ABSTRACT
This long essay
proposes an analytic and a cross-analytic review of the language choice of
environment in Ayi Kwei Armah’s The Beautyful Ones Are Not Yet Born. The novel tells
the story of a character, simply called “the Man” who is surrounded by
corruption in a corrupt West African state, and how he (the Man) struggles to
keep out of the overpowering mess. It also presents the story of a man’s
loneliness and anguish at the physical and social filth around him, and about
which he could do little or nothing. He does not only encounter the craze for
corruption in the bus, the office, among friends, among the masses and at the
social places, but also within his family; there is also the blood strain of
corruption in his wife and his mother-in-law who wish to rise up to the moment
of the order of the day, “corruption”. However, the lexico-semantic language
choice employed by the author is more of foreign than parochial, which is
embellished with coarse, nauseating and vulgar expressions, just to mention but
a few. In totality, thus, Ayi Kwei Armah wrote a powerful, well-structured
novel which is rightfully rated among classics of modern African prose. He
couples chapters where the story is gripping with reflexives; and also
philosophical chapters where the story struggles a little. But when the tale
recovers, stronger and bursting with life, the less-than-a-200-page novel
portrays a writer who is not ashamed of telling tales about the rot and decay of
his society – elements of reality – in a grand fictional modernist style.
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TABLE
OF CONTENTS
Title
Page
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- i
Declaration
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ii
Certification
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- iii
Dedication
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- iv
Acknowledgements
------------------------------------------------------------------------ v
Abstract
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- vi
Table
of Contents -------------------------------------------------------------------------- vii
CHAPTER
ONE
GENERAL
INTRODUCTION
1.0 Preamble ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 1
1.1 Background to the Study ---------------------------------------------------------- 1
1.2 Author’s Biography ---------------------------------------------------------------- 5
1.3
Statement of the Problem ----------------------------------------------------------- 6
1.4
Purpose of the Study
------------------------------------------------------------------ 6
1.5 Scope and Delimitation of the Study
---------------------------------------------- 7
1.6 Data Description --------------------------------------------------------------------- 8
1.7
Research Methodology
--------------------------------------------------------------- 10
1.8
Significance of the Study
------------------------------------------------------------- 10
CHAPTER
TWO
LITERATURE
REVIEW
2.0 Introduction
----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 12
2.1 The
Environmental Factors Language Competence and Performance ------ ----- 12
2.1.1 Language Acquisition
& Learning ------------------------------------------- 14
2.1.2 Language Comprehension
------------------------------------------------------------ 15
2.2 Stylistics and Style: Definition and
Domain ------------------------------------- 17
2.3 Levels of Stylistic Methodology in this
Research -------------------------------- 19
2.4 African Literature as Characterised by
the African Sensibilities -------------- 20
2.5 The Canonisation of Modernism in African
Literature ------------------------- 22
2.6 Armah’s Socio-Political and
Stylo-Literary Consciousness on the Disillusionment
of
the Post-Independence Ghana Society ------------------------------- -------------- 24
2.7 Characterising the Stylistic Implicatures
of Societal Facts in Armah’s First Three
Novels
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 25
CHAPTER
THREE
DATA
PRESENTATION AND ANALYSIS
3.0 Introduction
-------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---- 27
3.1 Succinct Summary and Review of Armah’s The Beautyful Ones… ----------- ---- 27
3.2 Language
Choice of Environment in Armah’s The
Beautyful Ones… --------- ----- 31
3.3 Stylo-Linguistic Analysis of the Language
Use in Armah’s The Beautyful Ones… 32
3.3.1 The Use of Progressive Tense
-------------------------------------------------------- 32