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GRAPHOLOGICAL FOREGROUNDING IN CHIMAMANDA ADICHIE'S PURPLE HIBISCUS

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1      BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY

Graphology is the art and science of deciphering a person's personality characteristics from their handwriting.

Essentially, writers deploy diverse ways not only to encode and disseminate their artistic vision and message, but also to achieve formal beauty in their texts. This is because the hallmark of a good writer, that is, what makes him to stand out from the crowd, is contingent both on the ideological content and propositions of his work as much as his stylistic peculiarities or distinctions and the extent to which both aspects (i.e content and container) relate. This thesis explains why writers take advantage of the elasticity of language in sundry ways in their discourses, in the sense that “language implies the availability of an internal structure which makes it possible for the writer or speaker to construct texts that are not only coherent but also situationally appropriate” (Adeyanju, 2008:87). In addition, the thesis also explains why writers employ various paralinguistic devices to complement linguistic choices, make meaning more precise and graphical, as well as enhance the aesthetic texture and appeal of their texts.

Amongst the latter set of stylistic resources highlighted above (i.e paralinguistic devices), are graphological elements or patterns which are of the visual dimension of language use, such as italicization, capitalization, punctuation, indentation, etc. These paralinguistic resources help writers to capture particular pragmatic senses in texts and aid the readability, comprehension and interpretation of linguistic forms in given situational or textual contexts. According to Adegoju (2008:160), Graphology concerns such matters as spelling, capitalization, hyphenation, a text’s layout, lists, font choices, underlining, italicization, paragraphing, colour, etc which can all create different kinds of impact, some of which will cause the reader to react differently.

Ngara (1982:17) echoes a similar viewpoint when he observed that graphology covers such areas as the layout of the text, colour, shape of the printed marks, punctuation, paragraphing and spacing, etc. Short (1996:54-57) adds that splitting of a word to separate letters, writing all words together without orthographical spaces, etc, are also graphological patterns or symbols.