Oral Performance and Pidgin Stylization in Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart and No Longer at Ease

Through qualitative analysis - informed by the theoretical frame and methodology of the third wave of sociolinguistics - this essay examines the use of oral culture as a sociolinguistic resource in Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart and No Longer at Ease. I conceptualize colonial discourseas a form of linguistic violence and domination, which constructs the colonized as the Other; consequently, I focus on the effects of colonial discourse on the language use and identity construction of colonized characters. Next, I extend Nikolas Coupland's model of 'dialect stylistics' to pidgin stylization and performance in No Longer at Ease. I show how, in stylized performance, speakers can lay claim to localities by amplifying and disrupting the relationship between social meanings and regionally- or socially-indexed linguistic forms and varieties.