COMMUNICATING FEMALENESS IN COMMUNALISM: A STUDY OF THREE SELECTED PLAYS

Abstract

This work is “Communicating Femaleness in Communalism†Human beings made up of males and females live together in our communities and communicate to be understood. Communication lends itself to essentially two modes, that is, the linguistic and paralinguistic modes. Through these two modes, maleness and femaleness are communicated. The notion of maleness or femaleness is due to ideas and practices attached to them in these communities. Femaleness is communicated in subordination to maleness. Communicating femaleness in subordination to maleness is a problem because it portrays the females as entities who cannot function effectively without support from the males. The aim of this study therefore, is to find out how femaleness is communicated in our communities against the backdrop of maleness that showcases subordination of the females. Survey design is adopted for the study while, Karl Marx's Class distinction theory is used for data analysis. A total of three plays; Ome ihe jide ofo (OIJQ), Nke m ji ka (NMJK), and Nwata rie awo (NRA), were used for data analysis. The study discovered that femaleness is communicated in communalism in subordination to maleness through morphological process, female names and naming and female related figures of thoughts. The study recommends that femaleness should be fairly and on the strength of the female be communicated and not in subordination to maleness as shown in their names and naming.