Ideational representation of prostitution and social meaning in Chika Unigwe’s On Black Sisters’ Street
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Date
2016-01
Authors
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Journal ISSN
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Publisher
University of Zululand
Abstract
Previous studies on Chika Unigwe’s On Black Sisters’ Street (OBSS henceforth) have focused mainly on the thematic
concerns of the text – prostitution, sex trafficking and sex slavery, without paying considerable attention to the role of
language in the projection of the phenomena. This study critically examines ideation as a linguistic tool for inferring or
retrieving the social meanings encoded in the text under study. This study also explores how the resources of language can
be used in establishing social and power relations in discourse encounters and how their manifestation in literary discourse
represents social experiences in real life situations. Working within the tenets of M.A.K. Halliday’s Systemic Functional
Linguistics (SFL), this study engages in the project of using insights from critical discourse analysis (CDA) and
sociolinguistics to ascertain the mental and physical state of the victims of sex slavery, the attitude of their clients, and
that of other powerful social actors that inhabit the creative universe of the text under consideration. The significance of
this study lies in its demonstration of how the writer’s linguistic choices bring about an understanding of the social
experiences and ideology that underlie the text under study
Description
Peer reviewed article published under Inkanyiso journal, Volume 8 Number 2, Jan 2016, p. 108 –116
Keywords
prostitution, sex trafficking, sex slavery, Nigeria, Chika Unigwe
Citation
Kamalu, I. and Ejezie, B.O., 2016. Ideational representation of prostitution and social meaning in Chika Unigwe’s On Black Sisters’ Street. Inkanyiso: Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences, 8(2), pp.108-116.