Hostname: page-component-74656f9884-kv2lp Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2026-11-05T03:11:31.617Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

English as an African language

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 October 2008

Gaurav Desai
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

An examination of how the language is used in the literature of Black Africa

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
English Today , Volume 9 , Issue 2 , April 1993 , pp. 4 - 11
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1993

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

1.Wali, Obiajunwa, ‘The Dead End of African Literature?’, Transition, 10(1963), 13–15.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
2.Wali, Obiajunwa, ‘The Dead End of African Literature?’, Transition, 10(1963), p. 14.Google Scholar
3.Ngugi wa Thiong'o, , personal communication, Northwestern University, October 1986.Google Scholar
4.Ngugi wa Thiong'o, , Writers in Politics, Heinemann, 1981, p. 14.Google Scholar
5.Ngugi wa Thiong'o, , ‘The Role of the Scholar in the Development of African Literatures’, in Lindfors, Bernth (ed). Research Priorities in African Literatures, Hans Zell, 1984, p. 9.Google Scholar
6.Ngugi wa Thiong’o, , Decolonising the Mind: The Politics of Language in African Literature, Heinemann, 1986, p. 17.Google Scholar
7.Bakhtin, Mikhail, The Dialogic Imagination, Holquist, Michael (ed)., Emerson, Caryl and Holquist, Michael (trans)., Univ. of Texas Press, 1981, p. 294.Google Scholar
8. See Achebe, Chinua, ‘The African Writer and the English Language’ in Morning Yet on Creation Day, Heinemann, 1975, p. 55–62.,Google Scholar
Mphahlele, Ezekiel, ‘Letter’, Transition, 3 (11), 1963, p. 7–9.Google Scholar
9.Bakhtin, , Dialogic Imagination, p. 293.Google Scholar
10.Bakhtin, , Dialogic Imagination, p. 293.Google Scholar
11.Bakhtin, , Dialogic Imagination, p. 293.Google Scholar
12.Lindfors, Bernth, ‘Introduction’ in Lindfors, Bernth (ed). Critical Perspectives on Chinua Achebe, Three Continents Press, 1975, p. xiii.Google Scholar
13.Thomas, Dylan, Observer, July 6th 1952. Reprinted in Lindfors, Critical Perspectives, p. 8.Google Scholar
14. See Collins, Harold, ‘Founding a National Literature: The Ghost Novels of Amos Tutuola’, in Lindfors, Critical Perspectives, p. 59–70.Google Scholar
15.Tutuola, Amos, The Palm-Wine Drinkard, Grove Press, 1953, p. 23Google Scholar
16.Ogundipe-Leslie, Omolara, ‘The Palm-Wine Drinkard: A Reassessment of Amos Tutuola’ in Lindfors, Critical Perspectives, p. 152–153.Google Scholar
17.Akanji, , ‘Review’, Black Orpheus 4, October 1958, p. 52–53.Google Scholar
18.Okara, Gabriel, ‘African Speech … English words’ in Killam, G.D. (ed). African Writers on African Writing, Northwestern University Press, 1973, p. 137–139.Google Scholar
19.Okara, Gabriel, The Voice, Heinemann, 1964, p. 27.Google Scholar
20. I am indebted to Oladele Taiwo's analysis of this phenomenon in Culture and the Nigerian Novel, St. Martins Press, 1976, p. 70.Google Scholar
21.Okara, , The Voice, p. 65.Google Scholar
22.Okara, , The Voice, p. 71.Google Scholar
23.Okara, , The Voice, p. 76.Google Scholar
24.Taiwo, Oladele, Culture and the Nigerian Novel, p. 70.Google Scholar
25.Bakhtin, , Dialogic Imagination, 304.Google Scholar
26.Okara, , The Voice, p. 107.Google Scholar
27.Bakhtin, , Dialogic Imagination, p. 290.Google Scholar
28.Achebe, , ‘The African Writer and the English Language’, p. 61–62.Google Scholar
29.Achebe, , Things Fall Apart, Heinemann, 1958, p. 5.Google Scholar
30.Achebe, , Arrow of God, Doubleday and Co., 1969, p. 125–26.Google Scholar
31.Bakhtin, Mikhail, Speech Genres and Other Late Essays, Emerson, Caryl and Holquist, Michael (eds)., McGee, Vern W. (trans)., Univ. of Texas Press, 1986, p. 60.Google Scholar
32.Achebe, , No Longer at Ease, Heinemann, 1960, p. 90.Google Scholar
33.Achebe, , A Man of the People, Heinemann, 1966, p. 61.Google Scholar
34.Achebe, , A Man of the People, Heinemann, 1966, p. 58.Google Scholar
35.Achebe, , No Longer at Ease, p. 67.Google Scholar
36.Achebe, , No Longer at Ease, p. 5.Google Scholar
37. I take this phrase from a remarkable essay by James Clifford explicating this view: ‘The Pure Products Go Crazy’ in The Predicament of Culture, Harvard University Press, 1988, p. 1–17.Google Scholar