CONTRASTIVE EVALUATION OF LITERARY STYLES OF ENGLISH AND IGBO WRITERS IN ENGLISH: CONSEQUENCES FOR TEACHING WRITING TO IGBO LEARNERS OF ENGLISH

CONTRASTIVE EVALUATION OF LITERARY STYLES OF ENGLISH AND IGBO WRITERS IN ENGLISH: CONSEQUENCES FOR TEACHING WRITING TO IGBO LEARNERS OF ENGLISH    

ABSTRACT

The study is a contrastive analysis of literary styles of English and Igbo writers in English: implications for teaching writing to Igbo learners of English. The objectives of the study were to carry out a contrastive analysis of literary styles of English and Igbo writers in English. Discover the literary styles of English and Igbo writers in English. And discover the similarities and differences in their literary styles. Four English novels and four novels written by Igbo writers in English were contrasted to find out the similarities and differences in their literary styles. Chapters that have the characteristics needed were identified. Banathy (1969) taxonomic model was used for the contrastive analysis. The findings revealed that writers differ in the way they express themselves linguistically due to the different context from where their writings are based. English and Igbo writers in English use similar literary devices but different linguistic items for the same phenomena.  Many stylistic innovations characterize Igbo English novels. And contrastive analysis of literary styles of English and Igbo- English writers can be used to improve the writing problems of Igbo learners of English. The study therefore recommended that authors need to consider the level of learners that they write for and select lexical items whose pragmatic use may not be too different from the semantic use. And learners of English as second language should endeavour to read relevant foreign novels and other print materials to get acquainted with native English usages.

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1        Background to the Study

Style is the arrangement of words in a manner which at once best expresses the individuality of the author and the idea and intent in his mind. Cuddon (1972) points out that style is the characteristic manner of expression in prose or verse; how a particular writer says things. The distinction between what a writer has to say and how it is presented to the reader underlines one of the earliest and most persistent concept of style, that is style as the dress of thought. An appraisal of the works of various authors shows that writers have various styles employed in writing.

Igbo writers in English are writers who use the English language as a second language to produce pieces of creative writing about African life and experience

(Igboanusi, 2002 and Onyemelukwe, 2004) state that Igbo writers are in the process of Africanization of the foreign language. They employ various linguistic processes in creating their various literary tradition which in the end result to a new English. For instance, Achebe in Things Fall Apart writes in English, but he captures the cadence of the Igbo people particularly noticeable in the book‘s dialogue; this is a deliberate effort. His goal is to use language to depict how the Ibo view the world. In different geographical areas, phenomena such as time, dress type, mannerisms and greetings will be expressed differently in either spoken or written language. This is because each society has its values, beliefs and aspirations. There are differences between communities which correlate with differences in their language. The way a particular speech community uses linguistic items such as words, phrases or clauses may vary or differ from the other. Therefore, Igbo writers writing in English tend to use lexical items and larger units basing their use on the speech communities that they come from. English writers and Igbo writers in English therefore, using English in their works may have different linguistic items for the same phenomena depending on the way language is used in their speech communities.

Furthermore, different language patterns yield different patterns of thought. This means that the mechanisms of any language condition the thoughts of its speech community. The diversity of languages is not of sounds and signs, but of ways of looking at the world (Romaine, 1982). All language users are not led by the same physical evidence to the same picture of the universe, unless their linguistic backgrounds are similar, or can in some ways be calibrated. Yule (1985) states that, one can only think in the categories which his language allows one to think in. Biber (1988) adds that writers writing their works in the second language often express loyalty to their first language thereby making their writing unique. A large number of features of their first language are carried into the written language. Therefore, when one studies the work of Igbo writers in English, one will notice that their use of English could be quite different from what obtains when writers from Britain and America write. The reason as Odlin (1989) observes is as a result of differences in world view. World views among cultures differ and the language used to express them may be relative and specific to that view. Consequently, misunderstanding from second language speech or writing that differs greatly from the discourse norms of the target language (TL) are likely to occur between speakers and writers of different cultures. For this reason, Bereiter and Scardamalia

(1987) state that any appropriate instruction must take into consideration the influence from various educational, social and cultural experiences that students have in their native language.

The researcher has been a WAEC and NECO examiner for years and has observed a number of innumerable errors committed by Igbo learners in the essay component of English language which lead to their massive failure. Also, the researcher was a teacher of English language for five years in the South-Eastern part of Nigeria where students are mostly Igbo and observed that Igbo students perform poorly in the area of writing. Students produce utterances such as: ―I hear the smell of a perfume‖ when they wanted to say ―I perceive the smell of a perfume‖, ―put me in your prayers for my exams‖ for ―pray for my success in my exams‖, ―I understand all you told me in your letter‖ for ―I understood all you wrote in your letter‖ to mention but a few. Thus, the deficiency of Igbo learners in English language has become so discernable that language scholars in the country have been worried and have been making effort to improve the proficiency of students in English language in Nigeria.

Oluikpe (2006) attributes the cause of deficiencies of students to English in

Nigerian secondary schools to inadequate English textbooks, lack of specialist teachers of English in primary and secondary schools and above all, the inability of curriculum planners for Nigerian schools to use contrastive analysis techniques in designing of English language courses. Others attributed the problem of English learning and teaching to Nigerian cultural influences (Oyeleye and Moji, 2003). The need to use relevant literary texts to teach writing is therefore very imperative.

Several contrastive works have been carried out in the area of phonology and syntax to help Igbo students communicate effectively. For instance, Uzoigwe (2011) contrasted Igbo and English determiner, Oluikpe (1981) conducted a contrastive analysis of the syntactic structures of the Igbo and English to mention but a few but contrastive work in the area of discourse is relatively scarce, this equally inspires and motivated the researcher to carry out this research, since the researcher is aware of the negative effect of L1 on the L2 learning especially the difficulty faced by Igbo students in the area of writing and  most importantly, the fact that contrastive analysis pre-occupies itself with two basic formulations namely, finding language differences and language similarities at the phonological, syntactic, lexical and even discourse levels between two languages.

These help to predict the learners‘ errors in the differences‘ between the (L1) and (L2). Predicting the learners‘ errors will help researchers in language teaching to make assumptions about possible learning difficulties by anybody learning a second language.

Given the above scenario, the researcher desires to contrast the literary styles of

English writers and Igbo writers such as Chinua Achebe, Chukwuemeka Ike, John Munonye whose English is close to that of the native speakers, to discover which of their styles could facilitate or impede the teaching and learning of writing to Igbo learners of

English and equally use their styles to model the writing skills of learners.

1.2   Statement of the Problems

Despite the use of the English language, the standard of English language in

Nigeria is gradually waning. This decrease in standard is a worry to many scholars in Nigeria. Oluikpe (2006) observes that the proficiency level of English at all levels of our educational system has become a matter of great concern to educationists and educational planners in Nigeria. Igbo learner of English still find it overwhelming difficult in learning the skills of written English. This problem is unequivocally placed at the door step of teachers of English. Igbo learners of English encounter problems because they had already attained communicative competence in their native language (NL) as second language learners, they have the problem of limited lexicon and therefore often have difficulty expressing their ideas in the second language.

According to the Canons of the discipline of language pedagogy, the more difference between the systems of the target language (TL) the more difficult learning invariably becomes and the smaller the difference, the easier the learning. Scholars in second language learning advocate that second language must be acquired through the filter of L₁ habits. This is why the proponents of contrastive analysis came to advocate that L₂ instructional materials could be prepared more efficiently by comparing two languages in the process predict learners‘ difficulties. But most English language teachers have the problem of getting the right approach to teaching writing and the effect is poor performance of students. Again, teachers of English at times make use of wrong methods and inappropriate instructional materials. The method used is the cause of success or failure in language. It is the method that determines the worth of language instruction, the  need to use appropriate techniques and materials is very imperative in teaching and learning. Therefore, this study intends to contrast the literary styles of English and Igbo to see if it would help in teaching writing to Igbo learners of English.        

1.3       Objectives of the Study

The study intends to contrast the literary styles of English and Igbo writers in English with the implication of teaching writing to Igbo learners of English. It is an attempt to show the extent to which the two languages are similar or different from each other in their use of literary style and would provide pedagogical benefits of the study.

The following are therefore the major objectives of the study:

1. identify the literary styles of English writers.
2. discover the literary styles of Igbo writers in English.

• discover the similarities and differences between the literary styles of English and

Igbo writers in English. iv) predict possible areas of difficulty learners experiences while learning the literary  styles of the two languages

1.4        Research Questions

This study is expected to find answers to the following questions: i)            What are the literary styles of English writers?

1. What are the literary styles of Igbo writers in English?

• What are the similarities and differences between the literary styles of English and Igbo writers in English?

1. What are the areas of difficulties arising from the literary styles of both languages?

1.5        Basic Assumptions

A contrastive study of the literary styles of English and Igbo could enhance the understanding of text and equally enhance the teaching of writing to Igbo speakers learning English as second language.

1.6       Significance of the Study

The work is significant because through it the similarities and differences between the literary styles of English and Igbo writers using the English medium would be discovered. Having discovered the similarities and differences, the teacher would develop teaching strategies which would enhance the teaching of literary texts to speakers of Igbo. The study would make ESL teachers aware of the many factors influencing their students‘ attempt to compose effective texts and help teachers understand the problem individual learner exhibits in their writing task in other words helps the teacher diagnose accurately the difficulties learners have comparing effective text. This could provide teachers with a practical framework for analyzing and evaluating ESL writing materials before they are adopted for use or help the teachers to supplement the textbook assigned to his class. It is expected that once the areas of potential difficulty is mapped out through contrastive analysis, it would help the teacher to carefully select appropriate materials and teaching techniques to tackle the problem. It will also help Igbo students discover the differences between the literary styles of English and Igbo and thereby help to improve their writing skills.

The recommendations at the end of the work may also help English language specialists in Nigeria to produce English textbooks which would address specific problems that Igbo learners face in using literary devices in their stories. This study is expected to make significant contributions to curriculum planners because at the end, it could guide them in the type of novels to recommend for students to use in their literature courses, especially texts written by good writers which relate to learners‘ background and which do not deviate too radically from the English norm. This could offer the teacher some pedagogical tools for dealing with Igbo L₂ writings, not only suggestions for how to shape a class for a writing assignment, but also an understanding of how and why students maybe resistant writers. The resistance may come from struggles with difference between the target language and the ones they control.

Finally, this study would be another contribution to CLA, between Nigerian languages and English which as observed by Adeyanju (1979:16) and Olaofe (1982:22)

―there was a great need for more CLAs in Nigerian languages.

1.7        Scope and Delimitation

The study makes contrastive analysis of eight selected prose texts written by English writers and Igbo writers in English. In the analysis, the literary technique and the kind of literary devices the authors used to expand and develop the story were contrasted with those of Igbo writers in English to find similarities and differences. The study was be restricted to eight selected novels from English writers namely: Daniel Defoe

Robinson Crusoe, Ernest Hemingway The Old Man and the Sea, Jane Austen Pride and

Prejudice, William Golding Lord of the Flies and Igbo writers in English namely: Chinua

Achebe Arrow of God, Chukwuemeka Ike, The Potters Wheel and John Munonye TheOnly Son. The analysis did not go into other literary appreciation nor did stylistic devices of poetry or drama texts analyzed.

CONTRASTIVE EVALUATION OF LITERARY STYLES OF ENGLISH AND IGBO WRITERS IN ENGLISH: CONSEQUENCES FOR TEACHING WRITING TO IGBO LEARNERS OF ENGLISH    

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