Lexical and Morphological Innovations in Eghagha’s Rhythms of the Last Testament – A Stylistic Inquiry

Abstract

This paper is a stylistic analysis of how Eghagha innovatively and creatively manipulates lexical items and engages in morphological innovations in order to foreground the themes of the adverse effect of socio-economic and political misrule by Nigerian rulers on the ordinary man in the Niger Delta region in particular and Nigeria in general. It focuses on the themes of the environmental degradation in the Niger Delta region and that of hope for emancipation of ordinary Nigerians from the tyrannical and corrupt practices of Nigerian rulers. Collocational shifts, lexical paradigms, loan words, neologisms and metaphorical expressions constitute the lexical items that Eghagha creatively manipulate in Rhythms of the Last Testament. The specific morphological patterns innovatively manipulated by Eghagha are affixation and compounding. The paper concludes that Eghagha’s creative manipulation of English diction and morphology foregrounds the interface between language and literary creativity in the use of the English Language.