A Morphological Analysis of Verbs and Nouns in Adichies Purple Hibiscus
CHAPTER ONE
OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY
The aim of this study is to analyze the morphological analysis of verbs and nouns in Adichie’s Purple Hibiscus, with the objectives of:
- carrying out a stylistic analysis of the text.
- discussing the morphological features in the text.
- highlighting the syntactic features of the text.
- examining the graphological features that foreground meaning in the text.
CHAPTER TWO
LITERATURE REVIEW
CONCEPTUAL REVIEW
Stylistics has always had a hard time of it. As an academic discipline it has always been seen, pretty much throughout the twentieth century, as neither one thing nor the other, or, much worse, as all things to all men and women, as sitting uncomfortably on the fence between the linguistic and the literary, and as a bit uneasy within either domain, building bridges that never quite stretch far enough across dividing waters and always, as here, resorting to retreat, repair and reconciliation metaphors of bridges, unfilled gaps and spaces, crossing contested territories, unhappy marriages and paths not taken. In the 1960s and 1970s this was in part to be expected for an essentially inchoate interdisciplinary endeavour. Linguists felt stylistics was too soft to be taken too seriously and tended to introduce irrelevant notions such as performance data and interpretation; literature specialists felt that stylistics was too hard, too mechanistic and too reductive, saying nothing significant about historical context or aesthetic theory, eschewing evaluation for the most part in the interests of a naïve scientism and claiming too much for interpretations that were at best merely text-immanent. And many linguists and literary critics continue to this day to give stylistics a hard time. But, for better or for worse, stylisticians have stayed together. Although, there have been few divorces or major disagreements within the family (G. Watson and S, Zyngier, 2007: R. Carter, 2007).
However, stylistics as a term as generally been referred to as the study of style and language. The concept of style itself has had a troubled history in the modern period both within and outside literary study. It has commonly been argued that, we use the term ‘style’ without knowing its meaning. The Work of literature is written and presented in many ways in order to bring out its creative nature. To achieve this, the writer uses his peculiar manners, choice of words and form in presenting his message. This is what is known as style. Style therefore is the peculiar way in which something is done (Nnaji, 2014).
CHAPTER THREE
METHODOLOGY
RESEARCH DESIGN
The study uses Content Analysis with focus on Stylistic Analysis approach (specficially on morphological content) in describing the use of language in Purple Hibiscus. In describing the morpho-syntactic features of the text, the study adopts Leech and Shorts’ checklists of stylistic analysis in the interpretation of the text because of its comprehensive nature. Thus, the morphological processes and the syntactic features in the text shall be identified and their function and signification to the overall interpretation of the text (i.e. foreground meaning) are described.
The entire text has a total of 310 pages but the analysis shall be based on randomly selected pages where the necessary identified stylistic features abound; thus, the purposive random sampling technique will be adopted for this study. Library research will prove useful here as linguistic textbooks, journal articles and other useful sources of information on stylistics from the internet will be consulted.
SOURCES OF DATA
The data for this study is Adichie’s novel, Purple Hibiscus obtained from the bookshop around the University of Abuja. The data will include lexical items, utterances and graphic features that can be stylistically analyzed to foreground meaning in the text. The secondary sources of information are materials from library textbooks, journals and the internet.
CHAPTER FOUR
MORPOHOLOGICAL ANALYSIS OF ADICHIE’S PURPLE HIBISCUS
PLOT (PURPLE HIBISCUS)
KambiliAchike, the narrator, is a fifteen-year-old girl living in Enugu, Nigeria with her father, Eugene (Papa), mother, Beatrice (Mama), and older brother, Chukwuku (Jaja). The novel begins on Palm Sunday. Jaja refuses to receive communion at church, and Papa throws his missal, breaking Mama’s beloved figurines. Kambili then explains the events leading up to this scene. Papa, a wealthy factory owner, is an active philanthropist in public and an upstanding Catholic, but at home is a strict and violent authoritarian. He publishes a newspaper, the Standard, which is the only paper willing to criticize the new Nigerian Head of State.
Mama gets pregnant. After Mass one day the family visits Father Benedict, their white priest. Mama feels sick and doesn’t want to leave the car. When they return home Papa beats Mama until she has a miscarriage. Later Kambili takes her exams and comes second in her class, disappointing Papa. At Christmas the family goes to their home village of Abba. Papa’s father, Papa-Nnukwu, lives there, but Papa doesn’t speak to him because his father sticks to his traditional religion and won’t become Catholic. Kambili and Jaja visit Papa-Nnukwu briefly. Aunty Ifeoma, Papa’s widowed sister and a university professor, arrives in Abba as well. She seems fearless and willing to criticize both Papa and the government. Her children; Amaka, Obiora, and Chima: are precocious and outspoken.
CHAPTER FIVE
SUMMARY AND CONSLUSION
SUMMARY
Literature aims at creativity using words and styles as its special tools. It is not in doubt that language is not separated from literature, which means that they are two sides of a coin. Language is important to human beings. They use it not only for communication but to present messages in a special and peculiar way. Literature could be used to teach students how to use language in different dimensions. This is because literature does not only provide a means of learning the language but serves as an important demonstration of the language in use (Nnaji, 2014).
To make a striking impression on one’s readers and stir up their emotions, nothing else could be done to achieve this purpose than employing the right and appropriate use of language. This work of research into stylistics; using the selected texts of Adichie’s and Achebe’s reveals that there is more to texts in terms of message and content than what is being obtained when a piece of writing is merely being written and read by the writers and the readers. Also, the author chooses his diction carefully to depict the themes of war, jealousy and personal honour.
Findings in this study clearly mark out Chimamanda Adichie’s style of writing as distinct from that of other African/Nigerian writers. The study shows that the writer is a sophisticated writer whose skill and use of language (verbs and nouns) stands out as being different from that of other writers.
CONCLUSION
This study concludes that the choice of words (whether verbs or nouns) used by a writer plays a very important role in meaning making. It helps the reader or the hearer to understand the intention and the message the writer is trying to pass across. Stylistics by this analysis has shown that there is a distinction between literary and literal language as a means of defining literature as a language that is manipulated in a way that shows that it is different from “ordinary” language use.
After having an understanding of the stylistic analysis of selected Nigerian text of Adichie’s, the researcher suggests to the readers, students and other researchers to enrich and improve their knowledge about stylistic theories, stylistic approach especially about figurative, imagery and message which are included in Literary works. By reading a prose text, it can widen our vocabulary which is one of the parts of the language learning components.
Besides the researchers does hope that students of English, who takes the subject of literature, will get additional knowledge and experience on how to use stylistics tools to analyze prose texts.
REFERENCES
- Achebe, C. (1987). “Anthills of the Savannah.” England: Heinemann.
- Adichie, C.N. (2006). “Purple Hibiscus.” Lagos; FarafinaKachifo Limited.
- Azuike, M. N. (2002). Style: Theories and practical application. Jos: Jos University Press.
- Ben Florman and Justin Kestler, LitCharts Editors (2015). “LitChart on Purple Hibiscus”. Retrieved November 16, 2015 from http://www.litcharts.com/lit/purple-hibiscus.
- BookRags.com, (2007). “BookRags’ Anthills of the Savannah Premium Study Guide”. BookRags,Inc, Gale and Design: Gale Group. 27500 Drake Road Farmington Hills, MI 48331−3535. http://www.bookrags.com/studyguide−anthillssavannah/
- Watson and S. Zyngier (2007). ‘Literature and Stylistics for Language Learners: Theory and Practice’. R. Carter (2007). “Foreword” New York: PALGRAVE MACMILLAN, New York.
- Nnaji, P. O. (2014). A Stylistic Analysis of Isidore Okpewho’s ‘The Last Duty’. An International Journal of Language, Literature and Gender Studies Ethiopia (AFRREV LALIGENS) Vol. 3 (1), Serial No 7, Feb. pp. 76-91. Department of Television Journalism NTA Television College, Jos: Affiliated to Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria: IAARR 2014: www.afrrevjo.net/laligens. ISSN 2227-5460 (Online).
