LOANS IN IGBO LITERATURE: A STYLISTICS ANALYSIS OF SELECTED LITERARY WORKS

Abstract

Loans are words adapted from a (source) language into another (target) language. Igbo literary authors make use of loans in their works for varied reasons. Literature on the other hand is the exploration of language for communication, stylistic effects as well as some other reasons. Igbo writers employ the use of loans as a stylistic device to achieve some literary effects and to express some particular themes. Stylistics is the exploration of the creative use of language. This study hopes therefore; to investigate various loans employed by Igbo writers; how such loans are adapted in literary works; the degree of aestheticism that is achieved through the inclusion of loans in the selected Igbo texts; the implication of such loans on Igbo language and to determine the languages that the authors have borrowed from and the reasons for borrowing from such languages. The data for this study are sourced from Igbo written literature by Igbo writers. The data are analyzed descriptively. Formalism is adopted as the literary theory for analysis of this work. The findings revealed that most Igbo literary writers make preponderant use of loans as stylistics device in their works, that few of the loans are adapted into the literature without affecting the structure while most loan words are adjusted into the structure of Igbo. The findings also revealed that these loans add greatly to the aesthetics of the work. The study concludes that Igbo literary artists employ loans in their works for aesthetic and stylistics reasons and in the expressions of their themes. These loans also aid in the vocabulary expansion of Igbo language.