friend, Eke, open a letter
from his girlfriend, NKO.

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).

3.3 Elongation of Sounds


Emecheta elongates sounds for effect. She elongates the phoneme /a/ and the syllable ‘fy’ in “Ehem! Naaaa-
fy,” (JOM, p.83). The effect is that of amusement because of the imitation of the white woman’s
pronunciation of the Igbo name, Naife which in itself is an abbreviation of any of the Igbo names meaning
father of ifechukwu which is initiated by the syllables “I” plus “fe”. The abbreviation produces names that
are pleasing to the ears and easy to pronounce. The elongation of sounds features often in pidgin English
which forms part of the idiolect to her literate and non-literate characters as examplied in “Na so for me
ooo” Emecheta (1982, pp. 145-146).
Emecheta also elongates sounds in order to indicate pause for reflection as in “Hmmm” in DY (pp. 64, 100).
In JOM, p. 83, Naife elongates sounds to reflect his own inability to pronounce the white woman’s name,
Mrs. Meers. He pronounces Meers as “Miiass”. Apart from the initial phoneme /m/, he lengthens all other
phonemes in order to reflect his own idiolect. There is a transfer of features here from his mother tongue,
Igbo, to the English language. In the Igbo Language the way a word is spelt tells a lot about how it is
pronounced unlike in the English Language in which spelling is not a guide for correct pronunciation,
spelling features as the trace of a word and pronunciation as its linguistic form (Fromkin and Rodman
(1986:156).

3.4 Graphological Study of Speech


Graphological features in the speeches indicate the characters’’ idiolect and highlight the themes. The salient
punctuation marks are the exclamation marks, quotation marks, the question marks, italics, ellipsis and dash
(es).

126
International Journal of Arts and Commerce Vol. 2 No. 5 May 2013

3.4.1 Punctuation Marks


A character’s idiolect is often indicated by punctuation marks. Let us consider these utterances

“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.

127
International Journal of Arts and Commerce ISSN 1929-7106 www.ijac.org.uk

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.

3.4.1 Question Marks


Emecheta uses question marks as emotive elements for thematic purposes especially to appeal to a reader’s
reasoning. The questions function to rebuke and foreground one of the expectations of the Igbo belief
system that a lady should speak with reservation.

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.

3.4.4 Exclamation Marks


Exclamation Marks often feature with ironic effects to foreground themes. In these women! (DY, p. 71) Ete
emphasizes the theme of ‘double yoke’ which modern women in contrast to the traditional ones often carry.
Mr.! in “And some of those highly qualifies surgeons in the Medical school call themselves just Mr.! reflects
the simplicity with which these Professionals address themselves in contrast with others like “Sister, Dr.
Mrs. Ngana Edet” (Ibid.).
The exclamation marks foreground Dr. Edet’s love of titles and background the title professor by not writing
the letter P in capital letter. Emecheta chooses this device possibly to prevent the Professor as a person with
a moral question. Most male characters in Emecheta’s texts are not given positive faces.
Similar uses of exclamation for thematic purposes manifest in this short conversation between Nnu Ego and
the crowd who gathered around when she wanted to commit suicide.

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)

128
International Journal of Arts and Commerce Vol. 2 No. 5 May 2013

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.

3.4.5 Ellipsis and Dash (es)


Emecheta frequently uses ellipsis to deliberately omit some of her message so that the reader is left to guess
its other meanings. The elliptical utterances “No woman has the right to talk to me like that… my mother
wanted me to marry, you… you can’t talk to me like that” changes the value of the utterances from a
statement to an illocutionary act of warning. Ete expects Nko to behave appropriately and appropriately, too,
in view of the knowledge that his mother and no one else wanted to marry her. Extended family members
have a say in marital relationships and virginity in women before marriage is cherished in the belief system
of the Igbos; however, men are not expected to be virgins. Other elliptical marks to highlight themes feature
in DY, pp. 24, 112; SCC, pp. 22, 23, 66.Emecheta often uses dashes to draw attention to her themes and for
stylistics purposes. These uses could be seen in DY, pp. 67, 70 and JOM pp. 24, 39, 43, 63, and 70.
Hence, forms of language use convey meanings in Emecheta’s discourse and together with situation help in
the decoding of meaning in her texts. Similarly, graphological features, such as, capital letters also create
different effects and meanings in discourse and reveal characters’ idiolect.

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.

129
International Journal of Arts and Commerce ISSN 1929-7106 www.ijac.org.uk

References
Adetugbo, A. (1997). English Phonetics: A Course Text. Lagos. University of Lagos Press.
Bloor, T. and Bloor, M. (1985). The Functional Analysis of English: A Hallidayan Approach. London:
Arnold.
Emecheta, B. (1979). Joys of Motherhood London: Villiers Publications Ltd.
Emecheta, B. (1981). Second Class Citizen. London: Hodder and Stonghton.
Emecheta, B. (1982). Double Yoke. London: Ogwugwu Afor.
Fabb, N, (1997). Linguistic and Literature, Oxford: Blackwell.
Halliday, M.A.K (2000). Functional Grammar. London: Armold.
Jowitt, D. (2000). Nigerian English Usage An Introduction. Nigerian: Longman.
Joworski, A., and Coupland, N. (1999). “Perspectives on Discourse Analysis”. In The Discourse Reader.
London: Routedge.
Leech, G. N and Short, M. H. (1985) Style in Fiction: A Linguistic Introduction to English Fictional Prose.
New York: Longman.
Melrose, R. (1995). The Communicative Syllabus: A System Functional Approach to Language Teaching
London: Cassel.
Matthiessan, C. (1993). “Register in the Round: Diversity in Unified Theory of Register Analysis”, In
Register Analysis Theory and Practice. London: Pinter Publishers
Richard Nordquist, Prosody-definition and example of prosody. (Online) Available:
http://grammar.about.com/pg/prosidyterm.htm (March 21, 2013)
Quirk, R, and Greenbaum, S. (1987). A University Grammar of English. London: Longman.
Tannen, D, (1999). “New York Jewish Conversational Style. In The Discourse Reader. London. Routledge,
458. 473.
Tench, P.(1992). “From Prosodic Analysis to Systematic Phonology” In Studies in Systematic Pronology.
London: Pinter Publishers, 1-17.
Williams, D. (1990). English Language Teaching. Ibadan: Spectrum.

130

You might also like