ABSTRACT
Earlier studies on Soyinka’s Death and the King’s Horseman (DKH) have been focused on the stylistic (Adejare 1995), literary (Dasylva, 2004), and pragmatic (Odebode, 2002), Aremu, 2008) analyses of this historical and ritual drama. The currecnt study sought to carry out a sociolinguistic analysis of Wole Soyinka’s Death and the King’s Horseman. In the present study, Mey’s (2001). “Pragmeme” was employed in examining the English usage in the text. “Pragmeme, that is “generalized, “pragmatic act,” is apt in analyzing the language use in drama like that of “DKH” since when we co-opt, influence others, and set up people through language we perform “pragmatic acts” (Mey, 2001). Forty (40) utterances in ‘DKH’ were purposively selected for the study, while the simple percentage statistical approach was utilized to analyzeNigerianisms in English usage in the text. Our findings revealed that Nigerianisms in the play are employed in the contexts of language transfer, lexical borrowing, proverbs metaphors, pidgin, symbolism, reference; inference, shared situational knowledge (SSK) and shared cultural knowledge (SCK). Besides, participants in the play employed the different contextual backgrounds to ‘pract’ condemning, warning, exhorting, delaying and educating.
CHAPTER ONE
1.0 INTRODUCTION
1.1 BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY The English language is the most widely spoken language in the world. It is a language used in about 673 countries globally, (Graddol, 1997, cited from Akere, 2009). In Nigerian social and cultural contexts, English has become a language employed in different domains of usage such as education, politics, religion, administration, foreign diplomacy, commerce, science and technology. According to Kachru (1985), users of English around the world can be classified into “norm-producing” inner circle which made up of native speakers of the language; “norm developing” outer circle, made up of second language users of English; and the “norm dependent” expanding circle comprising speakers of English as a foreign language. Since English has come in contact with people of different social and cultural backgrounds, new “hybrids” or variants of the language has ‘sprouted’; such as American, British, Canadian and Nigerian Englishes. Different tongues of the language are employed in countries like South-Africa,
