Abstract
Pragmatic markers of voices are significant given the roles they play in the building and construction of utterances in culture-based texts. They reveal owners of voices thus enabling us to determine authorial preoccupations in literary texts. However, as significant as they are to the determination of voices and authorial perspectives, they have received little attention in linguistic scholarship. Employing the literary pragmatic theory therefore, this study sets out to examine how to detect voice ownership as indicated by pragmatic markers of voices such as references, deixis, pronouns, tenses and related authorial perspectives in Osofisan's Esu and the Vagabond Minstrels (EATVM), so selected, given that it is rich in data. The study reveals that Osofisan employs the pragmatic markers of voices such as references, deixis, personal pronouns, tenses and so on through his and his characters' voices, voice mash, voice trash, and voice crash, relative to issues of social power, moral and religious deviances, and religious beliefs, in EATVM. The study concludes that a study of pragmatic markers of voices enhances an understanding of voice ownership in literary texts towards determining authorial perspectives in post-colonial African conjured textual universes.
Highlights
The drama text chosen in this instance is that of Femi Osofisan
Osofisan usually vocalizes his perspectives through his narrators, thereby trashing, mashing or crashing into the vocalization of his characters
Our analysis reveals that Osofisan employs the pragmatic markers of voices such as references, pronouns, deixis, and tenses, through the voice devices of mashing, crashing, and trashing to project issues of power, deviance, and religious belief in the play
Summary
Osofisan wrote over 26 published plays from 1969 to 2005. Winner of the first association of Nigerian Authors drama prize in 1983, Osofisan is a man of many parts; a renowned critic, poet, novelist, playwright, an actor and a producer. Egbarevba (2000) observes that Osofisan’s works portray a consciousness and commitment to societal development, which reflect in his choice and interpretation of materials. He submits that the totality of Osofisan’s works portrays a humanistic perspective reflecting the societal structure built for the masses. Egbarevba (2000) notes that Osofisan’s dramaturgy yields to a multifaceted interpretation and this is witnessed in his presentation of drama as a form of traditional storytelling, and a subsequent Africanisation of his plays. He claims that Osofisan employs folktales, legend and history, songs music and dance. From the foregoing, one can reasonably conclude that Osofisan’s work are based on on-going events in his society, basically to correct social ills and revolutionary and non-revolutionary in nature
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