‘PHON-ETHIC’ DISCOURSE AND IDEOLOGICAL READINGS OF SOYINKA’S AND CLARK’S ‘ABIKU’ COSMOLOGY FOR 21ST CENTURY NIGERIA

Abstract

Phonological level of linguistic analysis has confirmed the kind of hegemonic relationship English enjoys along with the indigenous Nigerian societies and languages. Studies abound on the issues of hierachisation and, or Englishisation process touching aspects of sociolinguistics with stint consideration for the phonological presentations of ideological motifs in Nigerian or African literary discourses. This study, therefore, explored the discourse-stylistics of English phonemic system with a view to examining and interrogating the social and ideological perceptions in the ‘Àbíkú’ encapsulations. Using Odebunmi’s version of Mutual Contextual/Conceptual Beliefs (MCBs), complemented with Oduola’s Critical Phonotactic Metaphor (CPM), two 1960s political metaphors poetically encased by Soyinka and Clark in ‘Àbíkú’ are subjected to phonetic and phonologic comparative analyses to unearth the discursive elements of regenerative vision in the poet-prophetic nation building discourses. Findings revealed strategic sound processes with which the poets respectively embark on the deliberate promulgations and pronouncement of their individual nationalistic ideological standpoints. The technicality of prosodic consonances peculiarly identifiable with Soyinka, for instance, sharply contrasts him from ‘Clark’s seemingly easy accessibility. Such creative sound patterning bears the consequence of powerful imageries of African traditional cosmology in the poems. The suprasegmental of intonation provides lexical and grammatical banners that depict the tone of realities made harsher by the Nigeria’s socio-political complications. These are fixed on the solidly demonstrated relevance of Mutual Contextual/Conceptual Beliefs deployed in the interpretations of Abiku cosmology. Phonological craftsmanship is a foundation for subtle politicking whose analytic enterprise offers sure platform for ideological and cosmological understanding with implications for re-engineering the 21^st century Nigerian socio-political realities.