Stylistic Devices in Different Literary Extracts: A Stylistic Study (Published)
This present study makes an attempt to define stylistic devices and explains how they function in different literary extracts. It also elucidates the nature of stylistic devices and the effects they produce on the readers and listeners. Stylistic devices are tools of language that are used by writers and authors to create beauty, uniqueness, and novelty in the language. The expressive means of a language refer to the arrangement of sentences, clauses, words, and the choice of words that not only convey the idea to the reader or listener, but simultaneously provoke the desired emotional reaction from him. They are inherent in a language and used in ordinary speech by any speaker or writer, irrespective of stylistic purposes and effects. But the expressive means of a language may be employed with a definite stylistic aim and function in view. In such cases they are deliberately selected and arranged so as to create a certain stylistic effect. Any expressive means may be used in this way for specific artistic purposes, and when so employed, it is described as a stylistic device. The stylistic devices may be considered as an artistic transformation of an ordinary language phenomenon. They are linguistic resources that are used and employed deliberately to fulfill a stylistic function. Utterances usually communicate certain ideas and may also produce definite effects or arouse an emotion in the reader or listener. The aim of this paper is to discuss some stylistic devices at the levels of phonology, syntax and semantics. The discussion is provided by definitions of stylistic devices, nature, functions and the special effects they produce in literary texts.
Keywords: Phonology, Semantics, Stylistic Devices, stylistic effects, stylistic functions, syntax
Probing the Functions of Nigerian Pidgin English in FPO Akporobaro’s “The Prostitute”: A Stylistic Approach (Published)
Nigerian Pidgin English, which originally arises from the contact of the indigenous languages with the English language has nowadays become is a lingua franca, a means of communication commonly used by people. Its place in Nigerian literary creativity is all the more important as patterns of this variety of English occur in various pieces of writings. The aim of this paper is to, through a stylistic approach, examine the functions of Nigerian Pidgin English used in the poem entitled “The Prostitute”, published by FBO Akporobaro in his collection of poems The Lament of the Town Crier and other Poems. Through a descriptive research design based on the qualitative approach, the analyses of the poem, in its context of production, reveal that instances of phonology and cohesive features are used to provide aesthetic value to this text.
Keywords: Lingua Franca, Nigerian Pidgin English, Phonology, cohesive features, the prostitute
Foregrounding the Theme of Shallowness in the Hollow Men: A Stylistic Analysis (Published)
This paper aims to analyze The Hollow Men through Stylistic Analysis at the levels of graphology, phonology, morphology and the lexico-syntactic to foreground the hollowness and emptiness of the universe after the traumatic situation of world wars. All language choices used by the poet lead towards the shallowness, despair, vagueness, nothingness and inability of love for the universe/ people. The people are detached from nature, one another, and live in a place which is dead, cactus, and barren of any spiritual presence just like the people of that land as what Singh (2013) and Urquhart (2010) pointed out in their studies.
Keywords: Graphology, Lexico-Syntactic, Morphology, Phonology, Shallow., Stylistic Analysis