A Stylistic Study of the Language of Selected Greeting Cards ... by Vivian Sitamai Adigwe

The study also reveals interlocking power relations especially in relation to gender. Through systematic changes in the transitivity patterns Chris is associated with, Achebe apparently urges the enlightened but apathetic citizen to rise up and transform his society through struggle, however, feeble it would be. These stereotype characters create a world that serves as a background for Achebe to foreground his socio-political ideology through his characterisation of Chris, the only dynamic character of the six. The study demonstrates that five of the six characters, namely, Sam, Beatrice, Ikem, Elewa, and Agatha are stereotypes of key social actors in post-independence West Africa. In addition, the study investigates the relationship between point of view and the transitivity patterns in which a character is inscribed. The present study first examines what foregrounded transitivity patterns associated with six characters in Anthills reveal about these characters and the thematic concern of the novel. While many of these studies are based on European and American literature, only few attempts have been made on African literature. Since Halliday (1971) applied transitivity to Golding’s The Inheritors, it has been used to explore characterisation, power relations in texts, the generic features of texts, and the pragmatic organisation of narrative discourse. The present study is meant to contribute to this growing body of studies by using transitivity, a Systemic Functional Linguistic framework, to explore Achebe’s Anthills of the Savannah.

Abstract Following insights from stylistic studies on European literature and a few earlier attempts on the stylistic analysis of African literature, there has been a recent growing interest in the stylistic analysis of the African novel.

A Stylistic Study of the Language of Selected Greeting Cards ... by Vivian Sitamai Adigwe