Citation: Abubakar BUKAR (2021). A Stylistic Analysis of Okot P’bitek’s ‘My Husband’s Tongue is Bitter’. Yobe Journal of Language, Literature and Culture (YOJOLLAC), Vol. 9, Issue 1. Department of African Languages and Linguistics, Yobe State University, Damaturu, Nigeria. ISSN 2449-0660
A
STYLISTIC ANALYSIS OF OKOT P’BITEK’S ‘MY HUSBAND’S TONGUE IS BITTER’
By
Abubakar
BUKAR
Abstract
This paper is a stylistic analysis of Okot p’Bitek’s poem ‘My
Husband’s Tongue is Bitter’ using Halliday’s model where stylistic study is
based on process types that are found in texts. In this paper, the
clauses in the poem are classified into process types. Then, a stylistic study
of the poem is carried out based on the processes identified and classified.
The study reveals that three of the six process types (verbal, relational and
material) are the most occurring. The verbal process type ‘says’ is the most
used in the poem where a woman called Lawino reports what her husband, Ocol
says about her and her people. The poem is based on series of laments and complaints
by Lawino where she reports the negative things her husband says about her and
her people. Relational process is also used in the poem in order to show the
negative things Ocol used to attribute them to Lawino and her people. Material
process is also found in the clause and it is used by Lawino to show the
purported reasons behind Ocol’s attitude towards her.
1.0 Introduction
This work
is a stylistic analysis of Okot p’Bitek’s poem ‘My Husband’s Tongue is Bitter’.
Many works on stylistic analysis of literary texts have been carried out by
scholars with a view to describing linguistic features that characterize such
texts which is hoped to help readers in understanding and appreciating the
texts. This paper is also on stylistic analysis. The data for the work is Okot
p’Bitek’s poem ‘My Husband’s Tongue is Bitter’. The poem is analysed into
clauses and the clauses are classified into process types. A stylistic analysis
of the poem is then carried out using Halliday’s model of transitivity theory.
The transitivity theory (process and participant) provides a useful linguistic
framework for uncovering the main linguistic features of a literary discourse
and that one of the processes of describing the linguistic traits of a text is
to carry out a stylistic analysis of the text. The theory states that language
is a very complex phenomenon and involves choices from systems, literary artists
manipulate the choices available to them in order to put literary works
together. It is the choices in the use of language, particularly choices of
process types which is the main concern in carrying out a stylistic study in
this research.
1.1
Stylistics
Since
this work is on stylistic analysis, there is the need to briefly explain what
stylistics is all about. Widdowson (1979) defines Stylistics as a field of
general linguistics which is concerned with the study of literary discourse
from a linguistic perspective. For Corder (1974), stylistics seeks to
investigate how the resources of language code are put to use in the production
of actual message. Semimo and Culpeper (2002) sum all these when they say that
stylistics is concerned with the explication of how our understanding of a text
is achieved by examining in detail the linguistic organization of the text.
Aslam et al (2004) point out that the goal of stylistics is not simply to
describe the formal features of a text for its own sake, but to carry out an
interpretation of the text in order to relate literary effects to linguistics.
In view of this, this work carries out a study of the poem ‘My Husband’s Tongue
is Bitter’ from a linguistic-stylistic perspective.
1.2 Okot
p’Bitek and His Works
Okot
p’Bitek was born in Gulu, in Northern Uganda in 1931. His first venture into
literary publication was a poem ‘The Lost Spear’ in which he told the
traditional Acoli tale of ‘the spear, the bead and the bean’. In 1953, he
published a novel, Lak Tar Miyo Lobo, in his native Acoli
language. Okot p’Bitek went to England in 1958 and this offered him the
opportunity of having first-hand knowledge about the culture and ways of life
of his host community. His experience in England and his native Africa culminated
into his publication of the collection of poem ‘Song of Lawino and Song of Ocol
(1966). The collection is divided into two parts. The first part is titled
‘Song of Lawino’ while the second part is titled ‘Song of Ocol’. ‘My Husband’s
Tongue is Bitter’, which is the focus of this work, is the first poem in the
first part. Goodwin (1982:157) points out that the first part of the collection
has thirteen (13) sections. He classifies the sections into four (4) major
areas based on their themes thus:
1. Section 1
is a summary of the insults and arguments Lawino’s husband
(Ocol)
uses against her.
2. Sections 2 to 5 contrast the ways of the
rival, Clementine, with Acoli ways
3. Sections 6 to 12 leave Clementine in order
to concentrate on Ocol’s
other prejudices, all of which are contrasted
with Acoli belief and customs.
4. Section 13 is a final appeal to Ocol.
This
research is on section one of the collection which is titled ‘My Husband’s
Tongue is Bitter’. Apart from the collection of poems ‘Song of Lawino and Song
of Ocol’, p’Bitek also wrote ‘Song of a Prisoner’ in 1971; ‘Africa’s Cultural
Revolution’ which is a collection of essays in 1975; The Horn of my Love, 1974
and collection of tales ‘Hare and Hornbill in 1978. Until his death, p’Bitek
was a professor of Creative Writing at the Makerere University in Uganda.
2.0 Model of Approach
The model
of approach used in this work is the Systemic Functional model as applied by
Halliday in the analysis of William Golding’s The Inheritors.
Halliday applied the theory of process types in order to explicate the
linguistic style of the text. The term process according to Halliday (1976:
159) is used to ‘cover all phenomena…….and anything that can be expressed by
the verb……. through the system of transitivity’. Halliday used the six process
types put forward in Systemic Grammar in the stylistic analysis of The
Inheritors. The six process types are material, mental, verbal, existential,
mental and relational. He carried out a statistical study of the types of
processes that are found in the text and used the most occurring types in
carrying out a stylistic study of the text. Since this research uses Halliday’s
model, the six (6) process types are each explained and exemplified below.
2.0.1 Material process
This is a
process of doing or of action. It expresses the notion that some entity does
something, which may be done to another entity. The participants in material
process are ‘the actor’ ‘the goal’, and ‘the beneficiary’. It should, however,
be noted that not all material processes have ‘the goal’ and ‘the beneficiary’.
Examples are:
1. The man[actor]
painted [material process] the room[goal].
2. Mr.
Musa’s dog[actor] barked [material process].
3. He[actor]
gave [material process] me[beneficiary] the book[goal]
In the
first example above, the clause has two participants, the actor (the man) and
the goal (the room) and the relation between the two is established by the verb
‘painted’ while the second clause has only one participant (Mr. Musa’s dog) and
the process represented by the verb ‘barked’ while the third example has three
participants which are the performer of the action, ‘he’ [the actor], the
recipient ‘me’ [the beneficiary] and the book [the goal]. The process is
realized by the action verb ‘gave’.
2.0.2
Verbal Process
This is
the process of ‘saying’ that is an act that deals with speaking. The verbal
process expresses the relationship between ideas and their construct in human
language and therefore, the verbal process includes any form of exchange of
meaning (Halliday:1994). The participants in the verbal process are ‘the sayer’ (the
person speaking), ‘the goal’ (the person to whom the
verbalisation is addressed), the ‘quoted’ (the representation
of the words actually spoken) and the ‘reported’ (presenting
the words spoken by an entity in another way), that is, indirect speech.
Examples are:
4. The
teacher[sayer] said [verbal process] ‘I want to see you’. [quoted]
5. The
teacher[sayer] said [verbal process] he wants to see you. [reported]
6. The
teacher[sayer] asked [verbal process] her [goal]what she
was doing.
[reported]
Extra information can be added to the
participants in verbal process through the use of adjuncts. The adjunct in this
case is termed ‘circumstance’. This is achieved through the use of the
adverbial and prepositional group. Example:
7. They[sayer]
blamed [verbal process] the candidate[goal]for their
failure.
[circumstance]
2.0.3
Relational process
Relational
process is typically realised by the verb ‘be’ and some verbs of the same class
typically referred to as copular verbs such as ‘become’, ‘see’, ‘appear’. In
the relational process, the central meaning of the clause is that ‘something
is’. For example:
8. Mary[identifier]
is [relational process] an engineer. [identified]
The
participants in relational process can be ‘the carrier’ and ‘the attribute’
where an attribute is ascribed to a person or a thing. An example is:
9. Sasha[carrier]
appears [relational process] beautiful[attribute].
In
example (9), an attribute ‘beautiful’ is ascribed to the carrier of the
attribution ‘Sasha’ and the relational process is established by the copular
verb ‘appears’. In the attributive mood, an attribute is ascribed to some
entity either as a quality and it can also be ascribed as a circumstance of
time, place etc. Example:
10. The
president[carrier] is[relational process] in the Villa[circumstance].
Another
type of participants in the relational process is the ‘identifier’ and
the
‘identified’
where a person or a thing is identified by the use of another
element.
For example:
11. Mary[identifier]
is [relational process] an engineer[identified].
2.0.4
Behavioral process
This is
the process of physiological and psychological behavior like breathing,
smiling, dreaming, coughing, sleeping, laughing and crying. The participants in
this type of clauses are ‘the behaver’ and ‘the circumstantial element’ or the
behaver alone. Examples are:
12. Kellu[behaver]
laughed [behavioral process] at the carpenter[circumstance].
13. Kellu[behaver]
neither laughs nor smiles [behavioral process].
2.0.5 Mental process
This
process differs from material process which expresses concrete, physical
process of doing. The mental process expresses states of the mind or
psychological events such as feelings, thinking and perception. The mental
process clause has two participants; ‘the senser’ (a conscious being who is
involved in the process of thinking, feeling, perceiving) and ‘the phenomenon’
(that which is thought, felt or perceived). Mental process is of three types.
They are:
14. Cognition
e.g. The students [senser] didn’t understand [mental process] the
explanation[phenomenon].
15. Affection
e.g. The villagers [senser] feared [mental process] the bandits.
[phenomenon]
16. Perception
e.g. We [senser] heard [mental process]a loud explosion.
[phenomenon]
2.0.6 Existential process
This
process portrays the meaning that ‘something exists’. Here, the participants
are ‘the existing’ and ‘the existent’ and ‘the circumstantial element’. For
example:
17. There[existing]
is [existential process] a teacher [existent ] in the class
[circumstance]
The
Systemic Functional Approach to textual analysis, therefore, describes the
functions of language by identifying the processes in clauses thereby
expressing experiences or happenings in the text. Halliday used this model of
grammar in his stylistic analysis of the inheritors and Halliday’s model is
used in this work in order to explicate the style of the text under study
3.0 Methodology
The data for this work is Okot p’Bitek’s poem, ‘My Husband’s
Tongue is Bitter’. The poem is analysed into clauses and classified in to
process types using the six (6) process types outlined by Halliday. A
statistical table is drawn to show the number and percentage of occurrence of
each process type. This statistical information is then used in order to
explain the style of the poem using Halliday’s (1971) model of stylistic
analysis.
4.0 Data Presentation
This
section presents data on the frequency and percentage of occurrence of each of
the process types that is used in the poem under study. Halliday (1971) asserts
that a rough indication of frequencies is what is needed and is enough to
suggest why we should accept the analyst’s assertion that some feature is
prominent in a text, and allow the reader to check this assertion. He points
out that without quantitative confirmation, statements on style lack the
support of concrete evidence and so statistical analysis is essential and
important tool in stylistic description. The statistical information generated
on the frequency and percentage of occurrence of the process types used in the
poem under study is presented in the statistical table below and this is used
in carrying out a stylistic study of the poem.
Table:
Process types in ‘My Husband’s Tongue is Bitter’.
|
Process Types |
Frequency of
Occurrence |
Percentage of
Occurrence |
|
Material Process |
19 |
22% |
|
Relational process |
30 |
34% |
|
Behavioral process |
5 |
6% |
|
Verbal process |
27 |
31% |
|
Mental process |
6 |
6% |
|
Existential process |
1 |
1% |
|
Total |
88 |
100% |
The
analysis of the text into clauses reveals that there are eighty-eight (88)
clauses. The classification of the clauses into process types shows
that three of the process types are the most used in the text with the relational
process clause having the highest frequency of thirty (30) and the
proposition of this process to the total ranking of the process types is
thirty-four (34) percent. The verbal process clause follows
with a frequency of twenty-seven (27), representing thirty-one (31)
percent. Material process clause is the next with a frequency
of nineteen (19), which stands at twenty-two (22) percent. The other three
process types are behavioral which occurred five (5) times, mental one (6) and
existential process occurred only ones.
5.0 Discussion of Results
The
analysis of the poem shows that all the six process types are used in the poem.
However, three of the processes, ‘relational’, ‘verbal’ and ‘material’ are the
most occurring in the poem.
5.0.1 Verbal Process
The poem
is built up on a series of laments and complaints by
a woman called Lawino who accuses her husband of saying terrible things against
her and her people. The result of this is that verbs that have to do with
speaking (verbal process) occur in numerous places in the poem. The most
occurring verb in the clauses that use verbal process is ‘say’,
that is, one entity saying something against another. Apart from the verbal
process ‘say’, other verbal processes used in the poem are ‘despise’, ‘pours’
‘compares’, and ‘abuses’. Even though it is a husband (Ocol) that says
something against his wife (Lawino) and her people, the message is not directly
relayed by Ocol himself, but we get them through reports by the wife. She is
the one who reports what her husband says against her and her people. This is
why in many places the actors in the verbal processes are the
second person personal pronoun ‘you’ and the first person
personal pronoun ‘he’ and a referent ‘my
husband’, all referring to Ocol who is the sayer. The
messages relayed by Ocol are got through Lawino’s reports. For
example:
18. He[sayer]
says [verbal process] I am rubbish. [reported]
19. He[sayer]
says [verbal process] I am primitive. [reported]
20. He[sayer]
says [verbal process] my eyes are dead. [reported]
21. He[sayer]
says [verbal process] my ears are blocked. [reported]
22. He[sayer]
says [verbal process] my mother is a witch. [reported]
In
examples 18- 22 above, the sayer of the message is Ocol, Lawino’s husband
(represented by the third person personal pronoun ‘he’). Lawino,
the wife accuses the husband of saying terrible things against her and her
mother. The terrible things which includes ‘rubbish’, ‘primitive’, ‘dead eyes’,
‘blocked ears’, ‘witch’, and ‘kafirs’ are purportedly said by the husband.
However, the message is not got directly from the husband but through
complaints or reports from Lawino, the wife. The verbal process used in making
the report in these examples are ‘says’. Through the use of the
participant (sayer) and the process (verbal) and the message reported by
Lawino, P’Bitek relays his message to the reader which is ‘how traditional
African women are abused, scorned at and maltreated by their educated
husbands’.
5.0.2 Relational Process
A second
type of process, relational process, is also used in the poem in many places.
Relational process is typically represented by linking verbs. They are used in
attributing character to a person or a thing or liken something to a person or
a thing. This process type is used in the poem under study when Ocol describes
his wife and her people using negative attributes. p’Bitek uses relational
process as illustrated below to show Ocol’s disgust for Lawino, his Wife and
black people and their culture.
23. Black
people[carrier] are [relational process] primitive. [attribute]
24. And [+]
their ways[carrier] are [relational process] utterly harmful. [attribute]
25. They[carrier]
are [relational process] ignorant, poor and diseased. [attribute]
26. Their
dances[identifier] are [relational process] mortal sins. [identified]
All the
examples above show how p’Bitek uses relational process in order to put forward
his message to the reader. In the examples, the participants ‘black
people’, ‘their ways’, ‘they’, and ‘their dances’ show
the actual targets of Ocol’s attack, that is, the black race and his culture.
Here, we see that Ocol is not comfortable or does not identify with the ways of
life of his people and likens their ways to negative attributes. The relation
of the participants to the attributes is achieved through the use of the
relational process verb ‘are’. On the other hand, while the writer
uses relational process types to show how Ocol portrays his people and culture
negatively, he also uses the same relational process types to show the
character of Lawino as gentlemanly. She, instead of using the same
confrontational behavior of Ocol, tries to cuddle him to be careful and stop
the abuses and his unbecoming ways. She uses positive language to persuade her
husband when she says:
27. You[identifier]
are [relational process] a man. [identified]
28. You[identifier]
are not [relational process] a dead fruit. [identified]
29. You[identifier]
are [relational process] a son of a chief. [identified]
However,
while facifying the husband, Lawino sometimes become angry due to the husband’s
use of negative language against her and her people. She then turns round and
describes her husband. The writer uses the same relational process in putting
forward this message. This can be seen in the examples below.
30. My
husband’s tongue[carrier] is [relational process] bitter like the
roots of the iyono lily. [attribute]
31. It[carrier]
is [relational process] hot like the pennies of the bee. [attribute]
32. Ocol’s
tongue[carrier] is [relational process] fierce like the arrow of
the scorpion. [attribute]
33. It[carrier]
is [relational process] ferocious like the poison of a barren woman. [attribute]
The relational process represented by the verb
‘is’ is used by the writer to relate Lawino’s description of Ocol. She likens
Ocol’s tongue to ‘bitterness’, ‘ferocity’, ‘poison’ and ‘barrenness’ which are
all negative characterization.
5.0.3 Material Process
This type
of process is also used frequently in the poem. Material process is used in the
poem while showing the reasons behind Lawino’s claim of her husband’s behavior
towards her. This is exemplified in the following clauses:
34. He[actor] no longer wants [material
process] me. [goal]
35. Because I[actor] cannot play [material
process] the guitar. [goal]
36. And (i)[actor] cannot read. [material
process]
37. I[actor] cannot count [material
process] the coins. [goal]
38. And (i)[actor] have not been
baptized. [material process]
The
processes in examples 35-39(no longer wants, cannot play, cannot read, cannot
count and have not been baptised) are all material processes. Example 35 is
Lawino telling the listener that her husband does not want her. In the ensuing
examples, Lawino advances the reasons behind this. Lawino then replies her
husband and advises him to desist from his unbecoming behavior towards her and
her people.
39. My friend, age-mate of my brother[actor]
take [material process]
care. [circumstance]
40. Leave [material process] foolish
behavior[goal] to little children. [circumstance]
41. Stop [material process] treating me
like salt-less ash. [goal]
42. Take [material process] care [goal]
of your tongue [circumstanace]
In
examples 39-42, the material process types are used. The writer uses them when
Lawino calls on her husband to stop his ‘silly behavior’ towards her.
6.0 Conclusion
In ‘My
Husband’s Tongue is Bitter’, three process types: ‘relational’, ‘verbal’, and
‘material’ are most commonly used by Okot p’Bitek in relaying the message of
the poem to the reader. These process types are used in encoding the message of
the poem which is husband showing his displeasure with his wife and her people
by describing them using negative attributes while the wife tries to convince
her husband to desist from his bad attitude towards her and her people. Three
of the other processes (mental, psychological and existential) are used less
frequently in the poem and do not contribute to relaying the message of the
text.
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