LANGUAGE IN INDIA

Strength for Today and Bright Hope for Tomorrow

Volume 13:5 May 2013
ISSN 1930-2940

Managing Editor: M. S. Thirumalai, Ph.D.
Editors: B. Mallikarjun, Ph.D.
         Sam Mohanlal, Ph.D.
         B. A. Sharada, Ph.D.
         A. R. Fatihi, Ph.D.
         Lakhan Gusain, Ph.D.
         Jennifer Marie Bayer, Ph.D.
         S. M. Ravichandran, Ph.D.
         G. Baskaran, Ph.D.
         L. Ramamoorthy, Ph.D.
Assistant Managing Editor: Swarna Thirumalai, M.A.

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Code-alternation in Strengthening Indigenous Cultures and Languages:
A Feminist Reading

Amaka C. Ezeife, M.A.

Abstract

It is a known fact that English language was imposed on indigenous language speakers, and because of its world influence, English is dominant over other indigenous languages in Nigeria. However, when English migrates to foreign countries, it adapts and indigenises. The new users absorb and liberate it to embody the energies of their respective sensibilities. This paper identifies a feminist reading of the use of code alternation in strengthening indigenous cultures and languages in literary text. It uses Chimamada Adichie’s Half of a Yellow Sun as a sample. Few extracts of code switched items; the switch to and from different varieties of Nigerian English, Pidgin or an L1, depending on change in addressee or even the status or age of different addressees, were selected from the novel and analysed using insights from Myers-Scotton & Bolonyai (2001) revised Markedness Model theory of code-switching. It observes that the linguistic, social and cultural contexts of a feminist writer necessitate and propel the growth of code varieties and these serve as acts of identity.

The paper concludes that the use of code alternation in female writing strengthens indigenous cultures and languages. It submits that such practice portrays the feminist/writer’s African experience, creates new English that has close relationship with its ancestral home but transformed to boost its new African environs.

Key words: Indigenous culture, indigenous language, feminist writing, code alternation (mixing/switching).

Introduction

The centrality of language in the survival of indigenous cultures is obvious. Language is an essential aspect of the maintenance of ethnic and cultural identity, and is central to current discussion of minority rights (Mey, 2001). The Nigerian writer particularly has a serious challenge in terms of language use. S/he is faced with the problem of choosing audience for his/her work, mainly as the facts s/he reconstructs, concerns, Nigeria. If s/he uses his/her indigenous language, the writing will be limited to an ethnic literature and may not have a natural flow. S/he however, communicates with the greater section of the literate Nigerian population and abroad, if the English language is used. But this does not accommodate the group of illiterate Nigerian population. The realisation that when one is given a language, s/he is given a new culture has continued to disturb African writers and intellectuals who are bent on breaking away from such linguistic and cultural domination.

This is only the beginning part of the article. PLEASE CLICK HERE TO READ THE ARTICLE IN PRINTER-FRIENDLY VERSION.

Amaka C. Ezeife, M.A.
Department of English
University of Ibadan
Nigeria
amakaezeife@gmail.com
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