Schematizing Societal Problems in Namibian Novels: The Cases of The Other Presence and The Hopeless Hopes
Abstract
Abstract Views: 280
The current research presents a cognitive stylistics study of two Namibian novels: Francis Sifiso Nyathi’s The Other Presence and Salom Shilongo’s The Hopeless Hopes. These novels were selected because they present societal problems specific to Namibia from two different perspectives. The study also argues that only a few such Namibian novels have been investigated via conceptualising cognitive stylistics. The researchers have raised three fundamental questions: How does cognitive metaphor help explicate psychological hitches as captured creatively in the two novels? What is the mind’s contribution in conceptualising and comprehending contextual meanings in the two novels? How does content schema contribute to the understanding of the two novels? It is, therefore, against the backdrop of these three questions that the two novels were purposefully selected and studied. Conceptualising and implementing the cognitive metaphor, the current study also analyses the root causes of societal problems, such as unemployment, unfair treatment of people, HIV/AIDS, and witchcrafts, prevailing in the Namibian social fabric. In The Other Presence, it is the HIV/AIDS which is referred to as the other presence. Shilongo’s The Hopeless Hopes also reveals how Robert and the other fellow Namibian ex-combatants gathered at a Big House in Windhoek to hand over their petition to Honourable Zopa. It indicates clearly that the State House is being contextualised as a Big House in the novel, while the ‘Founding Father’ and the former president of the country Honourable Sam Nuyoma is referred to as Honourable Zopa. The contextual meaning of the selected novels can thus only be understood if the readers of these novels have a general background knowledge of the Namibian society. Within a cognitive stylistics theoretical framework, the study also follows a schema theory to explain mental problems and contextual meanings. It manifests how a cognitive stylistics approach to Namibian novels can advance the literary understanding of the multiplicities of themes, such as culture, taboo, superstition, unemployment, colonialism, corruption, and mental health.
Keywords: cognitive metaphor, cognitive stylistics, content schema, contextual meanings, mental problems, schema theory
Downloads
References
Areef, H. M. (2016). A cognitive stylistics analysis of Simon's Lyric "The sound of silence". Journal of Al-Qadisiya in Arts and Educational Sciences, 16(4), 15-34.
Arich-Gerz, B. (2010). Postcolonial English language prose from and about Namibia. A survey of novels from 1993 to the present. Journal of Namibian Studies: History Politics Culture, 7(1), 7-28.
Bem, S. L. (1981). Gender schema theory: A cognitive account of sex typing. Psychological Review, 88(4), 354–364. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-295X.88.4.354
Burke, M. (2005). “How cognition can augment stylistic analysis.” European Journal of English Studies, 9 (2), 185-195. https://doi.org/10.1080/13825570500172026
Chapman, M. (1995). Making a literature: the case of Namibia. English in Africa, 22 (2), 19-28.
Dash, N.S. (2008). Context and contextual word meaning. SKASE Journal of Theoretical Linguistics, 5(2), 21-31.
Fulkerson-Dikuua, K.J. (2018). Conceptualising national transition: Namibian women’s autobiographies about the liberation struggle. In S. Krishnamurthy, & H. Vale (Eds.), Writing Namibia: Literature in Transition (pp.57-69). University of Namibia Press.
Glotova, E. (2014). The suffering minds: Cognitive stylistic approach to characterization in “The Child-Who-Was-Tired” by Katherine Mansfield and “Sleepy” by Anton Chekhov. Theory and Practice in Language Studies, 4 (12), 2445-2454.
Krishnamurthy, S. (2012). Cognitive stylistics and petit recit: An examination of the narrative consciousness in “the god of small things”. Nawa Journal of Language and Communication, 6(1), 65-84.
Marszalek, A. (2012). Humorous worlds: a cognitive stylistic approach to the creation of humour in comic narratives [Doctoral dissertation, University of Glasgow]. University of Glasgow. https://theses.gla.ac.uk/4156/
Mbenzi, P. (2018). Gender stereotype in Oshiwambo orature. In S. Krishnamurthy, H. Vale (Eds.), Writing Namibia: Literature in Transition (pp. 125-135). University of Namibia Press. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctvh8r30w
Mlambo, N., & Kandemiri, C. (2015). Articulating the unsayable: An Exploration of “Visible Voices” in Sifiso Nyathi’s the other presence. Journal of Arts and Humanities, 4(10), 53-64. https://doi.org/10.18533/journal.v4i10.739
Nyathi, S. F. (2008). The Other Presence. The African Publishers.
Omeregbe, J. (1990). Knowing philosophy: A General introduction. Lagos. Joja Educational Research and Publishers.
Pasi, J. S., & Mlambo, N. (2018): Autotelic violence: an analysis of selected Namibian short stories in Elizabeth /Khaxas’ ‘We must choose life’. In K. Sarala & V. Helen (eds.), Writing Namibia. Literature in transition. (pp. 262-272). UNAM Press.
Pratto, F., Sidanius, J., & Levin, S. (2006). Social dominance theory and the dynamics of intergroup relations: Taking stock and looking forward. European Review of Social Psychology, 17(1), 271-320. https://doi.org/10.1080/10463280601055772
Simpson, P. (2004). Stylistics: A resource book for students. (2nd ed.). Routledge.
Shilongo, S. (2013). The hopeless hopes. Wordweaver Publishing House.
Stockwell, P., & Whiteley, S. (Eds.). (2014). The Cambridge handbook of stylistics. Cambridge University Press.
Wilson, D., & Sperber, D. (2002). Truthfulness and relevance. Mind, 111(443), 583-632. https://doi.org/10.1093/mind/111.443.583
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY) 4.0 License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work’s authorship and initial publication in this journal.
