A STYLISTIC ANALYSIS OF WOLE SOYINKA’S KING BAABU

Abstract

Stylistics explores the linguistic features of a text; it is primarily concerned with the use of language and its effect in a text. This study aims at analysing the stylistic features in Wole Soyinka’s King Baabu. Halliday’s Systemic Functional Grammar as well as Stylistics are the theoretical frameworks on which this study is hinged. Particularly, this study employed the metafunctions of language in Halliday’s Systemic Functional Grammar and some stylistic tools to analyse the selected data. The Random Sampling Technique was used to select the data for analysis across the text.  The Ideational and Interpersonal Functions of language as features of the metafunctions of language as well as rhetorical schemes and tropes were explored in the text via the selected and analysed data. The data for analysis were carefully selected across the play based on how important they were to the various levels of analysis carried out in the research. The findings revealed that there is frequent use of Interrogatives in the text. The interrogatives, as observed in the text, are mostly used by King Baabu (a general). The frequent use of interrogatives may be linked to the fact that the play, being in a military set up, is full of questions from senior officers requiring answers.