Language, Literature and Style in Africa

Language, Literature and Style in Africa PDF

Author: Taiwo Abioye

Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing

Published: 2014-11-24

Total Pages: 185

ISBN-13: 1443871737

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This book brings together the seminal contributions of scholars interested in the study of language, literature and style in Africa. It marks a response to the longstanding neglect of stylistic analysis of canonical and emergent fictional and non-fictional African prose and discourse. As a reaction to this neglect of African literary artefacts, the book provides a welcome and timely deviation from the norm. The contributions to this volume include discussions that are both analytical and theoretical; analyses of style at the levels of lexis and semantics; newer and more innovative analyses that highlight the relationship between style, pedagogy and technology-mediated discourse; and a final discussion that provides an appropriate background against which issues related to language, literature and style can be understood. In terms of the volumes representation of diverse geographical contexts, the papers included here bridge the North-South divide in Africa, and there are contributions from Libya, Nigeria, South Africa and Zimbabwe. As such, the book is an interesting collection of papers that illuminate the study of literary style in Africa and highlight the need for a greater revival of it on a larger scale.

The Language of African Literature

The Language of African Literature PDF

Author: Edmund L. Epstein

Publisher: Africa World Press

Published: 1998

Total Pages: 316

ISBN-13: 9780865435353

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In this unprecedented anthology, some of the most prolific and widely read African novelists are analysed.

Oral Literature in Africa

Oral Literature in Africa PDF

Author: Ruth Finnegan

Publisher: Open Book Publishers

Published: 2012-09

Total Pages: 614

ISBN-13: 1906924708

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Ruth Finnegan's Oral Literature in Africa was first published in 1970, and since then has been widely praised as one of the most important books in its field. Based on years of fieldwork, the study traces the history of storytelling across the continent of Africa. This revised edition makes Finnegan's ground-breaking research available to the next generation of scholars. It includes a new introduction, additional images and an updated bibliography, as well as its original chapters on poetry, prose, "drum language" and drama, and an overview of the social, linguistic and historical background of oral literature in Africa. This book is the first volume in the World Oral Literature Series, an ongoing collaboration between OBP and World Oral Literature Project. A free online archive of recordings and photographs that Finnegan made during her fieldwork in the late 1960s is hosted by the World Oral Literature Project (http: //www.oralliterature.org/collections/rfinnegan001.html) and can also be accessed from publisher's website.

Style in African Literature

Style in African Literature PDF

Author: J. K. S. Makokha

Publisher: Brill Rodopi

Published: 2012

Total Pages: 444

ISBN-13: 9789042034761

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Postcolonial and contemporary African literatures have always been marked by an acute sensitivity to the politics of language, an attentiveness inscribed in the linguistic fabric of their own modes of expression. It is curious however, that despite the prevalence of a much-touted 'linguistic turn' in twentieth century theory and cultural production, language has frequently been neglected by literary studies in general. Even more curiously, postcolonial literary studies, an erstwhile emergent and now established discipline which has from the outset contained important elements of linguistic critique, has eschewed any sustained engagement with this topic. This absence is salient in the study of African literatures, despite, for instance, the prominence of orature in the African literary tradition right up to the present day, and sporadic meditations on the part of such luminaries as Achebe and Ngũgĩ. Beyond this, however, there has been little scholarly work attuned to the multifarious aspects of language and linguistic politics in the study of African literature. The present volume aims to rectify such lacunae by making a substantial interdisciplinary and transcultural contribution to the gradual reinstatement of the 'linguistic turn' in African literary studies. The volume focuses variously on postcolonial and transcultural African literatures, areas of literary production where the confluence of several languages, whether indigenous and (post)colonial in the first case, and local and global in the second case, appears to be a central and decisive factor in the formation and transformation of the continent and its peoples' cultural identities.

Black Africa

Black Africa PDF

Author: V. Klima

Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media

Published: 2012-12-06

Total Pages: 310

ISBN-13: 9401017611

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In October 1972, our Czech-written book Literatury eerne Afriky (Literatures of Black Mrica) was published in Prague, presenting a survey of an extensive field. The publication, which was signed at that time by all three authors, differed from most contemporary introductions to the study of Mrican literatures in a threefold way: a) The authors attempted to cover various literacy and literary efforts in the area roughly delimited by Senegal in the west, Kenya in the east, Lake Chad in the north and the Cape in the south. We were well aware-even at that time-that neither technically nor linguistically would it be possible to cover all literary efforts within that area. We did try, however, to include in our survey both the literacies and literatures written in the Indo-European linguae francae (English, French, Portuguese) and in at least several of the major African languages of the area. We did not attempt an exhaustive description, but wished, rather, to show the mutual relationships which emerge, if the literatures of thii\ area, written either in the major linguae francae or in the African languages, are studied not as isolated phenomena, but as mutually complementary features. b) As two of us were linguists and one was a literary historian, we did not limit our analysis of the developing literacies and literatures to the purely cultural and literary aspects. Our intention waR to deal-whcre and if it was relevant-not only with the process of African literary development, but also with the simultaneous, complementar.

Decolonising the Mind

Decolonising the Mind PDF

Author: Ngugi wa Thiong'o

Publisher: Boydell & Brewer

Published: 1986

Total Pages: 126

ISBN-13: 0852555016

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Ngugi wrote his first novels and plays in English but was determined, even before his detention without trial in 1978, to move to writing in Gikuyu.

Dust

Dust PDF

Author: Yvonne Adhiambo Owuor

Publisher: Vintage

Published: 2014-10-07

Total Pages: 386

ISBN-13: 0345802543

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A Washington Post Notable Book When a young man is gunned down in the streets of Nairobi, his grief-stricken father and sister bring his body back to their crumbling home in the Kenyan drylands. But the murder has stirred up memories long since buried, precipitating a series of events no one could have foreseen. As the truth unfolds, we come to learn the secrets held by this parched landscape, hidden deep within the shared past of a family and their conflicted nation. Spanning Kenya’s turbulent 1950s and 1960s, Dust is spellbinding debut from a breathtaking new voice in literature.

African Languages and Literatures in the 21st Century

African Languages and Literatures in the 21st Century PDF

Author: Esther Mukewa Lisanza

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2019-08-02

Total Pages: 248

ISBN-13: 3030234797

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This edited book examines the crucial role still played by African languages in pedagogy and literatures in the 21st century, generating insights into how they effectively serve cultural needs across the African continent and beyond. Boldly positioning African languages as key resources in the 21st century, chapters focus on themes such as language revolt by marginalized groups at grassroots level, the experience of American students learning African languages, female empowerment through the use of African languages in music, film and literary works, and immigration issues. The contributions are written by scholars of language, literature, education and linguistics, and the book will be of interest to students and scholars in these and related areas.

Essays on Language, Communication and Literature in Africa

Essays on Language, Communication and Literature in Africa PDF

Author: Joyce T. Mathangwane

Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing

Published: 2016-02-08

Total Pages: 555

ISBN-13: 1443888516

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Essays on Language, Communication and Literature in Africa explores language choice questions, together with domain-driven lingua-communicative and literary resources situated within the discourses of law, culture, medicine, visual art, politics, the media, music and literature in Africa. It identifies the distinctive African paraphernalia of these discourses, and foregrounds their real-world and mediated cultural and societal values, and highlights the Western presence through the inclusion of aspects of Shakespearean perspectives which bear universal tidings and speak to the African gender tradition. The chapters’ attention to verbal and visual artistic communicative mechanisms underlines such engagements as multilingualism policies, socio-political declension, social dynamism and cultural interventions that characterise the African setting. These realities are discussed in impressive detail, authoritative scholastic depth and effective stylistic tones that reflect the authors’ familiarity with the facets of African societies deducible from language, communication and literature.