The African Palimpsest: Indigenization of Language in the West African Europhone Novel. Book

1 (M)Other Tongue and the Third Code 1

A Indigenization in the Text 4

B Indigenization in the Context 8

List of Linguistic Informants 12

2 Glottopolitics and Diglossia in West Africa 13

A The First Glottophagi 18

B Official Languages and Lingua Francas 25

C Media of Instruction and Curricular Subjects 28

D Media of Literary Expression 35

E Decolonization at the Crossroads 47

3 Pidginization and Multilingual Strategies 51

A Joyce Cary: "Crocodile Writing" and Pidginization 59

B Beyond the Levity of Pidgin: Ekwensi's Jagua Nana 68

C Pidgin in Stasis: The Nigerian Illiterati 76

D Acts of Identity and Code-Switching 'Over the Ragged Fence' 84

E (M)Other Tongue Code-Switching: Scriptural Aporia 93

F Extinct and Surviving Species: Pitineg and Enpi 101

4 The West African Palimpsest: Case-Studies in Relexification 111

A The Ancestor of Relexification: Calquing in Amos Tutuola's The Palm-Wine Drinkard 120

B Bound to Textual Violence: Gabriel Okara and Ahmadou Kourouma 135

C The Logos-Eaters: The Igbo Ethno-Text 148

D The Ethno-Text Fragmented: Ayi Kwei Armah's Fragments 165

5 The Visible Trace and Beyond 175

Two Ways of Shadowing: Cushioning and Contextualization 175

A Naming the Gap in the Anglophone Novel 175

B Naming the Gap in the Francophone Novel 183

C Ken Saro-Wiwa's Sozaboy: Pidgin In Vitro 193

6 Towards Othering the Foreign Language 201

Works Cited 213

Appendix: Tables and Figures 233

Index 253