Thesis and Dissertation for the Department of Linguistics and Nigerian Languages
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Item A STUDY OF THE RE-IMAGING OF WOMANHOOD IN SELECTED CONTEMPORARY YORÙBÁ NOVELS(University Of Ilorin, 2024) OLUYAMỌ, MARGARET OLÚṢỌLÁMost of the earlier Yorùbá novels were replete with themes that projected the subjugation of women and lowered their dignity and rights. Women were portrayed most often, in the image of subservient and inconsequential characters. Only a very few works existed in Yorùbá literature on the positive portraiture of women in literary writing and criticism. However, such feminist novels have not been given adequate and deserved attention by literary critics. This phenomenon provoked feminist rights advocacy in Nigeria from the early 1940s till date. The aim of this study, therefore, was to examine the re-imaging of womanhood in selected contemporary Yorùbá novels. The objectives were to: (i) elucidate the themes relating to the re-imaging of womanhood; (ii) examine the rectitude of the characters that justify a re-imaging of womanhood; (iii) assess the appropriateness of the writers’ views on the re-imaging of womanhood; (iv) analyse authors’ use of language; and (v) evaluate the literary styles of the selected feminist novels. The study adopted a descriptive method and qualitative research design. The population of Yorùbá feminist novels was thirty-two out of whichỌládẹ̀jọ Òkédìjí’s Àárọ̀ Ọlọ́mọge; Folúkẹ́ Adékẹ́yè’s Ọkùnrin!!!, Omijé Ayọ̀ andKò sí Látẹ; Fadékẹ́mi Adágbádá’s Hábà! Ojúọlápé...; and Níkẹ̀ẹ́ Adésànyà’s Ọdún Á Yakọ? were purposively selected for close reading and content analysis. Oral interviews, research reports, journal articles, and textbooks served as the secondary sources. Liberal feminism, a feminist approach that expresses deep concerns for the irreducible rights of women, and their cultural and psychological states was employed as the theoretical framework. The findings of the study were: i. in keeping with the tenets of liberal feminism, the dominant themes in the selected texts, which are women empowerment, gender equality, gender reformation and formal education presented women as dynamic figures; ii. moral rectitudes of hard work, resilience, determination, chastity, and passionate zeal of the female protagonists in the texts depicted a new image of womanhood; iii. the authors of the selected novels are unanimous in their realistic views that women are intelligent humans who contribute meaningfully to societal development; iv. the selected authors’ nuance of language used by the narrators and characters evident in word choice, imagery, and figurative expressions brought out the positive image of women; and v. the contemporary authors’ literary narrative styles like the flashback, dialogue, and stream-of-consciousness techniques were appropriate in projecting the positive re-imaging of womanhood. The study concluded that the efforts of the contemporary Yorùbá feminist authors brought out a re-imaging of womanhood in a way that created pathways to gender equality and social justice in tandem with the tenets of liberal feminism and in keeping withYorùbá culture. The study, therefore, recommended that modern Yorùbá novelists should synergize to uphold a positive re-imaging of womanhood to minimize discrimination in the sphere of educational, political, and social disempowerment of women as advocated by liberal feminists.Item A MULTIMODAL STYLISTIC STUDY OF SELECTED YORUBA TELEVISION ADVERTISEMENTS(UNIVERSITY OF ILORIN, 2018-05) ADESIDA, OLUWAFEMI ADEDARAMultimodal texts, particularly in advertisements, are used extensively in the media industry to convey information through the use of three sign systems; written language, verbal language and visual language, with music and songs. Some scholars considered only the language neglecting pictures and music, while other studies concentrated only on pictures of advertising without attention to the language. However, multimodal study of Yoruba television advertisements has not been accorded extensive considerations. Thus, a multimodal stylistic analysis that will account for all the features of advertisements mentioned above is desirable and necessary. Therefore, the aim of this study was to examine a multimodal stylistic analysis of selected Yoruba television advertisements, with particular reference to GSM. The objectives of the study were to: (i) investigate the registers; (ii) examine the metafunctions; (iii) identify the typography; (iv) determine the layouts; (v) analyse the linguistic features at different levels of grammar; (vi) assess the visual elements; (vii) appraise the audio elements; and (viii) evaluate the interconnectivity amongst the textual, audio and visual elements of Yoruba television advertisements. Different aspects of systemic functional theory as espoused by Kress and van Leeuwen 1996, Cartwright and Sturken 2001, Rose 2001 and Scollon and Scollon 2003 were adopted as the theoretical frameworks. A non-static multimodal text model was designed and used for this study. A qualitative research method was employed to investigate twelve recorded Yoruba television advertisements collected for the study; five from NTA Ilorin, Kwara State and seven from Kwara State Television Station, Ilorin. The findings of the study were that: i. mode in Yoruba television advertisements depicted inequality, informality and multimodality; ii. interpersonal metafunction involvednot only the ways speakers and audiences interact, the language used to establish and maintain the relationship among them, but also the means to influence their behaviours; iii. typographic features such as majuscles, boldfaces, coloured lettering, images and subtitles were systematically placed to help appeal to the audience; iv. images in the advertisements were strategically positioned to pass important information about the products to the audiences; v. adjectives were prevalent in television advertisements; vi. visual features such as mood identify gaze as an attention-grabbing tool for attracting the audience; vii. audio features such as music and verbal expressions invite the audience, and gain their attention; and viii. visual, verbal and textual features systematically co-exist in the advertisements giving the description of the products being advertised. The study concluded that Yoruba television advertisements were designed to inform, enlighten and captivate the audience about the product and its benefits. The visual aspect of TV advertisements offers additional reinforcements to fully connect with the audience’s mind. This is an advantage that television advertisement has over the print and radio advertisements. The study recommended that multimodal stylistics should be applied to other corpora such as book covers, stickers, billboards advertisements and artworks.