Resourcefulness of Figurative Language in Selected Essay Discourses of Niyi Osundare and Ray Ekpu

Abstract

‘Figurative language,’ a potent resource indispensable to all modes of discourse, is one of the stylistic devices with which creative writers articulate more than they literary mean. This study seeks to account for the artistic utilisation of figurative language as ideological tool for socio-political agitation in selected essay discourses of Niyi Osundare and Ray Ekpu. The objectives of the study include: to identify the predominant figurative tropes used in the essay texts; uncover the role of figurative language in encoding textual messages; and determine how figurative language has been used by Osundare and Ekpu to reflect the socio-political realities in their society. A total of eighteen essays were sampled, 9 each from Osundare’s and Ekpu’s publications in Newswatch. The twenty-four extracts examined through M.A.K Halliday’s metafunction of language reveals that similes serve to derive explicitness and broaden cognitive range; metaphors function to animate texts and transfer meaning; and personification aids to establish mood and raise essence of discourse subjects. Osundare and Ekpu employ these figurative tropes in relating intricate and abstracts ideas, and constructing imagery in order to enhance the comprehension of specific concepts. The study submits that the expressive power of language resides largely in this stylistic device which forms the cornerstone of the beauty of literary language.