Stylistics in Southern Africa:

A Pilot Project

Robert de Beaugrande

1. ‘English as an African language’?

Course in ‘stylistics’ are offered in numerous university English programmes around the world. Because, for historical and geopolitical reasons, many such programmes remain based upon models from the UK and the US, some selectivity can be noted on both main sides of the programme. On the ‘literature’ side, the tendency would be to select British and American authors like H.G. Wells and Ernest Hemingway, whose cultural outlooks are frankly dated and remote; for Hemingway, Africa was one huge game-hunting reserve for white gun-loving machos like himself.

By implication, British and American styles seem to be the leading models for the developing the fluency and language awareness of English among students in regions like in southern Africa. Our students may thus feel encouraged to imitate foreign styles at the expense of their own language experience and to recapitulate the cultural alienation left behind by colonialist education. They will not recognise the vital need to develop and sustain styles of English that are relevant to their own cultural experience.

And yet in theory, the advocacy for cultural relevance has achieved world-wide acceptance in educational theories today. Through the expositions of noted African writers like Ngugi wa Thiong’o (1986, 1993), professionals have come to realise the destructive effects of favouring non-African models in African education. In our practices, however, we still face severe problems in implementing the consequences of the realisation in concrete policies and curricula, due to intense controversies over the of role of languages in nationhood and the competition for scarce resources in the media and the schools (cf. Bamgbose 1991).

In the meantime, we might work against the educational legacies of colonialism by exploring how the languages it left behind, such as English or French, can be and have been adapted to the cultural experiences of Africa. These must be carefully distinguished not just from the cultural experiences in the coloniser nations such as Britain and France, but also from what, in parallel to the ‘Orientalism’ described by Edward Said (1978), could aptly be called ‘Africanism’: a fantasy world invented in the writings of Europeans like Joseph Conrad, Rider Haggard, Nicholas Monsarrat, or AEW Mason, for the violent heroics of European adventurers (cf. Ngugi 1986).

The source materials we need are readily at hand in a region like Southern Africa, which has developed not merely its own lively varieties of English or ‘Englishes’ but also a substantial body of serious writings in literature, philosophy, culture, and politics, which can justly be rated alongside comparable writings in the UK or the US.

On the ‘linguistics’ side of English programmes, the tendency would be to select conceptions of ‘stylistics’ developed in those same two countries, such as those explicitly or implicitly going back to sources like Riffaterre (1959, 1960, 1966), Levin (1962, 1965), and Ohmann (1964). By today’s standards, such work in ‘stylistics’ seems remote not just in geographical space but also in intellectual time, and for cogent motives. The bulk consists of originals, reprints, or overviews of programmatic papers written or published in professional journals and edited volumes from the late 1950s up through the 1970s. Those hopeful years saw literary studies and linguistics performing hearty interactions under the premise of ‘structuralism’ that sufficiently close attention to the ‘structures’ of language as defined by linguistics would finally discover the essence of ‘style’ and perhaps also of ‘literariness’ and ‘poeticalness’ (cf. Ihwe 1971, 1972; Beaugrande 1978a, 1978b).

The standard definitions of ‘style’ in those works seem to me to entail some serious drawbacks (cf. Beaugrande 1997: 296-304). If we assert (say, with Riffaterre 1959, 1960) that style is ‘encoded’ in ‘linguistic features’ and their ‘structures’, we still need to determine which among their very large numbers are the significant ones; and ‘structuralist’ linguistics does not show us how. Or, if we assert (say, with Levin 1962, 1965) that style results from the interplay of ‘norm’ and ‘deviation’, then we need much more detailed information about what might count as ‘normal’ or ‘deviant’ than structuralist linguistics has supplied.

These and similar drawbacks were inherited from structuralism as an enterprise for maintaining ‘scientific’ status by restricting its scope to formal concerns and operating on extremely high levels of abstraction and neutrality. One predictable result was a concentration with enumerating arrays of ‘equivalences’ and ‘oppositions’ (as in Jakobson and Jones 1970), where any repeated item or feature was said to constitute an ‘equivalence’, whilst its mere presence was said to constitute a ‘binary opposition’ to own absence (compare the critique in Werth 1976). Such methods can hardly cover issues of deeper cultural interest, or illuminate the motivations of linguistic features or patterns for the elaboration of a style to highlight such issues.

In the 1980s, stylistics was left hanging with this premise still unfulfilled. Literary studies shifted over to ‘post-structuralism’, whilst linguistics withdrew into even more abstract conceptions such as ‘mental representations’ and ‘linguistic universals’ (Beaugrande 1988, 1998a). Though for utterly disparate reasons, neither side still expected the formal ‘structures of language’ to be the definitive source of explanation and understanding (compare the critique in Fish 1980).

So on the ‘linguistics’ side as well as the ‘literature’ side, we can sense a rising pressure for cultural appropriateness and academic relevance. As for literature, the mandate has already been affirmed in theory. Yet the practices will continue to lag behind as long as we lack a solid body of research bringing African writers into the scope of established ‘stylistics’, and lack culturally appropriate textbooks exploiting such research. In the meantime, either we teach against the grain of the dated textbooks we can find on the market, as I have done at the National University of Singapore; or else we innovate toward developing the materials on the job, as I have done at the University of Botswana.

In both situations, I shifted the focus from British and America writers over to local writers in English, such as Edwin Thumboo, Catherine Lim, Gopal Baratham, and Philip Jayaretnam in Singapore; and Bessie Head, Alex La Guma, Mongane Serote, and Shimmer Chinodya in Botswana. I hoped that the students would profit from the opportunity and inspiration of seeing for themselves the impressive and creative ways in which local writers have appropriated English and endowed it with new potential. In parallel, the students would be encouraged to reflect upon issues concerning regional cultures and their social histories.

I have at times pondered whether the notion of ‘English as an African language’ — or, to use more precise terms, ‘Englishes as African languages’ — might eventually be accepted. But I certainly would not want to instigate any controversies such a term might arouse just now. For the present, stylistics can develop practical methods for working with the substantial body of indisputably high-quality uses of English by Africans and for exploring how the essentials of African cultural experiences can be mediated by English.

2. ‘Stylistics’ in one African university

I now turn to my own work in this direction here at the University of Botswana. Our English programme has a fourth-year course in ‘stylistics’ wherein a linguistic orientation is balanced against a literary one. As part of a team of lecturers, together with Alec Pongweni and Thomas Essilfie, I immediately confronted the problem, noted above, of lacking appropriate textbooks or teaching materials. Perhaps the lack was actually a blessing by obliging me to collect presentable samples of real English on the spot.

I was also obliged to reflect upon new ways to define ‘style’ in terms that would be appropriate to what I hoped to accomplish. I began my lectures by reviewing the definitions I was familiar with from the standard materials, and frankly pointing out such drawbacks as those outlined in section 1. I then proposed instead to work with these two definitions:

1. Style is for using language to express your personal self and to make the expression fit the topic and purpose.

2. Style is what really matters in your language when you change it.

Attention should thus be drawn toward the potential of ‘style’ for individualising one’s use of language and for choosing those options that best suit the meaning, message, idea, motives, and so on. A practical means to notice and control this potential would be to interchange those options which presumably act as stylistic indicators; reciprocally, the relevant options could be identified when significant effects arise from interchanging them.

2.1 Making the style ‘plainer’ and ‘fancier’

For easily accessible samples, I scanned the newspapers available here in Botswana, including three local weeklies Mmegi (meaning ‘Reporter’ in the Setswana language), the Gazette, and the Guardian, plus the Mail and Guardian and Business Day from Johannesburg. Admittedly, these sources represent a rather limited and careful range of usage. Still, I found that the styles in these journals varied noticeably according to at least three topics with specific purposes: advertising to encourage consumerism; politics and the law to invoke power; and sports to rouse the fans.

With the aid of handouts, I gave some rough-and-ready demos of palpable contrasts between the poles of ‘plainer style’ and ‘fancier style’. For advertising, I converted a sample like [1] into [1a] and [1b], and underlined those items I identified as relevant to the style:

[1] The latest gym in town was last weekend officially opened in an occasion filled with thrills. The occasion was graced by the presence of the newly crowned Miss Botswana. (from Mmegi)

[1a] plainer: The new gym in town was opened last weekend with an exciting event. The newly elected Miss Botswana was on hand.

[1b] fancier: The most up-to-the minute athletic facility in our fair metropolis was opened with all due pomp and circumstance last weekend in a lavish festivity with breathless thrills coming thick and fast. The grandiose festivity was graced by the resplendent majestic presence of the newly crowned Miss Botswana.

For politics and the law, I pointed out how the fancy style is often used to consolidate the discourse of power, so that [2] rather than [2a] is almost obligatory.

[2] In the matter between the Bank of Botswana, Plaintiff, and Naughty Karabo, Defendant, be pleased to take notice that pursuant to the judgement granted by the above Honourable Court, the following property will be sold by auction by Deputy Sheriff Benjamin Motswakhumo to the highest bidders.

[2a] plainer: Listen up, everybody! The court has told Deputy Sheriff Benjamin Motswakhumo to go auction off what he snatched from that naughty Naughty Karabo and to hand over the cash to the Bank of Botswana.

Even when state power is being abused, the fancy style of politics and the law can make matters seem more dignified, such as [3] rather than [3a]:

[3] A former director of roads department is charged that whilst entrusted with expenditure of government funds, he corruptly obtained 100,000 Pula [roughly US$ 30,000] from the manager of a construction company as an inducement to show favour to the said company, allegedly on matters relating to the award of road rehabilitation tender. (Guardian)

[3a] plainer: A former director of roads department is accused of awarding a contract for improving and repairing roadways to a company that bought his favour with a big fat bribe of 100,000 Pula.

For sports, power of a different sort would be driving the violent styles of reporting, e.g. [4] rather than [4a]:

[4] The Centre Chief top guns have been locked in a bruising power struggle which has resulted in a shake-up of the team structure. The next game has blood rivals locking horns, to be followed by a grudge clash. (Mmegi)

[4a] plainer: The Centre Chief’s best players have been vigorously competing for influence, which has led to changes in the team’s organisation. The next game pits ardent rivals and will be followed by a rematch.

The discourse of sports also mixes diverse styles of power with unintentionally farcical results, e.g., [5] as compared to [5a].

[5] The BFA [Botswana Football Association] lacks the wisdom of Solomon […] This week’s saga involves a tussle […] Had there been any consultation and communication on the matter, the Tinto desk [the name of this column] is of the view that the misunderstanding that ensued which has the potential to bring into disrepute the very names that the groups are trying to promote, would surely have been avoided. […] the ‘wheels of football development’ should not turn at the expense of individual clubs.

[5a] plainer: BFA is acting unwisely. […] This week’s story involves a conflict […] We believe that properly consulting and communicating could have prevented the misunderstanding which may discredit the very names the groups are trying to promote. […] building up organisations should be done with depriving individual clubs.

After I had presented and discussed a fair number of contrastive samples like these, the students were given the assignment of changing the styles of some further samples from the same journalistic sources. The results they submitted convinced me that most of them had a practical sense for identifying and changing style even though — or possibly because — I had not elaborated greatly on the underlying theories.

The results indicated that the students were applying these strategies to make a ‘fancier style’:

1. Replace a shorter expression with a longer one (e.g. funds à revenue)

2. Replace a more common expression with a rarer one (e.g. close to à correlative with)

3. Replace a simpler expression with a more complicated one. (e.g. clarification à information that is desirable and melodious to your ears)

4. Replace a literal expression with a metaphoric one (e.g. uncertainty à potholes of perplexity

5. Replace an expression with its dictionary definition (e.g. several à more than three but fewer than many).

I could also identify these strategies for making a ‘plainer style’:

1. Replace a more complicated expression with a simpler one (e.g. given to understand à informed)

2. Replace an evasive or polite expression with a direct or frank one (e.g. matter à scam)

3. Introduce commonplace phrases and clichés (e.g. leave no stone unturned)

4. Give commands and exclamations (e.g. Attention!)

My original unmistakably displayed the fancy style of power in politics and law being used to obscure abuses:

[6] Influential local authorities close to the offices associated with financial affairs have given the public to understand that a series of recent developments which have not been favouring the free distribution of information have left some uncertainty regarding the whereabouts of funds reported missing. Persons who may be believed to hold responsibility in connection with this matter have been brought under inquiry, and we hope to be able in the near future to provide clarification regarding those funds.

Yet some students succeeded in making it fancier still, e.g.:

[7] a chain of events that crippled the free distribution of information has raised eyebrows among the public with regard to funds whose whereabouts are surrounded by an aura of mystery

[8] Top authorities in the business circles close to the offices of the finance ministry have notified the public of a recent spiral of events which have been a threat to transparency pertaining to the revenue reported missing

[9] The members of finance committees of the council have alleged that the confidentiality relating to suspicions about loss of funds has caused press speculation

[10] our solemn wish is to be in a position in the not far distant future to disperse an elaborate clarification regarding those wanted funds

Some forays into fancy style led to unintentional overtones of sarcasm or parody, as when ‘developments’ were said to have ‘bedevilled transparency’ or ‘repelled the free dispensation of information’. Data like the following suggest some free-wheeling substitutions of entries from a thesaurus or of definitions from a dictionary:

[11] Influential local authorities abutting to the offices correlative with monetary affairs have effected the public to understand that numerous successions of fresh findings which have not been in accordance with independent distribution of information have imprinted some scepticism in account of the whereabouts of funds stated missing.

[12] Persuasive local groups of modern bourgeoisie having the power to give orders close to the offices concerning money and finance matters have specified to the public to comprehend that more than three but fewer than many events of the past not long ago occurrences or developments have not been showing any sign of approval of giving information concerning the whereabouts of funds said not to be seen.

Still, I had to be impressed by the sheer inventiveness of some formulations, such as saying that the ‘events’ had ‘left some potholes of perplexity’ or had ‘left some people’s heads reeling anti-clockwise’.

The students also succeeded in making the style plainer and being frank about the shady nature of the issues:

[13] Local authorities have made the public aware of something not quite right about the money reported missing

[14] The public has been informed that even now the money that was stolen has not been found

[15] Officials suspected to have had a hand in the scam are under investigation

[16] Those who had their pockets full of the money are held by the police

[17] we will keep you posted as the scam unravels

Plainness was evidently thought to result also from using stock phrases or clichés, as when the ‘influential local authorities’ of my original [6] were called ‘top dogs’ or ‘top guns’, when or money was said to have ‘disappeared under people’s noses’, or when they reporters vowed to ‘leave no stone unturned’. Yet some of the figures of speech did seem inventive and apt in their contexts, e.g.:

[18] offices associated with financial matters are in a hot soup

[19] Persons suspected of having committed the scandal are now walking on hot coals on barefoot

All in all, I was satisfied that my students had a reliable understanding of some salient ways of distinguishing these styles. What they lack, like so many other learners of English, is access to sufficient quantities of native-speaker usage. This problem is now becoming resolvable by strategic uses of data corpora (Beaugrande 1998b).

2.2 Doing the ‘write-up’

For our undergraduates, actually writing up the analysis and description of the style in a sample text seems far more difficult than manipulating stylistic indicators. For this segment of the course, I chose samples of the works of African writers who have been principally, though not exclusively, known for literature. They would be likely to have expended the greatest care upon developing their styles and relating their choices of stylistic indicators to the broader topic and purpose of the text at hand.

Using their writings, I collected and described clear examples of the more ‘literary’ stylistic indicators, such as metaphor, e.g.:

[20] The police had nibbled at her heart with their little annoying suggestions (Sipho Sepamla, A Ride on the Whirlwind, p. 93)

[21] she prayed that the sharp knives of the rain would not attack the almond tree (Syl Cheney-Coker, The Last Harmattan of Alusine Dunbar, p. 303)

Personification and animation were presented as metaphors for expressing things as if they were persons or at least animate beings, as in [22-23]:

[22] The battered Renault shudders along mirrored pavements, and coughs up suburban curves (Shimmer Chinodya, Harvest of Thorns p. 246)

[23] the township houses crouch darkly in fatigued rows. In the yards banana leaves shiver. (Harvest 246)

Metaphors were explained as serving at least three major functions. (1) to make familiar things like cars and ‘houses’ seem new and strange, as in [22-23]; (2) to provide images for things that might otherwise seem abstract; as in [24-25]; and (3) to evoke sensations, as for indicating human feelings, such as fear [26] and anxiety [27].

[24] the captain had seemed a creature driven by the steely wheel of ambition (Harmattan 293)

[25] he was tormented by the worms of rebellion which had made his body uncomfortable in that house (Harmattan 303)

[26] for a moment it was Fear itself that held her by the arms, the legs, the throat (Nadine Gordimer, Some Monday for Sure, p. 3)

[27] all men were afraid of banishment and loneliness in a world menaced by the invincible spiders of their own anxieties (Harmattan 58)

I emphasised that such stylistic indicators are not mere decoration but can further the writer’s purposes, such as highlighting the violence of the South African ‘security’ police during apartheid, as in [29-30].

[29] he saw the doors flung open as the cars vomited men eager for action (Whirlwind 95)

[30] like a fist unfolding the men spread themselves into the three other rooms of the house (Whirlwind 92)

Samples from similar sources were provided for the other stylistic indicators: simile, metonymy, onomatopoeia, iconicity, irony, and so on.

Such stylistic indicators are most effectively accounted for in longer samples taken from familiar texts. The students are then able to see the thematic connections among whole sets or series of stylistic choices, and to understand how the style can accommodate topic and purpose on a larger scale.

The main practical problem here, as in so many areas of the language curriculum, is to get the students to participate actively in doing the work for themselves. They must be convinced of the value of their own creative interpretations and not just of those presented by a presumed academic authority (cf. Beaugrande 1987, 1989). Moreover, they need to build their confidence about organising their interpretations in a descriptive essays, and about achieving results that will be favourably marked and evaluated in an assignment where we are obviously not dealing just with ‘right or wrong answers’.

My solution was to provide an unconventional mode of support. Before assigning the essay, I did the assignment myself. I was thus able to assess the amount of work and time required, which showed that the task could not reasonably done an in-class exercise. I was also impressed by the plenitude and subtlety of stylistic details to be found in a well-written text, far beyond what I would have noticed if I had not actually written up the analysis. To ensure that my results were specific to my choice of text, I wrote a second essay, and reached the same conclusion. Each essay way duplicated and distributed as a handout for a lecture presentation.

Here is my first essay. I used underlining a visual means for signalling the main parts of the organisation, and numbers and letters for enabling quick and reference to parts of the text.

Alex La Guma, Time of the Butcherbird

1 (a) When the government trucks had gone, the dust they had left

2 behind hung over the plain and smudged the blistering afternoon

3 sun so that it appeared as a daub of white-hot metal through the

4 moving haze. (b) The dust hung in the sky for some time before settling

5 down on the white plain. (c) The plain was flat and featureless except for

6 two roads bull-dozed from the ground, bisecting each other to lie like scars of

7 a branded cross on the pocked and powdered skin of the earth. (d) In the

8 distance a new water tank on metal stilts jutted like an iron glove clenched

9 against the empty sky. (e) The dust settled slowly on the metal of the tank

10 and on the surface of the brackish water it contained, laboriously

11 pumped up from below the sand; on the rough cubist mounds of folded

12 and piled tents dumped there by officialdom; on the sullen faces of the

13 people who had been unloaded like the odds and ends of furniture

14 they had been allowed to bring with them, powdering them grey and

15 settling in the perspiring lines around mouths and in the eye sockets,

16 settling on the unkempt and travel-creased clothes, so that they

17 had the look of scarecrows left behind, abandoned in this place.

18 (f) This was no land for ploughing and sowing; it was not even good

19 enough to be buried in.

This text is a sample of literature by an African writer. The author is Alex la Guma, who was born and lived in South Africa. He was one of the defendants in the Treason Trials of 1956 and was kept under house arrest for four years; eventually he was forced into exile and lived outside Africa. He used literature as a means of seeking to understand the painful racial divisions of South Africa during the dark years of apartheid. This sample appears at the beginning of his novel Time of the Butcherbird (London: Heinemann, 1979), page 1.

The topic of this opening part of the novel is a typical one in African literature: the relationship between the landscape (outside) and the thoughts and feelings of the Africans themselves (inside). This particular landscape is a nightmare of ugliness at which the people ‘dumped’ there can only stare in dull horror, and the reader is intended to share those feelings. As we only find out later on in the novel, they have just been moved by ‘government trucks’ because white people wanted their own traditional homelands — a frequent occurrence in South Africa in those days. Now they are ‘abandoned’ in a place nobody could want. The ugliness of the scene symbolises and underscores the apartheid regime’s horrendous disregard for the human rights of African citizens.

In keeping with this topic is a set of interconnected thematic chains. One of these chains features the ‘dust’: ‘dust - haze - dust - powdered - dust - sand - powdering’. Another chain features what the ‘dust’ did, as if it, rather than the people, were the main character making things happen: ‘hung over - smudged - moving - hung - settled slowly - powdering grey - settling - settling’. And a third chain features the ‘plain’: ‘plain - plain - plain - flat - featureless - roads - ground - earth - place’. Nearly all of these lexical choices are decidedly common and ‘plain’ themselves, keeping the style itself ‘flat’ and ‘featureless’. Moreover, the repetitions or recurrences of ‘dust’, ‘settle’, and ‘plain’ are iconic in acting out the endless monotony of the scene.

The term ‘featureless’ (line 5) is the most obvious exception in standing out against the rest by being an uncommon lexical choice. But it is an ironic ‘feature’ because it actually denies the presence of ‘features’. The Verb ‘powdering’ (lines 7, 14) is not uncommon in itself, but its common use is for what people do, not for dust; it fits in here with appropriate irony, since people put on powder to look better yet this dust makes the people look much worse — in fact, no longer like humans but ‘scarecrows’ (line 17).

Another main thematic chain is for the heat: ‘blistering - afternoon - white-hot - perspiring’, the last one of these connecting back to the what the people did. This chain also connects to the ‘sand’ and the ‘dust’ and gives the reader keen sensory impressions of the desert-like conditions, so as to identify better with the feelings of the people ‘dumped’ there.

The other main thematic chains are also all associated with the ‘dust’ in one way or another. The ‘government’ and ‘officialdom’ responsible for the whole situation started off ‘leaving dust behind’ and performed a series of arbitrary and unfeeling actions: ‘pumped - dumped (rhyme and assonance) - unloaded - abandoned’, of which the last item, ‘abandoned’ (line 17) is their final symbolic gesture of how they treat Africans. We have another thematic chain for mechanical, hard objects and actions associated with the power of the government: ‘trucks (also involved in ‘leaving dust behind’) - roads - bull-dozed - water tank - metal stilts - iron - metal - tank’. The ‘tank’ is especially significant, placed as an alibi for ‘abandoning’ people where they might otherwise die of thirst that same day and ironically symbolising, by the simile ‘jutted like an iron glove’, both the brutal power of the government and the anger of these people whose own fists are as useless as if ‘clenched against the empty sky’ (line 9).

Also significant are the stylistic choices whereby the ‘dumped’ people appear only in pieces: ‘sullen faces - mouths - eye sockets’, as if they were already becoming skeletons whose ‘mouths’ and ‘eye sockets’ really are filled with ‘dust’. These choices link up with the sharply painful metaphors of personification or animation for the landscape injured by the ‘scars of a branded cross on the pocked and powdered skin’ (lines 6-7).

The actions of the ‘dumped’ people are limited to having ‘folded and piled’ their ‘tents (lines 11-12), having ‘brought’ their ‘allowed furniture’ (13-14), and now just ‘perspiring’ (15), an action with almost no movement. They know they will never be ‘ploughing’ or sowing’, and all that awaits them is being ‘buried’ in this ‘land’ that is ‘not even good enough’ (18-19) for that humble, deathly purpose. Particularly ironic is the metaphor of the ‘scarecrows’ (17): on the one hand, these are figures with no life and dressed in rags; on the other hand, there will be no crops grown here from which any ‘crows’ should be ‘scared’ away.

Irony can also be found in the pitifully meagre possessions of the people: ‘folded and piled tents - odds and ends of furniture - unkempt and travel-creased clothes’. They have been brought a long way in the ‘trucks’ with the barest minimum for surviving in filth and misery. The only ‘new’ thing is the sinister ‘water tank’ for which dusty, bad-tasting ('brackish’, literally salty) water has been ‘pumped up’ here (8-11) in an ironic reverse motion of their own ‘burial’ (19). And as we saw, the tank starkly symbolises the ‘iron glove’ of brutal government power.

The stylistic choice ‘cubist’ (11) is the most marked in the whole sample. It is a rare word in English and refers to a modernist style of art introduced in the early twentieth century. As the name suggests, ‘cubism’ represents objects and even humans as patterns of geometrical shapes, including ‘cubes’. The reader faces some challenge deciding just how this exceptional stylistic indicator could be connected with the rest. It seems to form a thematic chain with ‘bisecting’ (6), ‘cross’ (7), and ‘lines’ (15). Also, it may be intended to frame the whole scene like a surrealist painting, as if the humans were no longer in the real world. We might imagine the conversion of humans into lifeless flat shapes, and of the whole scene into an abstract pattern of colours and surfaces. We might detect here the further irony that the resulting art object is a study in ugliness rather than the study in beauty we expect from art.

We have now examined multiple motives for the stylistic choices in the sample text. Taken all together, they produce an effect far more impressive and moving than any description of the same scene in ordinary, careless style. Since this scene occurs at the start of the novel, its full impact comes into effect only gradually, like ‘dust settling’ over the entire canvas of South African life. For that purpose, the author chose a style he hoped would keep the scene stays clearly in the reader’s memory.

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When the essays were presented and carefully explained, my students were visibly reassured to have detailed models in print, even though they had not encountered this procedure before.

The assignment was then given like this: pick your own sample of English by an African writer and write an analysis organised along lines similar to the models. In my consultation hours, I offered to examine the potential of their chosen texts for yielding an interesting analysis. But only a minor portion of the 120 students actually consulted me, perhaps just because the procedure was so unfamiliar.

Having the students choose their own samples was not just a means to escape the tedium of reading 120 essays on the same text. I also wanted a clear situation where no ‘right answers’ had already been compiled; the students could freely present whatever they found. African writers were needed to emphasise local culture, about which the students could justly feel knowledgeable. Under these circumstances, the students should feel strongly encouraged to work creatively and independently.

To judge the results, we can inspect this complete essay submitted by my student Gobusamang:1

1 (a) Yet movement was now impossible. (b) Behind, the line of cars following

2 her made retreat impossible, and the road forward was at this moment

3 taken. (c) Not by the debris of an accident, not a traffic accident, but by a

4 group of men in government khaki shorts tending with a slow but

5 intense inevitability toward the formation of a circle right there in the

6 road. (d) A few were in singlets but most had bare backs black and

7 glistening with beads of sweat so clear this afternoon they kept the

8 sun’s light caught on the men’s backs even after they broke and slipped

9 gently down to get absorbed in the lining under government khaki. (e)

10 But the gentleness of the falling of the sweat came out of the harshness

11 of the circle these men were forming, and the concerted strength that

12 filled their beautiful muscles now was born of an immediate and

13 brutal necessity, for Juana saw there, as she followed the line of each

14 man’s gaze and the focused tension of the violence no longer hidden

15 in these men’s bodies, a shivering dog in the middle of the road.

16 (f) On this hot Atlantic day there was something inside the dog

17 making him so cold he seemed to be searching for the whole feel

18 of the road’s warm tar under him, and he was turning round and

19 round in circles trying to reach and touch the tar with every bit of

20 skin he had all in one impossible movement his limbs and bones

21 were not soft enough to give him.

The text is a sample by an African writer, Ayi Kwei Armah from Ghana. Armah uses literature to depict society as evil, both as a reality and as a historical entity, especially in the subjective world of the characters. The sample appears near the beginning of the novel Fragments (London; Heinemann, 1969), p. 16.

This particular portion addresses at least two topics: the impossibility of movement and the killing of the dog. The first topic can be said to reverberate throughout the entire book, which metaphorically addresses the impossibility of movement and progress in Ghana. The second topic foreshadows the time when Baako, the main character in the book, will be hunted down and compared to a mad dog whose ‘bite will also make you maaaaad!’ (p. 179).

The first topic is animated by stylistic choices indicating various types of ‘movement’: ‘following, retreat, forward, slipped gently down, falling, followed’. This topic is also marked by a conspicuously short opening sentence (a) contrasting with all the others, which are long ones. The sentence iconically stops short just like Juana’s car. Further stylistic indicators of movement that can or can’t happen are ‘road forward was taken, inevitability, broke, turning round and round in circles, one impossible movement’.

The second topic is significantly marked by thematic chains for violence: ‘caught , broke, harshness, muscles, brutal, tension, violence’. Closely connected with these are stylistic choices which indicate determination: ‘intense, bare backs, sweat, absorbed, concerted strength, focused’. Perhaps the thematic chain associated with the killing of the dog has some stylistic choices designed to suggest the victim’s useless remains: ‘skin, limb bones’ (line 20), as contrasted with the ‘beautiful muscles’ (line 12) of the killers.

Foreshadowing and irony are prominent too. The ‘debris’ could foreshadow what will be left of the dog. Irony could be seen when a ‘group of men in government khaki’ halt traffic or progress, when the government workers should take centre-stage in leading the nation toward progress. The term ‘tending’ in line 4 seems to be a drastic understatement of the cruel and swift undertaking to be done on the dog. Also, the ‘beauty’ of the ‘muscles’ is ironic in view of what those muscles will be used to accomplish. Finally, the ‘cold’ feeling of the dog with a fever, is ironic on a ‘hot Atlantic day’ (lines 16-17) and foreshadows Baako’s fever that will later lead his family to have him locked up as a madman.

We can also find some symbolism and metaphor. The ‘circle’ is symbolic and signifies a halt to progress, which is with irony caused by ‘government’ men. The ‘light’ on their ‘backs’ contradicts their dark intentions, just as the ‘gentleness’ is openly put in contrast to ‘harshness’.

We can see how this passage from a book by an African writer shows many choices that were perhaps made to create a style that fits the writer’s native country and its tremendous problems. The passage also fits into the whole book by raising some major topics and foreshadowing some major events.

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Such was the essay submitted by one of our fourth-year students in a ‘stylistics’ course at the University of Botswana. In my opinion, such an essay represents a noteworthy achievement in a relatively unfamiliar subject and on a totally unfamiliar type of assignment. Although Gobusamang used the general outline of my sample essays, his insights into this specific sample proved both original and penetrating. I would award his paper a first and I could readily provide a detailed justification for the mark. He demonstrated his ability to exploit the actual language choices and to relate them to the larger scheme of the book and of the culture that inspired the book.

The results of such pilot projects may help to indicate some ways for English programmes in Southern Africa to pursue the goals whilst promoting the awareness of regional culture. Along the way, we can tap the creative styles of African writers in English language to liberate the creativity of African students of English.

References

Bamgboe, Ay. 1991. Language and the Nation. Edinburgh: Edinburgh UP.

Beaugrande, Robert de. 1978a. Information, expectations, and processing. Poetics 7, 3-44.

Beaugrande, Robert de. 1978b. Semantic evaluation of grammar in poetry. PTL - Journal of Descriptive Poetics and Theory of Literature 3, 3l5-325.

Beaugrande, Robert de. 1987. The naive reader: Anarchy or self-reliance? Empirical Studies in the Arts 5/2, 145-170.

Beaugrande, Robert de. 1988. Critical Discourse: A Survey of Contemporary Literary Theorists. Norwood, N.J.: Ablex.

Beaugrande, Robert de. 1989. Naive readers and creative response. SPIEL: Siegener Periodicum zur empirischen Literaturwissenschaft 8/2, 233-254.

Beaugrande, Robert de. 1997. New Foundations for a Science of Text and Discourse. Stamford, CT: Ablex.

Beaugrande, Robert de. 1998a. Performative speech acts in linguistic theory: The rationality of Noam Chomsky. Journal of Pragmatics 29, 1-39.

Beaugrande, Robert de. 1998b. Society, education, linguistics, and language: Inclusion and exclusion in theory and practice. Linguistics and Education 9/2, 99-158.

Fish, Stanley. 1980. What is stylistics and why are they saying such terrible things about it? In Is There a Text in this Class? Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 68-96.

Ihwe, Jens. 1972. Linguistik in der Literaturwissenschaft. Munich: Bayrischer Schulbuchverlag.

Ihwe, Jens. (ed.). 1971. Literaturwissenschaft und Linguistik. Frankfurt: Athenäum.

Jakobson, Roman. Poetry of grammar and grammar of poetry. Lingua 21, 597-609.

Jakobson, Roman, and Jones, Lawrence. 1970. Shakespeare’s verbal art in ‘Th’expence of spirit’. The Hague: Mouton.

Levin, Samuel. 1962. Linguistic Structures in Poetry. The Hague: Mouton.

Levin, Samuel. 1965. Internal and external deviation in poetry. Word 21, 225-237.

Ngugi wa Thiong’o. 1986. Decolonizing the Mind. Nairobi: Heinemann.

Ngugi wa Thiong’o. 1993. Moving the Centre. Nairobi: Heinemann.

Ohmann, Richard. 1964. Generative grammars and the concept of literary style. Word 20, 423-439.

Riffaterre, Michael. 1959. Criteria for style analysis. Word 15, 154-174.

Riffaterre, Michael. 1960. Stylistic context. Word 16, 207-218.

Riffaterre, Michael. 1966. Describing poetic structures. Yale French Studies 36/37, 200-242.

Said, Edward. 1978. Orientalism. New York: Random House.

Werth, Paul. 1976. Roman Jakobson’s verbal analysis of poetry. Journal of Linguistics 12, 21-73.

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1 I have adjusted the line numbering in the sample and in the citations to fit this print format. The original was in longhand. And just for the record, this student was not repeating any courses or years, nor was he an older student returning for refresher courses