STYLISTIC FEATURES OF AFRICAN ORAL NARRATION IN SOME SELECTED WORKS OF CONTEMPORARY AFRICAN WRITERS: THE LINGUISTIC IMPLICATIONS

Asika, Ikechukwu Emmanuel

Department of English

Anambra State University, Igbariam Campus

Email: excellency4life@yahoo.com

ABSTRACT

African literature is a literature of mixed voices, ethnic projections and diversified cultural reaffirmation. This is expected from a continent of multiple culture, ethnic groups, world views and languages. The advent of colonialism did not efface this problem of a collective language, for each country on the African continent laboured much to hold on to the language of their colonizers. Now we have the Francophone, Lusophone, and Anglophone writers among others. But in all these, suffice it to say that the English language is a more appreciable language of literature than any of these other languages. It has become the accepted official language of some West Africa countries. For African writers to express themselves in all clarity to a wider audience they resorted to the use of this world language but not in a way to suit the European taste and jeopardize the African taste, and yearnings. Chinweizu et al, called for the decolonization of African literature. Many African writers responded to this call. This paper examined the use of these stylistic features of African oral narration that give uniqueness, identity, as well as authenticity to Africa literature in some selected works of African writers. How these writers flexed, bent, twisted and manipulated the English language to achieve a unique African voice and decolonize their literary creation; its relevance to the African people and the obvious linguistic implications are the major concern of this study.