Cite this article as: Yunusa, H. M. (2026). A pedagogical stylistic reading of graphological foregrounding in “Oriki of an Axe” and “Another Parable, Apata, the Rock.”Sokoto Journal of Linguistics and Communication Studies (SOJOLICS), 2(2), 373-382. https://doi.org/10.36349/sojolics.2026.v02i02.034
By
Habeebullahi Muhammed
Yunusa
Department of English
Kwara State University,
Malete, Nigeria
habeebullahi.yunusa@kwasu.edu.ng, habeebullahiyunusa@gmail.com
+2348102260487
Abstract
Stylistics is a bridge
between linguistics and literary criticism, in that it argues that
interpretation should be based on textual evidence. Graphological patterning,
which is usually dismissed as a visual decoration, is a potent site of
deliberate deviation through manipulating punctuation, capitalization, and
typography. The paper discusses "Oriki of an axe" and "Another
parable, apata, the rock", two grapho-foregrounded poems from
Oloruntoba-Oju's Losses, to establish how visual disruption can be used as a
means of satire and socio-political commentary. The poems were purposively
selected because of their prominent use of unconventional punctuation,
capitalisation, spacing and typography, as well as their complementary
treatment of government (military) coercion and civic apathy in Nigeria.
Adopting Jaafar and Hassoon's (2018) three-level model of pedagogical stylistic
analysis, the study investigates the poems at the formal, intertextual, and
socio-cultural levels. Analysis suggests that graphological deviations are
found to be systematically related to thematic issues. The use of fragmented
indentation and unusual capitalization were further revealed as some of the
features that enhance satire and reader interpretation in the context of
Nigerian military history. The study concludes that pedagogical stylistics is
still sine qua non in the development of critical literacy and a text-sensitive
approach to literary experience.
Keywords: Pedagogical stylistics, foregrounding, deviation, graphology,
Nigeria
1 Introduction
As an interface science
between linguistics and literary criticism, stylistics has always maintained
that interpretation should be based on textual evidence, not on impressionistic
response. Since the early formalist focus on literariness, and more recently in
pedagogical practice, the discipline has attempted to show how literary effect
is motivated by linguistic form (Wales, 2001; Burke, 2023). Graphological
patterning, though occasionally dismissed as a simple visual decoration, can
function as a site of perceived stylistic deviation through the manipulation of
punctuation, capitalisation, spacing, typography and orthography (Crystal,
1987; Taiwo & Bamigboye, 2023).
While previous studies
have examined graphological deviation in Nigerian poetry, most of the existing
studies have given insufficient attention to the pedagogical value of
graphological analysis, especially using Oloruntoba-Oju's “Oriki of an Axe” and
“Another Parable, Apata, the Rock" as textual data. The direction of the
analysis is important because pedagogical stylistics is not only about teaching
stylistics as a subject, but about using stylistic analysis as a tool of
enriching literary experience (Hall, 2023). The poems deserve investigation
because they offer complementary representations of government (military)
coercion and civic apathy in Nigeria. The study seeks to contribute new
knowledge by providing the first sustained comparative graphostylistic reading
of the selected poems while demonstrating how the visual poetic form can be
taught as an interpretative resource. Rather than claiming access to the poet's
intentions, it treats proposed meanings as contextually plausible readings that
remain open to alternative interpretations.
2 Literature Review
Studies of African and
Nigerian literature generally agree that graphological patterning performs
semantic, pragmatic, emotional, and political functions. Research on Niyi
Osundare shows how lexical fragmentation, spacing, lower-case openings,
capitalisation, and omitted punctuation can imitate stammering, social
disorder, and military repression (Dick, 2018; Modu & Rufai, 2022). Fasasi
(2011) similarly interprets fragmented words, displaced lines, and
unconventional capitalisation in “The Nigerian Railway” as visual
representations of institutional decay. Ayeomoni's (2012) study of Remi Raji
demonstrates that punctuation, capitalisation, hyphenation, and spacing
foreground political oppression, injustice, and resistance. These studies
establish graphological disruption as an important resource for Nigerian
socio-political poetry.
Furthermore, Nkopuruk
(2026) categorises graphological devices in Joe Ushie's poetry into five levels
(his typology) and reads them as “visualisation of the images of the words” and
as a “glorification of the poet’s motherland” while Ufot and Uduak (2025)
analyse lower-case writing, acrostics, and unconventional punctuation in
Gbogi's poetry. Ibrahim (2014) avers that Segun Adekoya connects lower-case
letters and fragmented words with stunted development and stammering, while
Adegbenro (2023) demonstrates that graphological analysis also applies to prose
fiction through mixed narrative forms, italicisation, capitalisation, and
versification. Across these studies, visible form is treated not as decoration
but as a means of political protest, social criticism, emotional
intensification, and ideological emphasis.
Pedagogical stylistics
connects linguistic description with the development of interpretative
competence. Emerging from Widdowson's (1975) work followed by Carter, Short and
others in the 1980s, it differs from the pedagogy of stylistics: the former
uses stylistic methods to improve reading, whereas the latter teaches
stylistics itself (Hall, 2023). Jaafar and Hassoon's (2018) study of Iraqi
undergraduates indicates that explicit stylistic instruction can pedagogically
improve attention to poetic language and classroom engagement. Linake (2026)
likewise argues that attention to linguistic patterning makes meaning-making
processes visible to learners. As discernable from the literature synthesis, no
study has analysed the graphological features in the two poems of
Oloruntoba-Oju from a pedagogical stylistic perspective.
3 Methodology
Following Crystal’s
(1987) assertion that stylistic inquiry can be productively narrowed to isolate
striking departures from language norms, this qualitative descriptive study
examines graphological deviation as conceptualised by Ayeomoni (2012, p. 103),
who defines it as the deliberate breaking of typographic rules resulting
in the non-usage or unconventional usage of punctuation marks, capitalization,
italicization, spacing, or the violation of established orthographic norms and
the deployment of emblematic visual features (p. 103). Purposive sampling was
adopted to select “Oriki of an Axe” and “Another Parable, Apata, the Rock”
because of their typographic manipulation, spatial dislocation, non-standard
punctuation, and contrasting representations of military coercion and civic apathy.
Both poems appeared in Oloruntoba-Oju’s (1993) Losses, published by
Academia Publications in 1993.
4 Theoretical Framework
The analysis is anchored
on Jaafar and Hassoon's (2018, p. 257) three-level model of pedagogical
stylistic analysis. They submitted that, in a pedagogical stylistic analysis,
students are taught to analyse the text at three levels:
Level 1: The first level
is concerned with analyzing the formal properties of the text which include
analyzing graphology, phonology, vocabulary and the syntax of phrases and
clauses. However, we shall only account for graphological properties in the two
poems.
Level 2: At the second
level, stylistics concentrates on the text contact between a text and other
texts (intertextuality) as well as the readers’ disposition to the text.
Students are taught that meaning is not stable; it depends mainly on how the
text is interpreted by the reader.
Level 3: At the third
level, stylistics concerns itself with the socio-cultural context within which
reading and writing take place. Contextual factors such as the cultural
background of the reader and the situation in which a text is read must be
taken into consideration when analyzing a text.
5 Data Presentation and Analysis
5.1 Poem 1: Oriki of an
axe
5.1.1 Poem Synopsis
Written in six stanzas
made up of twenty-six lines, the poem is a satire on the military government.
While addressing the machinery of state, which is symbolised by "axe"
in the poem, the poet critiques the atrocities committed by the military government
under the pretext of lauding it by rendering its oriki (panegyric/eulogy).
The havoc wreaked by the
symbolic axe in the hands of the military, according to the poet, manifests as
laying both of the lives of "the upright" and
"of/Endeavour" and "Life-long effort""To waste".
Additionally, the destruction potential of the axe of the state spares neither
the forest and market settings nor the poor nor the media. The pandemic and
pervasive destruction of the military is such that everyone is apprehensive and
ignorant of who will be the next victim or "at what next will the axe
chop" since the gluttonous axe "at no edifice will stop". The
axe however replies that its wielder, the government, deserves all the praises
and hailings.
5.1.2 Poem Analysis
5.1.2.1 Level 1
Structure
The structure of the
poem is disjointed with the last two lines of stanza one and the whole of the
last stanza indented more inwards than the stanzas. The layout may be
interpreted as resembling haphazard chop marks of an axe.
Punctuation
Ellipsis: There are
three instances of the use elliptical dots in the poem. While the first two
occur in the first and second lines of the second stanza, the third occurs in
the third line of the fifth stanza. The use of the ellipses in the lines of the
second stanza "I know your oriki ... Canceller of/Endeavour ... Layer
of/Life-long effort - To waste!" is indicative of the psycho-emotional
pressure the poet persona undergoes to select the foremost two epithets out of
the many that the axe has. However, the second use of ellipsis in the fifth
stanza "Nor swamp dwellers nor seasoned tabloids ..."could indicate
the remaining listless affected of the havoc of the machinery of the military
government.
Question Mark:
The opening question
"Who does not know the collocates/Of an axe" is not ended with a
question mark. This may point to the fact that, being a rhetorical question
predicated on shared knowledge, the question is a punchier assertion affirming
the communal knowledge about the atrocities of the military.
Hyphen
In the third stanza the
first and second lines read "Your hate is legen-/Dary". A plausible
meaning of splitting the word "legendary" into the psuedo-morphomes
"legen-" and "Dary"could be thatit is so done to phono-foreground
the resemblance of "Dary" to the adjective "daring", which
is a leitmotif in among the military.
Capitalisation
The last word in the
third stanza is rendered in uppercase as STRIKING. This calls attention to the
word in the context of the stanza. The last two lines in the stanza reads
"Your love of the upright is/STRIKING"; what seems foregrounded may
be the ironical nature of the purported nature which results not in the sense
of "striking impression" but "striking down", meaning to
kill and hence made to die suddenly.
Italicisation
The word oriki is
italicised in the poem to foreground its non-Englishness since it is a
borrowing from Yoruba that means eulogy or panegyric. Also, the word
"axeon" is italicised to foreground its being a phonological
respelling of the word "action".
Spelling
The word action is
respelled as "axeon" in the poem to defamaliarise the popular
referent of the phase "action man" in the history of Nigeria. As it
is rendered as "axeon man", the specificity of the referent has been
made unclear.
Bold
The line
"Rejoinder: the axe replies" is cast in bold. This is used to signal
a change in not only the point of view but also an avenue for the symbolic axe
to state its case by presenting its own side of the story.
5.1.2.2 Level 2
A case of
intertextuality (interpretative association) can be made between the poem and
the anonymous nursery rhyme "If all the seas were one sea". The poem
is reproduced below
If all the seas were one
sea,
What a great sea that
would be!
And if all the trees
were one tree,
What a great tree that
would be!
And if all the axes were
one axe,
What a great axe that
would be!
And if all the men were
one man,
What a great man he
would be!
And if the great man
took the great axe,
And cut down the great
tree,
And let it fall into the
great sea,
What a great splash that
would be!
The point of contact
between this poem and the one under study is the part where "the great man
took the great axe/And cut down the great tree". The destructive magnitude
of a misguided machinery in the hands of a bad government is thus established
by the concluding line "What a great splash that would be!"; however,
it is the metaphoric splash, which is phonaestasiacally destructive, that we
are concerned about.
5.1.2.3 Level 3
The socio-cultural
context of the poem is that of Nigeria under military government. The pervasive
highhandedness of the military and its persuasive atrocities are represented in
the poem. An important point to note is the referent of the "axeon man"
specifically referred to in the poem.A familiarity with the historical context
of Nigeria reveals the identity of the "action man":since the poet
says the referent was a Governor, the most likely person should be Raji Rasaki,
an former military governor whose regime in Lagos State earned him the nickname
“acsion governor/man”.
5.2 Poem 2: Another
parable, apata, the rock
5.2.1 Poem Synopsis
Written in nine stanzas
made up of thirty-five lines, the poem is a satire on the apathy of the masses.
While appearing to be talking about the rock, the poet criticises the masses
who, just like the rock, are "Unmoving ... Unyielding/Senseless!",
and meet everything dished out to them, whether "Rain and heat, frost or
snow" or "Bullet, hunger, decree, travesty", "with the same
apathy". The poet is so angry that he is not contented with the lashing of
"Senseless""masses of little use"; s/he therefore contemplates
inciting them to action by literarilly poking them.
5.2.2 Poem Analysis
5.2.2.1 Level 1
Structure
The structure has
irregular stanza indentation and lineation. This could be indicative, on the
one hand, of the apathy which the poet tries to capture as well as the
senseless structure and nature of traditional masses on the other hand.
Punctuation
Ellipsis: There are three instances of the use of elliptical dots in the
poem. The first one is in the last line of the first stanza. In the first
stanza, the ellipsis in "Is it to apply old accolades/Or apportion/New
blames ...?" may create an impression of hesitation or uncertainty in
choosing which of the alternatives to use. The other three instances of the use
of ellipsis in the poem are in the fourth stanza: "Apata, the rock
.../Molten mass metamorphosed/Congealed ... Rooted/Sitting ... Still/Held ...
Transfixed/Unmoving ... Unyielding/Senseless!". The stanza concatenates
connected attributes of the rock which are being mapped unto the apathetic
masses. The ellipses used may indicate the disjointed thoughts of the poet
persona which s/he tries to mesh into a coherent diatribe.
Italicisation
In the penultimate line
of the poem, the word “masses: is italicised to give the line "Congealed
masses of little use". This is indicative of the double meaning potential
of the word. Although the poet persona seems to be initially refering to "Molten
mass", s/he unveils the human nature of the intended referent by the
italicising the plural form "masses".
Bold
In the third line of the
third stanza, rendering the negation in the line "Upon no rock/Shall I
trust"may indicate that the rock being referred to is not actually a rock,
but a metaphoric rock.
5.2.2.2 Level 2
The intertextual
knowledge of geography is needed to understand the semantic relationship
between the word rock and the expression "Molten mass metamorphosed".
Molten mass refers to lava which when erupted from volcanoes, forms rocks.
Metamorphic rocks are a type of rock.
An intertextual reading
(interpretative association) of the seventh stanza yields a Biblical or Quranic
allusion to Moses or Musa as represented in the Bible and Qur'an respectively.
Moses/Musa was a prophet known to have a staff and also known for his angry
temperament; he was the prophet sent to lead the Israelites out of the
wilderness into the Promised Land. Therefore, it can be said that the poet
persona is tempted to be a Moses/Musa and incite the apathetic masses to real
action.
5.2.2.3 Level 3
The socio-cultural
context of the poem is that of Nigeria where the poor are not only
"suffering and smiling" but are also apathetic in active politics.
The poet persona therefore takes it upon himself/herself to lash the apathetic
masses, make them realise that the real power belongs to them and ultimately
make them realise their role in changing their present pitiable socio-economic
lot for the better.
6 Discussion of Findings
The findings indicate
that graphological deviation foregrounds satire and socio-political criticism
in both poems. At Level 1, the irregular indentation and fragmented structure
of “Oriki of an Axe” may visually evoke the disorder and violence associated
with the axe. This relationship between form and subject supports the formalist
view that patterned deviation disrupts perception (Khosravishakib, 2012). The
division of “legen-/Dary” may suggest “daring” and militaristic bravado,
although other interpretations remain possible. Similarly, the missing question
mark after the rhetorical question may transform interrogation into assertion,
while the capitalised “STRIKING” permits meanings related to admiration and
violence, exposing the ambiguity of political rhetoric.
In “Another Parable,
Apata, the Rock,” repeated ellipses create pauses that may reinforce
impressions of inertia, hesitation, and grievance. However, their frequency
could reduce their foregrounding effect. The italicised “masses” appears to
shift the geological image towards a socio-political reference, directing
attention to civic passivity. Such typographic signalling demonstrates how
written resources contribute to meaning-making (Crystal, 1970), although its
explicitness may restrict readers’ interpretative freedom.
At Level 2, the
nursery-rhyme resonance in “Oriki of an Axe” juxtaposes childish rhythm with
destructive consequences, creating irony. This connection is best understood as
an interpretative association rather than direct influence. Likewise, the
Moses/Musa reading in the second poem offers a plausible association with
prophetic resistance, but cannot be established conclusively.
At Level 3, both poems
may be situated within Nigeria’s experiences of military dictatorship and civic
apathy. The expression “axeon man” may recall Raji Rasaki, although reducing
the image to a single historical figure would limit its symbolic possibilities.
Axes and rocks can represent force and immobility across contexts.
In both texts, the
results indicate that graphological deviation fulfills three functions that are
interrelated, namely, intensification of satire, direction of readerly
interpretation, and expression of socio-political critique. The deviations do
not seem arbitrary or purely ornamental: they are involved in the construction
of meaning at semantic and pragmatic levels. Nevertheless, possible limitations
are also identified in the analysis. Graphological indicators may pose a danger
of over-determining interpretation, reducing instead of increasing
interpretative possibility. The pedagogical issue, therefore, is to make
students justify claims with textual evidence and at the same time be mindful
of other alternative readings.
7 Conclusion
This paper aimed to
investigate the role of graphological deviation in two satirical poems that
were analysed using a pedagogical stylistic approach. The analysis suggests
that the foregrounded visual features (indentation, ellipsis, capitalisation,
respelling, italicisation and bolding) are closely associated with thematic
concerns. Graphology, in both poems, is not the typographic ornament, but a
form of violence, inertia, irony and protest.
Meanwhile, critical
evaluation shows that deviation should be viewed with methodological caution.
Although the cultural background of Nigeria in terms of socio-political history
can help in the interpretation, symbolic resonance transcends any particular
historical referent. This tension is the pedagogical worth of the analysis:
students are encouraged to base interpretation on textual evidence while
challenging assumptions and interrogating competing readings.
Finally, the paper
confirms that a disciplined and contextually sensitive stylistic inquiry can be
used to shed light on the interrelationships between form and meaning. The
example of graphological foregrounding in the chosen poems shows how visual
disruption can be turned into an instrument of socio-political commentary,
which supports the importance of pedagogical stylistics in the development of a
critical and text-sensitive reader.
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