INTERTEXTUALITY AND CONTEXT A FUNCTIONAL LINGUISTIC STUDY OF BIYI BANDELE’S THE MAN WHO CAME IN FROM THE BACK OF BEYOND AND BURMA BOY
ABSTRACT
This dissertation entitled, Intertextuality and Context: A Functional Linguistic Study of Biyi Bandele‟s The Man Who Came In From The Back Of Beyond and Burma Boy conceptualises the levels of intertextual influx of the two novels via multi-leveled layers of context. It buttresses the linguistic review rather than the literary and examines how at least one text depends upon the postures of the other text. The study examines the manner in which two texts of intra-authorial and intra-generic work exhibit certain levels of intertextuality. In order to achieve textual tightness, the work uses a blend of Halliday‟s (2004) Systemic Functional Grammar-SFG through scale and category theory and Halliday and Hasan‟s (1976) Cohesion as the theoretical frame of analysis. It also embodies Firbas (1992) analytical model to stimulate theme/rheme structuration and their possible prominence. Owing to the analytical approach, and using text-linguistics levels of context, the outcome show that both texts possess textual relations. The findings also demonstrate that, two texts written by an author under the realm of a distinct genre-class retain the inclination of text-context-author-language convergence and intertextual relevance. Thus, by text-craft and artful tradition, text is opened to encapsulate citations, presuppositions, rhetoric, discourse and stylistic loads of another text principally of the same artistic entity.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Title Page i
Declaration ii
Certification iii
Dedication iv
Acknowledgements v
Abstract viii
Table of Contents ix
List of Tables xii
List of Figures xiii
CHAPTER ONE: GENERAL INTRODUCTION
1.0 Preamble 1
1.1 Background to the Study 1
1.2 Biographical Account of Biyi Bandele Thomas 7
1.3 Statement of the Problem 8
1.4 Research Questions 10
1.5 Aim and Objectives of the Study 11
1.6 Significance of the Study 11
1.7 Scope and Delimitation of the Study 12
CHAPTER TWO: REVIEW OF RELETED LITERATURE
2.0 Introduction 13
2.1 Text, Texture and Textuality 13
2.1.1 Creating texture 16
2.2 Textual Analysis 19
2.3 Intertextuality 24
2.3.1 Refining the Situational Contextual Analysis of Intertextuality and Genre Analysis 28
2.4 Text and Authorial Intention 29
2.5 Context 30
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2.5.1 Context as Multileveled 31
2.5.1.1 Ideational Knowledge 34
2.5.1.2 Interpersonal Knowledge 34
2.5.1.3 Textual Knowledge 34
2.6 Representation of Meaning between Scope and Focus 37
2.6.1 Marked Theme 40
2.6.2 Marked Theme 40
2.7 Review of Some Linguistic and Language Theories 41
2.7.1 Traditional Grammar 42
2.7.2 Generative Grammar 43
2.7.3 Transformational Generative Grammar and Structuralism 44
2.7.4 Formal and Functional Grammar 45
2.7.5 Speech Act Theory 46
2.8 Pragmatic, Discourse and Text Linguistics 48
2.9 Review of Previous Studies 49
2.10 Theoretical Framework 50
2.10.1 Theme and Rheme 53
2.10.2 Cohesion 54
CHAPTER THREE: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
3.0 Introduction 56
3.1 Sources of Data 56
3.2 Method of Data Collection 56
3.3 Procedures for Data Analysis 57
3.4 Procedures for Data Analysis and Coding System 58
CHAPTER FOUR:PRESENTATION OF DATA AND ANALYSIS
4.0 Introduction 61
4.1 Synopsis of The Man Who Came In From The Back Of Beyond 61
4.2 Synopsis of Burma Boy 63
4.3 Analysis of The Man Who Came In From The Back Of Beyond 64
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4.4 Analysis of Burma Boy 80
4.5 Accounting for The Inter and Intra-textual Relations of The Two Texts 101
4.6 Equating Intertextual Manifestations between The Man Who Came In
From The Back Of Beyond and Burma Boy 102
4.7 Equating Intra-textual Manifestations in The Man Who Came In
From The Back Of Beyond and Burma Boy 103
4.8 Research Findings 104
4.9 Implications of the Study 105
CHAPTER FIVE: SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION
5.0 Introduction 107
5.1 Summary 107
5.2 Conclusion 108
5.3 Suggestions for Further Studies 109
References 111
Appendix I: Cover Page View of The Man Who Came In From The Back Of Beyond120
Appendix II: Cover Page View of Burma Boy 121
LIST OF TABLES
Table 1: Schemata of Intertextuality 26
Table 2: Theme and Rheme Identification 39
Table 3: Thematic Meta-function Analysis 53
Table 4: The Simultaneous Meta-functions in the Structure of the (English) Clause 53
Table 5:Data for Inter and Intra-textuality Indexes in and between The Two
Texts and Their Discourse Representations 101
LIST OF FIGURES
Figure 1: Multileveled Context 31
Figure 2: Modeling Context 35
Figure 3: Textual Metafunction 35
Figure 4: Phrase Structure Rule 43
Figure 5: Speech Act and Communicative Context 47
Figure 6: Pragmatic Construct 48
Figure 7: Rank Scale at Discourse and Grammar 52
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.0 Preamble
This chapter foregrounds the focus of the study by examining the relevant and key variables of the dissertation and how they function in the development and the realization of intertextuality and context of the two texts. It states among other things statement of the problem (how and why the research is designed to address its outlined problem). It also further addresses the research questions, aim and objectives, significance and the scope of the study and the biography of the author of the two texts under study, and how these variables project the actualization of intertextuality and context of the texts.
1.1 Background to the Study
This chapter addresses discussions of text as a process and text as a product. The development of text in this regard involves not only construing semantic/pragmatic relations to the immediate textual, or even situational context that linguistic properties mean, but by construing relations to other texts and situation in which those linguistic properties are used. The research therefore predicates the place of contextuality in textuality and intertextuality as they achieve textual status via functional language use.Context is a phenomenon which determines the contextualization of a text, by varied levels of context: context of situation, context of culture and context of text.
Intertextuality as a concept has its background rooted in the Contemporary Literary and Cultural theory, and has its origin in the 20th century linguistics, particularly in the work of Swiss linguist, Ferdinand de Saussure (1858-1913). The term textuality was coined by the Bulgarian-French philosopher and psychoanalyst Julia Kristeva in the 1960s (Kristeva 1986). Literary writings were constructed like a mosaic out of the texts of others. The works of Bandele demonstrate high level of co-occurrences, perhaps, because the texts appear mostly in the realm of historical, psychological and social recollections. Owing to this, Kristeva (1986) posits that majority of writers borrow ideas from other works of either the same or different genre. In fact, when readers read text with reflection to other literary works, all related assumptions, effects and ideas of other texts provide them different meaning and change the technique of interpretation of the original piece. This means that speakers and writers make presuppositions about the textual experiences of the people with whom they interact.
The study of linguistic similarities of texts is not only restricted to the study of language, but the study of the theories and methods of Linguistics (Fowler, 1971:38). The crucial point is that linguistic study undertaken, for instance, Halliday is essentially unselected and purposeful. Fowler adds that the total meaning of a text is more than the sum of its formal and referential meanings. Dearing (1974) confirms that the goal of textual analysis is not merely to provide a genealogy or the historical fact of the state of a text, but more importantly to identify the state from which all others have descended or, an insight in the relatedness of the texts in many forms. It is on this premise that the research aims to study Biyi Bandele’s The Man Who Came In From The Back Of Beyond(1991)and Burma Boy(2007) emanates, and how they closely permeate through the mainstream of context and intertextuality.
A text as an entity is defined from different spheres of usage. Some intellectuals define it from linguistic view point. For instance, Halliday (1976) sees text as any passage of spoken or written form which forms a unified whole. It is a stretch of linguistic structures which posit meaning in complete or partial and through its texture and textuality. The textuality of text according to Beard (2008) is construed through textual unity (cohesion and cohesiveness). In literary dimension, a text is a state of composition of ideas, process and events through the interplay of literariness of usage. The central task of textual analysis and the form in which the two primary texts will be viewed are via their written form of language, thereby examining not only the narrative episodes of the texts (novels) but the functional elements of language and how they facilitate the realization of intertextual relations. This study confirms the Halliday‟s (1976) definition of text. The texts, hence, will be treated asa whole entity but the analysis should concern only certain linguistic forms.Consequently, the study of the texts is principally on pragmatic analysis; the analysis focuses on viewing language which takes into account not only the formal elements of any text of utterance, but its implicatures, functions and roles. This is essentially to see text as discourse, that is, a text with social, interpersonal and communicative functions, not merely a site where language is organized. Mercer (1988: 81) in support of pragmatic impact in communication adds that the information conveyed by an utterance of a sentence on a particular occasion are made by the speakers‟ social function as a statement, a suggestion, a request, etc., and other factors.
Doing Discourse Analysis here certainly involves not doing Syntax and Semantics exclusively but primarily consists of doing Pragmatics (Brown and Yule, 1988 , & Olateju and Oyebode 2014). Halliday insists that without an examination of grammar and language in its wholesome, there is no reason for making any particular classification of languages, unless one uses external psychological or sociological generalization about the uses of language. He finds in the structure of clause three functions: the ideational, expressing content; the interpersonal- maintaining social relations; and the textual- enabling links to be made with situation.
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