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DEICTICS AND STYLISTIC FUNCTION IN J.P CLARK-BEKEDEREMO'S POETRY

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

There is no doubt that J.P. Clark-Bekederemo is one of the leading lights of Nigeria’s first generation of writers. This thesis springs from his historicity, the quantity and quality of his literary procreations and the prodigious critical attention and acclaim these works have attracted across the globe. However, unlike other Nigerian writers such as Soyinka and Osundare, there is an acrite dearth of critical works on the language of the poet. Eyoh’s (1997) J.P. Clark’s Poetry: A Study in Stylistic Criticism remains the only full-scale linguistic investigation of the writer’s poetry. The critical fact is that this work is limited by its triadic focus on the phonostylistic, lexical and paralinguistic affective aspects of the poet’s idiolect.

There is no doubt that language is very crucial to literary procreation and discourse. Todorov (1977) highlights this view when he defined literature as a verbal work of art. The implication is that, to fully grasp the meaning and aesthetics of a literary text (or any text for that matter), there must be recourse to language at all levels of linguistic description, because it is the singular medium of its expression. Dada (2004) explains:

A literary work contains a lot of codes and information that must be decoded in

order to fully grasp the meaning of the work; it has sound patterns, semantic

relations and syntactic organization. All these must be taken into account when

reading a literary text.

The present study, therefore seeks to fill the gap left by Eyoh’s (1997) work in the area of

lexis and grammar, by investigating the role deictic words play in encoding the meaning

Yeibo: Deictics and Stylistic Function in J.P. Clark-Bekederemo’s Poetry 2

and aesthetics of the texts. Dever (1998) posits that, in creating any text, literary or nonliterary,

we must combine words to express complex ideas or relationships in sentences

Lyons (1977:249) echoes a similar viewpoint when he averred that “… the function of

language tends to be reflected in its grammatical and lexical structure…” Against this

background, the study demonstrates that lexico-grammatical patterning in a text is as

crucial as any other level of linguistic description in encoding the message and aesthetics

of literary discourse.

2. Theoretical Foundation/Literature Review

Stylistics is the branch of linguistics that focuses on style, particularly in works of

literature. Cluett and Kampeas (1979) refer to it as the judgment of “the tangible

manifestation of style”. According to Allan et al. (1988), the concept

.... studies the characteristics of situationally distinctive use of language and tries

to establish principles capable of accounting for particular choices made by

individuals and social groups in their use of language.

From the foregoing preliminary statements, we can see the water tight relationship

between style and stylistics. It is the workshop of stylistics; the soil on which stylistics is

sown. Hence, Babajide (2000) observes that where there is no style, there is no stylistics.

What then is style? Basically, it refers to the way we do things – dress, talk, pray, dance,

walk, etc. in a linguistic sense, the concept infers the specific manner a particular speaker

or writer expresses himself. Leech and Short (1981) see it as “the way language is used in

a literary text, with the aim of relating it to its artistic (or aesthetic) functions” (p.14-15).

According to Tomori (1977), “there is a style in everything we say; so style cannot be

isolated from language itself; but it is a distinctive aspect of language” (p. 53).

Through the ages, different scholars have come out with various theories to

explicate the concept of language and its use, particularly in literary circles. This fact

underscores the critical place of language in human existence, as it constitutes the

bedrock of human socialization and civilization. The Russian formalism of the 1920s and

the structuralist school of the 1960s postulate the existence of a special “poetic

language”, as distinct from “ordinary” or “scientific” language. Wellek and Warren

(1963) also distinguishes a poetic use of language, in the sense that, it is non-referential,

non-practical, non-casual, etc. This implies that “poetic language” is unique as a result of

its conscious use of linguistic and imagistic devices to foreground aspects of meaning.

Another fundamental aspect of the language of poetry is its deviant character. The

language of poetry inherently and overtly deviates from linguistic conventions or norms,

at all levels of its use i.e. semantic, phonological, lexical, syntactic, etc, because poets

enjoy what has been referred to as poetic license. Hence Widdowson (1984) contends

that, “it is common to find instances of language use which cannot be accounted for by

grammatical rules,” in poetry (p.162). According to Crystal (1987), it is this deviant and

abnormal feature of the language of poetry that stylistics focuses on. Chomsky’s (1957)

Transformational Generative Grammar (TGG), is also germane to the present discourse,

3 Yeibo: Deictics and Stylistic Function in J.P. Clark-Bekederemo’s Poetry

as it postulates the disparity and relations between deep and surface structures. The

relevant point in Chomsky’s TGG is that the meaning of surface linguistic constructs like

poetry is retrievable only in the deep structure. This point also underscores the fact that

meaning in poetry texts is multi-layered and multi-faceted.

However, since the primary concern of the present study is on the functional

aspect of language, we shall adopt M.A.K. Halliday’s Systemic Functional Grammar

(SFG), as our analytical model, in the sense that it focuses not only on the structure of

language, but also on the properties of discourse and its functions in specific social and

cultural situations. Specifically, the study adopts Halliday’s three meta-functions of

language viz.: ideational, interpersonal, and textual for the textual analysis. The

ideational metafunction focuses on the subject matter or field of discourse, while the

interpersonal meta-function refers to the tenor of discourse i.e. the social relationship that

exists among participants in a given discourse situation, which has the potentials to

influence or shape language use. The textual meta-function is particularly relevant to our

study, as it focuses on the internal organization and communicative nature of a text. The

pre-occupation of this study is to show how deictic words are organized with contextual

considerations in J.P. Clark-Bekederemo’s poetry, to foreground aspects of meaning and

aesthetics in the texts.

Thus, our adoption of Halliday’s Systemic Functional Grammar for textual

analysis, is necessitated by its sociological and functional appeal. According to Opara

(2005), Halliday’s claim in this theory is that language structure reflects the social uses to

which language is put. In other words, we agree with Osakwe (1995) that “the language

of the poet mirrors the function and purpose of a poem – like any other linguistic text

which is also dependent upon major situational factors” (p. XIV). The critical point is that

the linguistic-stylistic approach that we have used in the study enables us to examine and

characterize the structural and functional aspects of a writer’s idiolect. Ayemoni (2004)

posits that the approach offers three major benefits. Firstly, the analyst will be aware of

the structural pattern of language permeating a text, to enable him identify the prominent

or foregrounded stylistic features of the text. It also enables the analyst to be consciously

aware of the kind of social variations, which the inherent linguistic features are identified

with. Finally, the approach also enables the analyst to know the technique of putting

down these features systematically in order to reveal the internal patterning of texts.

3. The Concepts of Deictics and Stylistic Function.

Deictic elements (also called shifters), which are particular words whose referential

meaning shifts with every new speaker or occasion of use are very critical in the analysis

of referential items in stylistics and pragmatics. Generally, pronouns function as deictic

words, i.e. personal pronouns such as I, me, you, she, he, it, and pronouns that refer to

places and times such as here, there, now, then, respectively. Deixis that indicate the

position or environment of the speaker in relation to spatial location such as locative

adverbs (i.e. here, there) and demonstratives (this/that) are called “spatial deixis”, while

temporal adverbs such as now, then, which place a speech event in a specific or

Yeibo: Deictics and Stylistic Function in J.P. Clark-Bekederemo’s Poetry 4

approximate time frame, are referred to as “temporal deixis”. Personal pronouns such as

I, me, you, she, it, etc., are called “person deixis”.

Deictic words are important in stylistic and pragmatic analysis of texts as a result of their

absolute dependence on context, for their explication or interpretation. The situational

context from which the reference is made constitutes the “point of view” that must be

understood to interpret the statement (Wikipedia online Encyclopedia, 2009) Wikipedia

(Ibid) illustrates this point inter alia:

If Tom is speaking and he says “I”, he refers to himself,

but if Tom is hearing Betty say “I”, then the Origo is

with Betty and the reference is to Betty.

In most languages, deictics function in two ways. These are termed proximal and distal

deictic references. The first refers to things and places that are closer to the speaker; the

other refers to things and places that are far from the speaker and/or closer to the hearer.

Thus, the English language, for instance, has pairs such as this/that, and here/there. Some

other languages have a three-way deictic system viz.: proximal, medial and distal i.e. near

the speaker; near the hearer; far from both. Romance languages generally function in

three ways.

Stylistic function, on the other hand, is an aspect of language function. According

to Alo (1998), language function can be explained in two ways. Firstly, it refers to the

specific use to which a writer or speaker puts the language (i.e. description, explanation,

argument, persuasion, humour, etc.). Secondly, in stylistic description it refers to the

communicative value or role of specific language categories (i.e. sentence, clause, word

group, collocations, word and morpheme), in given social situations. Language function,

therefore, implies varieties of language that are defined according to use. Halliday (1978)

labeled language as a “social semiotic” in the sense that it evolves in a context and the

environment in which people deploy language to serve communicative needs can shape

its form and meaning. The analysis of the texts would demonstrate that J.P. Clark-

Bekederemo’s poetry under study is dense with deictic words which not only preserve

and project the expressive beauty of the works, but also help to capture intentions more

vividly and produce desired meanings and effect on the audience or readers.

4. Brief Biography of the Poet

Born December 6, 1933 in Kiagbodo in the Ijaw area of present-day Delta State of

Nigeria, to Ijaw and Urhobo parents (His father was Ijaw and mother Urhobo), Johnson

Pepper Clark-Bekederemo had his primary school at Okrika (1940-1948) and Jeremi

(1948), before proceeding to Government College, Ughelli, for his secondary education

(1948-1953). He attended the University of Ibadan between 1955 and 1960. At Ibadan,

together with a handful of other writers, he played a prominent role in establishing

Nigeria and the continent of Africa as one of the major centres of Literature in English in

the twentieth century. Of his Ibadan years, Wren (1984) remarks that Clark-Bekederemo

5 Yeibo: Deictics and Stylistic Function in J.P. Clark-Bekederemo’s Poetry

“showed the most precocious talent that West African literary history had yet seen.” The

poet has worked as an information officer, journalist, and University professor. Apart

from his poetry, Clark-Bekederemo is also a frontline African dramatist and scholar. He

has also written a novel (travelogue) America, their America (1964), which is an account

of his sojourn in America as a Parvin fellow at Princeton University (1962-63).

5. Contextual Issues in the Poetry

That language and context are two inseparable phenomena is a fact that has been long

standing and established (see Leech, 1983:13). Morley (1985: 4) points out that, “context

serves to itemize those aspects of the situation which have a bearing on the form used”.

The critical point in that, context is an important aspect of language use. As we shall

demonstrate in the analysis of the texts, the true meaning of a text can be thought of as a

relationship between its linguistic elements and whatever contextual evidence is available

for clarifying it. In J.P. Clark-Bekederemo’s poetry, certain variables constitute the

context of situation. These include: genre type, background experiences of the poet,

socio-political realities, and subject-matter.

6. Textual Analysis

The analysis in this section is based on poems purposively selected from A Decade of

Tongues (1981, contains poems written between 1958 and 1968), State of the Union

(1985), Mandela and other poems (1988), A Lot from Paradise (1999), Of Sleep and Old

Age (2003) and Once Again A Child (2004), in order to strike a temporal balance between

the writer’s early, later and latest poetry.

The critical point is that, in J.P. Clark-Bekederemo’s poetry, the use of the

personal pronouns ‘I’ me’; the locative adverbs ‘here’, there/elsewhere’; and the temporal

adverbs ‘now and ‘then, is a significant discourse strategy. These deixis run through the

entire texts and help the poet to relate his propositions to specific persons, places and

times, respectively, which is absolutely relevant for their understanding and

interpretation. In other words, they help the poet to relive his experiences and register his

visions within specific spatial or temporal frameworks. We shall now discus each of these

aspects of deixis in the following sections, to show their stylistic and pragmatic

significance in the texts under study.

6.1 Person Deixis

In the words of Cornish (1986:1), a pronominal involves the avoidance of redundancy or

repetition by the use of a semantically attenuated expression in place of a full lexical

expression initially used. In English grammar, there are three levels of pronominalization

viz: first person pronoun (singular: I, me; plural: we, us); second person pronoun

(singular and plural: you); and third person pronominal (singular: she, he it; plural: they,

them). The reference of a pronominal could be inclusive (as in we and us) or exclusive

(as in he, she, it, they, and them). Brown and Yule (1983:214) point out that pronominals

are used to refer to already given entities but their presence in texts brings about cohesive

relationships. One stylistic feature of the poems under study is the preponderance of

Yeibo: Deictics and Stylistic Function in J.P. Clark-Bekederemo’s Poetry 6

inclusive pronominal expressions in the writer’s latest poetry (i.e. 1999-date). Over 90%

of the 29 poems in A Lot from Paradise, 44 in Once Again a Child and 58 in Of Sleep

and Old Age contain or are dense with such pronouns as ‘I’, ‘we’, ‘me’, ‘us’ and

adjectives such as ‘our’. This stylo-statistics clearly indicates that these collections or

volumes are biographical materials other than volumes containing texts of creation.

Hence Osofisan (2011:260-261) observes that Clark-Bekederemo’s “new poetry” is a rich

assemblage of the spirits and sounds of his native kiagbodo, “… evoking now

autobiographical details, now the family’s general genealogy, and now some significant

but forgotten fragments of history …” We shall now draw specimens of features from the

texts in tabular form, to illustrate these views for further clarification (all underlinings

mine):

Exponent of Specimen texts Source

i. I find the photograph of an old man. “A Photograph” (Of Sleep and Old Age)

ii. Sleep for me is now the active state… “A Time to Sleep” (Of Sleep…)

iii. How can I string out… “Untold Story” (Of Sleep…)

iv. My grandmother, konomo, into whose

arms I was delivered

“My Grandmother konomo” (Once Again a

Child)

v. When my mother woke us up…….. “The Mainly Rite” (Once Again a Child)

vi. My father took the tough line. “A Night Act in the Day” (Once Again …..)

vii. A woman of my own blood “A Night Act in the Day” (Once Again …..)

vii. We were playing in an outer courtyard….. “A Witch’s Touch” (Once Again….)

ix. For three days and three nights, we stood

in turns around your bed.

“Two Loves” (A Lot from paradise)

x. You who gave me a lot from paradise. “Land of the Gods” (A Lot from Paradise)

xi. You wondered who I was within my house on the

lonely cliff across our river.

“Icon in the Library” (A Lot from Pradise)

As we can glean from the table above, the repetitive use of the pronouns ‘I’, ‘me’ and

‘my’ particularly foregrounds this aspect of meaning, as it continually draws our attention

to the autobiographical character of these poems, as the pronominal referent centres on

the poet. The implication of this strategy is that the poems give a more or less personal

story of J.P. Clark-Bekederemo, thus fulfilling his pledge in “A pledge” (Once Again a

Child), to write “a poem of every matter of interest” he could “salvage” from the stream

of his life. Based on this strategy, it can be further said that Bekederemo’s latest poetry is

a documentation of his life. The strategy makes these poems overtly experiential and

realistic.