Post-colonial Literature and Linguistic Identity in Two Nigerian Plays
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Date
2023
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The National Theatre, Iganmu, Lagos, Nigeria
Abstract
Colonialism may have been over for many African countries, including Nigeria, but its relics remain seemingly unassailable. The deprivations suffered by the colonised societies as a result of the relegation of the indigenous languages and the efforts of post-colonial creative writers to reassert African nativism gave birth to what many refer to as postcolonial literature. This paper examined the tropes of postcolonialism and linguistic identity in Emmy Idegu's Ata Igala the Great and Irene Salami-Agunloye's Idia, the Warrior Queen of Benin. It used the instrumentation of content analysis as methodological premise for primary data. The arguments presented in the study were anchored on postcolonial theory. The paper found out that African post-colonial creative writing is in the process of evolving a unique for itself, through choices of appropriation and
abrogation, which comprised deployment of traditional linguistic canons in form of coined concepts, myth-making, proverbs, riddles and songs rendered in the indigenous languages. The paper concluded that overall, Idegu and Salami-Agunloye's works strive to deprive the “standard” English language of its supposed hegemony and stamps their plays with the identity of Africanness. This practice is recommended for more African playwrights.
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A Book Chapter
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Citation
Agboola, M.O. (2023). Post-colonial literature and linguistic identity in two Nigerian plays. In O.S. Omoera, 'B. Ojoniyi, and V.O. Ihidero (eds.), One three a forest: Studies in Nigerian theatre poetics, technology and cultural aesthetics (a book in honour of Sunday Enessi Ododo (SEO) at 60), pp. 260-272. Lagos, Nigeria: The National Theatre