Aspects of Multilingualism in Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Purple Hibiscus

Mixing of cultures is common in the contemporary world and this phenomenon causes cultural, racial, and linguistic hybridity. Hybridity affects human beings. Migrants confront abusive behavior due to cultural hybridity. Hence, the concept of cultural hybridity is explored in this article. This study analyzes the novel "Americanah" by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, through the lens of the ‘Theory of Hybridity’ presented by Homi. K. Bhabha. The analyzed novel is about an Afro-American, Ifemelu, who feels hesitant to adopt both cultures. The current study displays Ifemelu’s dilemma of choosing between her friends or lover in America. It is a descriptive and text-based study and makes an attempt to answer how cultural hybridity affects the protagonist’s life. The conclusion sums up that Ifemelu’s character suffers from identity crisis and marginalization due to cultural hybridity. The study verifies the negative effects of cultural hybridity that are the core assertion of the theory of Bhabha. Keywords: Hybridity, mimicry, third world, Post-colonial, ambivalence, Identity crisis, Homi Bhaba

Nego‐Feminism: Theorizing, Practicing, and Pruning Africa’s Way

This study presents a comparative stylistic analysis of Chinua Achebe’s Anthills of the Savannah and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Half of a Yellow Sun, focusing on how generational, linguistic, and socio-cultural factors inform their respective literary styles. Anchored on Robert Lado’s contrastive analysis theory and situated within the framework of stylistic criticism, the research examines how both authors utilise language not only as a medium of communication but also as a cultural instrument. Through a close textual analysis, the study identifies six key stylistic devices—code-mixing, transliteration, use of Nigerian Pidgin, proverbs, humour, and vulgar expressions—and investigates their deployment across the two novels. Findings reveal that while both authors share a commitment to integrating indigenous language features into English narratives, they diverge significantly in frequency, function, and tone. Achebe, writing in the late twentieth century, demonstrates a strong attachment to oral tradition and communal voice through his extensive use of proverbs, Pidgin, and satire. Adichie, by contrast, writing in a postmodern, globalised context, adopts a more intimate and contemporary style, marked by transliteration, emotional immediacy, and candid engagement with taboo subjects. Notably, Achebe maintains linguistic decorum, while Adichie’s unflinching depictions of war and interpersonal conflict justify the inclusion of vulgar or explicit language. The study concludes that the stylistic differences between Achebe and Adichie are primarily occasioned by a generational shift and evolving literary norms, yet there exists a continuum in their use of language to construct cultural authenticity. The findings contribute to the scholarship on African literature by highlighting the stylistic evolution from postcolonial narrative strategies to contemporary realist aesthetics. Ultimately, this paper affirms that both Achebe and Adichie, despite their differing approaches, succeed in asserting a distinctly Nigerian literary voice within the scope of Anglophone literature.

The article shows how the Nigerian writer, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, captures the use of sports, especially, football, as an instrument of evangelisation in her award-winning novel, Purple Hibiscus (2003). This is through the character, Father Amadi, a Catholic priest, as he plays football with the poor boys in and around the University chaplaincy where he works. The paper then examines the significance of Father Amadi’s particular brand of Football evangelisation to the contemporary Church in Africa, especially, the Roman Catholic Church in Nigeria in which Adichie grew up.

This essay examines two recent novels by the Nigerian writer, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Purple Hibiscus ([2003] 2005) and Half a Yellow Sun (2006), placing them first in a dialogue with each other, and more broadly with selected Nigerian writing on the Biafra conflict. Arguing with Adesanmi that Adichie belongs to a ‘third generation’ of African literary work, it traces the novels' work of historical revisionism through gendered and embodied discourses of pain and violence. Adichie returns the reader to an aesthetics of excess firmly grounded on potently disturbing images of the ‘body in pain’, in Elaine Scarry's memorable phrase (1983): the battered, bruised and scarred body emerges as a key image, a corporeal evocation of the individual self that is traced in both novels to a legacy of colonial and post-colonial relations, and specific gendered configurations.

African Expressive Culture is replete with proverbial expressions which address many subjects as part of cultural identity. Proverbs contain appropriate linguistic features which are suitable ingredients for spicing language. This study takes a critical look at how women are depicted through certain proverbial expressions in the Akan and Dàgàrà traditional societies with emphasis on her personality and character. The main objective of the study is to examine the image of the woman and the kind of personality associated with her in a typically patriarchal cultural environment. Data was gathered from two different cultural communities.Dàgàrà proverbs were gathered between 2004 and 2019 through fieldwork whilst Akan proverbs were gathered through library and internet search. Proverbial expressions which focus on women were selected and analysed using the qualitative approach. The Lakoff-Turner Theory on the Proverb as The Lakoff-Turner Theory on the Proverb as a species of metaphor and Honeck’s affirmation on the cultural context of proverbs undergird this study. Results indicate that the woman is an admirable but vulnerable figure. Her personality reflects that she is a builder and a destroyer in society. This study generates significant debate on how the woman of yesteryear was depicted in the respective societies. It also reveals a pattern of misconceptions about her in the cultural context in which she was depicted.

This paper examines the creative use of language in Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s The Thing Around your Neck—a collection of twelve short stories. Preponderance research on Adichie’s creative use of Igbo diction, loan blends, reduplication, transliteration, semantic extension and Igbo cultural beliefs exist; but none has keenly highlighted those linguistic features in her work, The Thing Around Your Neck. This Chapter investigates code switching/mixing, loan blends, reduplication, transliteration, semantic extension and Igbo cultural beliefs in her book. The essence in her use of such Igbo features is to adapt the English language to suit the needs of the Igbo users and further transport Igbo language and culture to her readers. Data reflecting the Igbo world view, thought processes, culture, beliefs and values were retrieved from the book and qualitatively analysed. The Braj Kachru’s theory of three concentric circles of English—a theory investigating the spread of nativisation of English in different parts of the word, is applied in this study. Findings from analysed data reveal that: (1) The code-switched words/expressions are mostly content words. (2) The loan blends are adjectival nouns with few noun-noun blends. (3) The loan blends are endocentric compounds which are head final and left branching. (4) The reduplicated words mark degree and emphasis in the context they are used.KeywordsCultural beliefDomesticated EnglishIgbo featuresInnovationTransliteration

Reviewed by: Notes on Grief by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie Yagnishsing Dawoor Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie Notes on Grief New York. Alfred A. Knopf. 2021. 80 pages. NOTES ON GRIEF is two portraits in one: that of a loved and loving man, and that of a daughter undone by grief. In a series of diary-like entries, Nigerian writer Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie tenderly and ragingly writes about her father, James Nwoye Adichie, who died unexpectedly in the summer of 2020. The cause, Adichie tells us, was “complications from kidney failure,” but given the times, she “wonder[s] about the coronavirus, of course.” She is in the United States (where she lives and works) when she gets the news. Nigerian airports will stay shut for another few months. She is inconsolable. Her Zoom call with her family “is beyond surreal, all of [them] weeping and weeping in different parts of the world, looking at the father [they] adore now lying still on a hospital bed.” Initially published as an essay in the New Yorker under its “personal history” rubric, Notes on Grief, however, reads like a mourning handbook meant for our pandemic-ravaged world. Opting for a less tinselly style than she has previously gone for, Adichie surrenders to the crassness of use that serious writing is meant to eschew, proliferating line after line on the nature of grief that are wittingly wise, comforting, and insightful. “Grief is a cruel kind of education,” Adichie writes. “You learn how ungentle mourning can be, how full of rage.” The condolences of relatives rankle her; “needle-pricks of resentment flood through [her] at the thought of people who are more than eighty-eight years old, older than [her] father and alive and well”; and the sight of well-wishers “bending to write in the [condolence] book” at the funeral causes her to have a mental fit. “Go home!” she thinks. “Why are you coming to our home to write in that alien notebook? How dare you make this thing true?” But though grief wholly consumes Adichie’s body and mind in the days following her father’s death, turning her pugnacious, unchari-table, and resentful, it also brings her to reflect deeply on our humanity. Language—“the failure of language, and the grasping for language”—is a key preoccupation in the book. Adichie reminds us that we are fundamentally linguistic beings; how our lives are constituted, unraveled, and sustained within the terms of language. She fondly recollects the names she used to call her father, and those he gave her in turn, his hailing “a love-drenched litany of affirmation.” She tells us the Igbo word for “sorry,” ndo, brings her some degree of comfort, as do the many kindly adjectives those who knew her father use to describe him. She highlights those expressions commonly conveyed to the bereaved that have “a taint of the inapt”: “on the demise of your father,” “he is resting,” “he is in a better place.” She reconsiders her own words relayed to grieving friends in the past, noting their banality: “‘Find peace in your memories,’ I used to say. To have love snatched from you, especially unexpectedly, and then be told to turn to memories. Rather than succor, my memories bring eloquent stabs of pain that say, ‘This is what you will never again have.’” She laments how she will “no longer see the square with the word ‘Dad’” on her phone and admits how it was difficult for her to write the word “funeral” when messaging relatives. For the funeral, she gets T-shirts made with words that memorialize her father: “On some, I put his initials, ‘JNA,’ and on others, the Igbo words ‘omekannia’ and ‘oyilinnia’—which are similar in meaning, both a version of ‘her father’s daughter,’ but more exultant, more pride-struck.” At less than a hundred pages, Notes on Grief may seem like a slim offering, but in its raw, honest, intelligent, and indelible representation of what the process of grieving a parent looks like, it is a robust addition to Adichie’s oeuvre. [End Page 70] Yagnishsing Dawoor University of Oxford Copyright © 2022 World Literature Today and the Board of Regents of the...

This research paper examines the complex interplay between language, feminism and social expectations through the sociolinguistic analysis of “TED talk ‘We Should All Be Feminists’ by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie,” taken as a sample. The dialogues used in the talk were transcribed. The study explores the use of the Nigerian English dialect in Adichie’s talk, highlighting its cultural authenticity and the effect of language on propagating feminist ideals. Through descriptive and qualitative methodology, the study challenges conventional gender norms expressed in the speech, shedding light on social variables such as language use, culture, power dynamics and gender inequality. Besides this, the paper focuses on reshaping social expectations and abandoning gender discrimination. It contributes significant insights into gender studies and linguistics, underscoring the vitality of language in social progress and in shaping feminist discourse. Hence, comprehending the power of language to shape perspectives enables one to foster inclusivity and challenge biases. Therefore, this study is crucial for advocating social change and empowering individuals to reshape and challenge entrenched gender norms. Overall, this research highlights universal issues of social justice and gender stereotypes. It ensures solidarity in the struggle for gender equality globally by examining the intersection of feminism, language and culture.

Proverb Masters: Shaping the Civil Rights Movement argues that several individuals who possessed exceptional proficiency in the use of proverbs and proverbial language used this important skill to further civil rights causes. The text focuses on influential people whose ideas pertaining to social justice flourished throughout the long Civil Rights Era (the early 1900s through the 1970s). These figures include: Ida B. Wells, Charles W. Chesnutt, A. Philip Randolph, Bob Dylan, Septima P. Clark, Malcolm X, and Stokely Carmichael. It draws from ample scholarship from the field of peremiology and a wide corpus of historical research. The proverbs, sayings, and proverbial expressions are derived from an extensive array of source material including: diaries, autobiographies, biographies, interviews, letters, speeches, and songs. Proverb Masters illustrates that an individual’s values, beliefs, and worldview may be understood by analyzing the proverbs, sayings, and proverbial expressions frequented by them throughout their lives. A key feature of the book is that it emphasizes the essential role that proverbs and proverbial language played in promoting civil rights causes, arguing that they ultimately unified people for the common cause of social justice. Another important feature of this work is that the proverbs, proverbial expressions, and sayings that are included in the text are carefully contextualized, meaning ample consideration is given to all of the circumstances surrounding the historical moment in which they are used. As a result, readers are presented with a unique interpretation of American and Civil Rights history.

This essay explores some of the proverbs, sayings, and proverbial expressions used by Thurgood Marshall, the first African-American Supreme Court Justice (1967). It argues that Marshall’s proverbial language use conveys several aspects of his worldview including his philosophy concerning race, class, and social justice in American society. The essay also aims to illustrate ways that Marshall’s multifaceted proverbial language use demonstrates the sound knowledge he possessed in the area of legal studies and the exceptional talent he possessed in the areas of rhetoric and deliberation. Furthermore, the essay reveals some of the ways Marshall used proverbial language to connect with other people as he incorporated various proverbs and phrases into his speech which would help make legal language more accessible to common folk (especially the people he would represent as an NAACP and LDF attorney) while also allowing him to capitalize on opportune rhetorical moments in the courtroom. The essay utilizes several Marshall biographies, interviews, and legal documents as source material. It also incorporates the scholarship of other paremiologists such as Wolfgang Mieder, Anna T. Litovkina, Sanda Eretescu Golopentia, Harvey Sack, and others to address issues concerning: categorization, definition, origin, meaning, interpretation, and context.

Catholics normally approach the Eucharist with great love and devotion. The paper looks at how, through the character, Papa, the reality of this love and devotion to the Eucharist is captured by the Nigerian writer, Chimamanda Adichie, in her novel, Purple Hibiscus. The novel reveals that while Papa, in various ways, shows great love and devotion to Christ in the Eucharist, his devotion remains inauthentic: it does not lead him to a love of this same Christ in his neighbour. The work, therefore, underscores not only the nexus between theology and creative literature, but also, in a special way, the social implications of the Eucharist.

This paper looks, in the first place, at gender issues in Pentecostal Christianity in Nigeria. This is especially as captured by the Nigerian writer, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, in her novel, Americanah. It is found that women in Nigerian Pentecostalism are more than the men in number and participate more actively both in church activities and in spiritual efforts at home. However, it is mostly the men who are the pastors and leaders of the Nigerian Pentecostal churches, even if at home, by what is sometimes called ‘domestication’ of the same men, the women are empowered in some ways. The paper then considers what their place has in common with the place of women in the Roman Catholic Church in contemporary Nigeria. The paper adds to the existing literature on the place and role of women in both Pentecostalism and Catholicism in contemporary Nigeria.

Americanah (2013) is a novel written by the Nigerian writer, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. The novel focuses on themes of identity, race, and immigration that are experienced by its main character, Ifemelu, a Nigerian young lady who travels to the United States for study. The current study examines the dynamic shift of using code-switching by the characters and the depiction of cultural identity. The study argues that the writer uses code-switching as a narrative technique to mirror the characters’ cultural backgrounds, their identities, and the difficulties they encounter as immigrants. Besides, the study examines Adichie’s varied employment of code-switching as a practice to enrich character depths, to enhance personal bonds, and to highlight thematic elements. The analysis also explores the possible difficulties arising from code-switching, and underlines some instances where linguistic choices mirror broader social tensions in the story. One interesting finding is that code-switching in this novel appears not only as a linguistic practice, but also as a cultural experience like dress choices or possessions. Some characters tend to imitate Americans not only in the way they speak, but also in the way they appear.

Her award-winning novels and thought-provoking TED talks propelled the Nigerian writer Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie into the public consciousness and sparked a worldwide discourse about feminism in the late 2010s. Adichie uses her work to empower women all around the world to dismantle gender constructs, stereotypes, and sexualities designed to enslave women in society. Several researchers have successfully construed common motifs in her fiction. This paper draws on recent studies undertaken by Moffat Sebola, who affirms that Adichie’s Dear Ijeawele, or A Feminist Manifesto in Fifteen Suggestions (2017) is not only a list of proposals; with closer examination, the manifesto reveals the recurring themes throughout Adichie’s writing. Furthermore, for analytical convenience, Moffat Sebola (2022) selects only seven of Adichie’s fifteen suggestions, identifies the elements that reflect her authorial perspective, and utilizes them as filters in analysing the author’s novels. The main objective of this study has been the presentation of the elements of Adichie’s fiction in all fifteen manifesto statements. In order to achieve this objective, themes of womanhood, femininity, love, history, culture, gender equality, and otherness are discussed in separate sections with examples from her novels. The first section of the paper provides a brief overview of African feminist fiction within which the work of this third-generation Nigerian writer is embedded.