Search

August Wilson’s Fences is perhaps the most controversial in his ten-play chronicle of the African American experience in the 20th century. The play’s conflict centres on Troy’s alleged highhandedness against his son and his extra-marital affair. The morality behind these issues has been the subject of debate since the play debuted in 1987, and the protagonist is generally believed to be a villain. This paper challenges this negative perspective, which is largely based on Western socio-cultural paradigms and logic, and provides an alternative reading of the play by reasserting the influence of the Black Aesthetic on Wilson, and by linking it to a specific African pre-text: Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart. Keywords: August Wilson’s Fences; African world view; Black Aesthetic; Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart; intertextuality

The attainment of national cultural integration is a major goal of most multi-ethnic societies in the world. For decades, Nigeria has grappled with the tension arising from the co-existence of over 200 ethnic nationalities that share over 400 languages. Since language fosters ethnic identity and solidarity, the need for a common language with the potential for reducing ethnic hostilities and enhancing national cohesion has been stressed. In Nigeria, the English language plays a role in this regard, but along with it there is a perceptible evolution of lexicon shared by these diverse groups – consciously or unconsciously. The evolution of these linguistic items is an indication of language expansion and attrition. The article examines this phenomenon, along with the factors which have triggered the evolutionary processes, and suggests that when such a national vocabulary fully evolves, ceteris paribus, the process of national cultural integration could be significantly enhanced.

No previous accounts of discourse or pragmatic markers have considered the contributions of as in as a marker in utterance interpretation. Yet, this particle, although essentially a Nigerian English usage, shares the same features with some of the most commonly discussed markers such as, that is, in short, in other words, so, you know, I mean and so on. Drawing examples from spoken data, which are analysed within the framework of relevance theory, this paper describes the contributions of as in as a pragmatic marker in the interpretation of utterances in Nigerian English usage. As a pragmatic marker, as in encodes procedural meaning by constraining the inferential process in a way that maximizes relevance. Specifically, this paper argues that as in in various ways and in diverse contexts signals the speaker's desire to get the hearer to recognize that a crucial aspect of his meaning is being communicated in the host utterance, and in the process encourages the hearer to arrive at that meaning with minimal processing effort.

Most works on August Wilson's Joe Turner's Come and Gone have emphasized its enigmatic African elements that have stunned white audiences since the play was first produced in 1984. Such elements are manifested in characters such as Bynum and Loomis, or in rituals such as the Juba and blood sacrifice (Shannon, 1995; Wolfe, 1999; Elam Jr., 2006; Harrison, 1991; Richards, 1999; Pereira, 1995). These images confront the reader at first glance and produce that feeling of strangeness characteristic of the African world. However, underneath these images is the most subtle element or trope on which the events of the play are anchored − the 'song', which has been described as “that all important quest for self-affirmation in black life” (Harrison, 1991: 309). Applying the Relevance-theoretic framework of inferential pragmatics, this study explores the concept 'song' by examining its salient properties based on reader's inferences or contextual assumptions. The study claims that through an inferential analysis, the metaphor, 'song,' in Joe Turner's Come and Gone can be realised as an ontological construct which signifies the individual's quest for spiritual transcendence and personal development and that through this metaphor Wilson privileges the need for the African American to take responsibility for what becomes of his life rather than seeing himself as a victim of the white hegemony.

The poetry of Niyi Osundare and Edward Estlin Cummings manifests a great degree of foregrounding. By unusual combination or positioning of words, the poets make even the everyday language to acquire some poetic significance. The samples of poems chosen for this work are strangely patterned both at the visual and syntactic levels. But in spite of the obvious linguistic aberrations in the poems, there is a perceptible internal order, which integrates syntax, semantics and the visual levels into some recognizable whole, which enhances the appreciation of the poems. This paper is directed at demonstrating the similarity in the manner in which both poets have exploited this aspect of foregrounding to create a new linguistic awareness. It examines how the various levels of linguistic organization in the poems cohere to provide some sense in what might appear meaningless at first sight. Humanities Review Journal Vol.3(2) 2003: 83-98