What role does language play in African American and literature - Essay Example

Full The Role of Language in African and American Literature Language is an essential expression used in human interactions making people able to understand each other through the expression of their thoughts through words, actions or other means of communication like arts. As language comes in many forms, it is then important to understand them as expressed in different forms as the language in word from itself comes in various sorts. American and African Literature used different languages as the two races are represented by different groups of people with different languages.

Knowledge of the language used in literature is very important because it helps a poet, writer, storyteller or novelist in expressing his thoughts. For Ken Saro-Wiwa, an African writer who spoke three African languages became literate with the English language as he was encouraged to use it in the schools he attended as a required language or as the need required because students with different languages found English as their common denominator that allowed them to understand each other. Another kind of language which is greatly used in literature is figures of speech like metaphor and simile among others.

Figurative language is widely used in literature to express thoughts in another form other than directly saying things using words that seem to dictate what readers or listeners should picture, limiting their understanding. Instead, figurative language is used to express hidden meanings that could be interpreted by readers and relate them to their experiences with the use of meanings of words and symbolisms used in the literature. For instance, Robert Frost in his poem A Patch of Old Snow, expressed in the first paragraph, “Theres a patch of old snow in a corner that I should have guessed was a blow-away paper the rain had brought to rest” may be descriptive and narrative in form, bringing a picture of the circumstance in one’s mind.

On the other hand, the reader when analyzing it, would come to question how the poet could have not noticed the paper thus may concluded that the speaker was unobservant enough not to have noticed that the snow he supposed to have seen is but a piece of paper. Thus, this kind of language is important not only in American and African literature but in other literatures as well. Willie Lynch’s expressions of the language in The Making of a Slave, used in the modern age in a civilized world’s perception are not applicable, that is, in its literal sense.

With the speaker’s suggestion that a slave owner should use force, fear, pain and violence to speak to the slaves what he wants them to do, it is not an acceptable opinion nor is it workable these days because it s considered barbaric, an action of an uneducated man. However, there are truths in his arguments that prove to be true like the statement, “The more a foreigner knows about the language of another country the more he is able to move through all levels of that society”. As mentioned earlier, the use of the English language of the African Writer Saso-Wiwa made him able to communicate his thoughts with the use of the language as he wanted his opinions to be heard nor only by his own people but by others as well.

Referencesn.a. Rober Frost. internal.org Poets. n.d. Web. October 12, 2011. .Saso-Wiwa, Ken. The Language of African Literature: A Writer’s Testimony. Research in African Literatures, Vol. 23, No. 1, The Language Question. 1992. Web. October 12, 2011. .The Final Call. Willie Lynch letter: The Making of a Slave. Perspectives. 2009. Web. October 12, 2011. .