Sociolinguistic Analysis of Wole Soyinka’s: Death and the King’s Horseman
Chapter One
AIM OF THE STUDY
The aim of this research is to analyse Wole Soyinka’s Death and the King’s Horseman from the sociolinguistic angle. By sociolinguistic analysis of the play, I mean the study of the language (English) used in the play in relation to the society. That is, how the characters in the play used language as a medium of communication and the mode for transmission of culture.
Also, I will discuss why the character used language in a particular way, that is, what is, what prompted them to use language the way they did.
CHAPTER TWO
LITERATURE REVIEW
DEFINITIONS OF SOCIOLINGUISTICS
Different scholars have given different definitions of sociolinguistics. In this chapter, I shall review some of these definitions.
Bello (2001:3 ):- opines that sociolinguistics is derived from the word sociology and language. Thus, she defines sociolinguistics as
The scientific study of the society as it concerns language use. Also she gave the second definition which emanated from the first one that is ‘sociolinguistic could be defined as man’s linguistic behavior or variation in some social contexts ‘.
The first definition is close to nature (science).This means that language in its social contexts is not peculiar to man alone but also to I every thing in the society. This means that some factors in the society can influence people to behave in a particular linguistic manner. A good example of this factor is culture. One’s culture will determine one’s linguistic behavior.
The second definition shows that it is not in all social contexts that man’s linguistic behavior manifests, rather in some social contexts. It means that one decides what language to be used based on several pragmatic factors in the society, like whether to use formal or informal language depending on the topic of discourse and the environment. Labov (1977:51 postulates that:
sociolinguistic deals with the large scale factors and their mutual interactions with language and dialect; it deals with assimilation of minority language, development of stable bilingualism, standardization of language and planning of language development in newly emerging nations.
This definition is highly technical because it encompasses a lot of things. From my perspective, Labov is referring to sociolinguistic determiners like social, geographical and bilingual factors as part of sociolinguistic. He is of the view that nations should standardize their own language. A good example is Nigerian English which some refer to as bad English which actually it is not, but if it is standardized, people will not have such impression because language culture bound and one’s culture reflects his /her world view so does Nigerian English. Another scholar, Leham (1976:49) puts the concept of sociolinguistic as
the study of differences in language in relation to different social groups ‘. For instance, the way we speak at home differs from the way we speak at school. A female’s speech differs from that of a male. Also a child’s talk differs from that of an adult.
Hudson (1996: 1) defines sociolinguistics as ‘the study of language in relation to the society.
This definition is simple. It is close to that of Bello (2001:3). That is, how society uses language. That is, analyzing language in relation to the society, one will consider the factors that make people speak or use language the way they do and these factors are not only the situation and context of the topic of discourse but also some variation in language use like age, sex, peer group, status, religion etc.
Hudson (1996:3) also opines that sociolinguistics is partly empirical and partly theoretical. Being empirical means that sociolinguistics involves the collection of data, analysis of data and achieving a result. Being theoretical means sitting back and thinking on an issue and arriving at some decision; this might be highly productive.
Hudson (1996:6) also sees a high difference between sociolinguistics and linguistics. He opines that linguistics differ from sociolinguistics in that the former accounts for the structure of language to the exclusion of the social context in which it learned and used. The task of a linguist is to work out the rules of language, after which the sociolinguist may enter the scene and point at which these contact with the society and analyse the language.
Coates (1986:4) gave a similar definition of sociolinguistics as Hudson. Coates is of the view that sociolinguistics is:
The study of language in its social context means essentially, the study of linguistic variation like social, stylistic and geographical variation. Coates asserts that sociolinguistics analyse speech in order to show that the linguistic variation do not occur randomly but are structured. Coates also opines that the aim of sociolinguistics is to expose the orderly heterogeneity of the normal speech community.
CHAPTER THREE
DATA PRESENTATION AND ANALYSIS
CHARACTERISTICS OF BILINGUILISM AS IT REFLECTS IN THE PLAY
This chapter focuses on the characteristics of bilingualism as it reflects in the play. These characteristics are: code mixing, code switching and language interference at the level of lexis.
Almost every bilingual writers, has the tendency to exhibit interferences of all sorts in his/her work. This playwright (Soyinka) is not exception. He is a prolific bilingual writer and he reflects this in his play, Death and the king’s horseman. He can not effectively produce an authentic African thought in English language without code-mixing or code-switching.
Many contextual and situational factors can make one a bilingual writer or speaker. Education, one’s environment and religion can make one bilingual. In the writer case, she is bilingual because he is educated. That is why he effectively manipulated English language to reflect African concepts and culture. The type of bilingualism used by the writer his play is VERTICAL bilingualism. (That is, the bilingualism that obtains when standard language, together with a distinct but a dialect variant co-exists within the same speaker. This is because of his use of two language (Yoruba and English) that come in contact in the play do not reflect equal status. The graphic representation (writing) is in English but the ideas that the portray are Yoruba.
CHAPTER FOUR
SUMMARY
In this long essay, I have analyzed Wole Soyinka’s “Death and the king’s Horseman” from the sociolinguistic angle by bringing out some bilingual features (code-mixing, code-switching and language interference).
Soyinka is a prolific writer and he reflected this in his play. In chapter one, the aim of this long essay is to examine how Yoruba culture have been portrayed by the author and the way the character made use of language.
The play as I have mentioned is an example of African drama that mingles with Western any Yoruba elements. Also, because of its cultural responsibility and the universality of its theme, the play is seen as a good introduction of African thought and tradition. Most of the proverbs and wise sayings were used at the right time and in the right speech.
Furthermore, this long essay, to some extent, has shown that the situation and context of speech contributed a lot to achieving the meaning or rules of the language. The environment in which these people exist (Oyo people) their culture and the way they do. They made use of language interference not because of the writer’s choice but rather the situation demanded it to be so and for work to reflect the African culture, it must be embedded with some indigenous words. This is because some indigenous proverbs or idioms will lose their meaning if written in English.
Also the culture of the Oyo people influenced their choice of words (language). This is the significant contribution of this long essay: that culture influence people’s speech. We speak of what exists in our culture and not the other way round. Culture and language are inter-woven; without language, culture cannot be expressed.
Language helps us to document and preserve our culture. Soyinka was able to write this play because the facts and figures he needed were documented by history, he extracted all that he needed and wrote an interesting play. In addition, this long essay dealt with the features of bilingualism as they reflect in the play, that is, code mixing, code-witching, and language interference. Examples were drawn from the play and explained. The most peculiar difference between code -mixing and code-witching is that code-mixing is the mixing of two languages or code in discourse. As earlier mentioned, the writer code-mixed and code-switched because some Yoruba ideas or views do not have English equivalents. If such views are expressed in English, they will lose their flavour and meaning. I believe he manipulated the facts and figures he collected to suit the cultural view.
CONCLUSION
In conclusion, there are other aspects of sociolinguistics which are not included in my work. Issues like the use of different types of language varieties such as pidgin, standard and non-standard English and the communicative functions of different languages like French, English, German etc. Sociolinguistics is wide and it covers a lot of variations in language and it contributes immensely to language generally.
RECOMMENDATIONS
The recommendations in this study are directed to all language students and teachers. I recommend that all language students should take into consideration the SITUATION and CONTEXT of speech before analyzing it. Irrespective of the researcher concerns, be it from the linguistic angle or sociolinguistic angle. Situation and context of a speech is very important. This helps one to know exactly the conditions in which the speech was made. In addition, I also recommend that Nigerian English should be standardized. This will help our culture and language to grow and for it to be recognized worldwide like every other standardized language. It will help to distinguish between wrong Nigerian English usages and correct Nigerian English.
BIBLOGRAPHY
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