The Social Use of Language: An Ethnography of Communication in Chinua Achebe’s <i>Arrow of God</i>

Abstract

During colonization, the English language was not only the primary language of government and administration but it was also used in the education of colonized subjects. Consequently, English became a national language in the colonies and had since then complicated its own status as a significant medium of communication because of the colonized conflicting attitudes towards it. Since a writer brings his personality, experience and the totality of his personhood to bear on his work of art, postcolonial writers and critics felt that the use of English from its standard form as well as the cultural values it carried cannot give genuine artistic shape and form to their creative impulses. While some advocate for the return to writing in indigenous African languages others are of the opinion that the use of a foreign language is pointless. In this sense, Chinua Achebe’s quest for a postcolonial literary aesthetic is delineated in <i>Arrow of God</i>, where, with an unparalleled dexterity, he adapts the English language to suit the cultural norms, social interactions, ideas and ideals of his traditional Igbo society. The study was conducted by applying a postcolonial approach to literature which suggests that post-colonial writing seize the English language and replace it in a discourse fully adapted to the colonised place. The primary material used for arguments in this study is <i>Arrow of God</i> where data were purposely collected. Much more data informed by Igbo’s indigenous tradition and culture were abstracted from internet sources and many critical works. The result of the analysis shows that language and culture intertwine to subvert the colonial perspective on the colonized.