Linguistics structure and meaning in literary discourse - Essay Example

21 September 2008 Linguistics - Structure and Meaning in Literary Dis In literary dis structure and meaning are interrelated. The next selected fro analysis is the first chapter from Things Fall Apart by Achebe. This chapter represents a unique combination of Western fiction features and colonial literature influences. With the emergence of a vast body of postcolonial literature, many issues have surfaced: questions of the role of tradition, the nature of the new literary discourses, and the relationship of the postcolonial era to colonialism and neocolonialism, among others.

The main terms used in the analysis are literary discourse, structure and cultural environment. The main sub issues involved in each point are gender relations and colonialism as a part of meaning in literary discourse. The structure of the chapter, dialogues and short remarks represents a unique meaning of the text, its linguistic peculiarities and cross cultural significance. Thesis The chapter reflects phonological, syntactic, morphological and semantic uniqueness of the text and its meaning.

The chapter under analysis reflects complex syntax as a marker of literary discourse. The stereotypical hierarchy of superior western literature/inferior postcolonial literature dominates most literary study and it is clear that the establishment of Afrocentric criteria poses an important challenge to the traditional patterns. On this view, generalizations about syntactic structure are statable independently of considerations about interpretation or use. Meanings are composed of semantic primitives, e.g. concepts like 'banana' and 'eat', that are members of particular conceptual categories like Thing and Action.

Moreover there are correspondence rules that map representations at one level into representations at another. Syntactic structures are explicit, more or less well understood, and relatively easy to specify and manipulate. It is possible to state generalizations, both true and false ones, in terms of the properties of the syntactic representation. If the phenomenon is properly syntactic, totally or in part, Syntacticization will turn out to have been the correct move. Achebe focuses on the debilitating consequences of colonialism in the traditional African society with the sacrosanct male protagonists at the center of that society (Halasz 82).

Since the woman's voice is, as it were, muted and the man's accented, many a feminist reader, nettled by such gross marginalization of the female gender, has relentlessly flayed Achebe's masculinist bigotry. Indeed, things fall apart because women have not been recognized as a potential dynamic force. Where the correct generalizations cannot in fact be captured in terms of the categories available to us in our syntactic descriptions, the mismatches will become clear over time, and the proper formulation at the proper level of representation will be (ideally) more perspicuous.

It is important to note that my personal interpretation helps me to analyze historical and cultural issues, language perceptions (colloquial language and dialogues) and interpret the next. the Uniformity approach is restricted to morphological differences on the order of inflectional variation (e.g. declension and conjugation), not derivational morphology (Johansen 77). In sum, the connection of structure and unique language means such as colloquial words and dialogues, creates a unique discourse of the text and underlines its literary significance.

A major goal of the imperialist figures is to reap the spoils of the undeveloped world. Ultimately, in both cases, the would-be king brings ruin upon himself through overconfidence in his powersWorks CitedAchebe, Ch. Things Fall Apart. Anchor; Reprint edition, 1994. Halasz, L. Literary Discourse: Aspects of Cognitive and Social Psychological Approaches. Walter de Gruyter & Co., 1985. Johansen, J.D. Literary Discourse: A Semiotic-Pragmatic Approach to Literature. University of Toronto Press, 2002.