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http://DOI.ORG/10.33234/SSR.20.10
Orature, Cultural Nationalism, and Literary Onomastics:
Kola nut as Semiotics of Bonding in Chinua Achebe’s Novels
Niyi Akingbe
Department of English Studies
University of South Africa, Pretoria.
Molefi Mokuku
Department of English
National University of Lesotho, Roma, Lesotho
Abstract
This article examines the essence of literary onomastics of food consumption generally and the signification of kola nut particularly, in Chinua Achebe’s literary oeuvre. Kola nut’s consumption as semiotics of bonding is focused upon in Things Fall Apart, Arrow of God, No Longer at Ease, A Man of the People, and Anthills of the Savannah. Recognizably, while witty sayings and proverbs are vehicles of orature in Achebe’s oeuvre, oral narratives as sources of inspiration and elucidation cannot be discountenanced. The article argues that it is within the scope of language use that a people’s cultural nationalism is encountered and understood. If semiotics is a philosophical theory of signs and symbols that deals especially with their function in both artificially constructed and natural languages, kola nut is a ‘‘sign’’ embedded in Igbo’s cultural semiotics and ostensibly serves as a vehicle for cultural integration and channel of communication. Literary onomastics is an indispensable unit of literature that essentially utilizes methods of linguistics and literary criticism for the analyses of proper names in Literature. The article engages with the intersection of semiotics, literary onomastics and cultural materialism for the decoding of kola nut symbolism in Achebe’s novels. Cultural materialism emphasizes that every text derives its relevance from the intersection of history and society of a particular cultural community.
Key words: literary onomastics of kola nut, semiotics, cultural materialism, orality, social cohesion, Chinua Achebe