Literature and Politics: A Semantic Analysis of Wale Okediran's Tenants of the House

Abstract

Published in 2009, Wale Okediran's Tenants of the House is a fictional prose that chronicles the Nigerian political system from the perspective of a member of the Federal House of Representatives. The novel highlights the prevailing circumstances surrounding the different impeachment bids which colour Nigerian politics and gives an insider view of the methods of operation of members of the ruling class. This paper sets out to study the lexical choices and other linguistic devices used to portray the theme of the text. Samples of lexical items and expressions are selected, examined and analyzed for their morphological, syntactic and semantic peculiarities. This paper explores how literature has been exploited to reveal the direction, dynamics and possibilities of politics in Nigeria as it pertains to certain linguistic, religious, economic, cultural and political peculiarities of the people. The framework for the study is drawn from lexical semantics as well as sociolinguistic approach to language study.

DOI: 10.5901/mjss.2014.v5n23p2458