Hometalk

by

Obododimma Oha

An important training dispensed in the home is the ability to understand and produce some clandestine signs which are available to only the members of a family. In this way, the homestead guards and preserves information, uses such information to protect insiders (call it its shibboleth), and pursues a goal without external interference. These days when we give attention to the learning of the language of the home, do we care about this protective communication? Do parents talk to their children with their eyes and the addressees understand and act accordingly, instead of asking or challenging their parents openly why they are looking at them that way?

Call it 'hometalk.' Every home should have its own 'language.' Its 'language' is its identity, its life, its existence, its unified action, its safety, and its future. Every home should have a hometalk that only members of the home should have competence to speak and understand when the occasion arises. 

Talk could be wasteful!

 Yes, we subscribe to a language, but we also allow it to divide and protect us. Speaking only one 'language' makes us highly vulnerable. We cannot even play hide-and-seek with it when the need arises. So, it is good that each context chooses its own language and guards such a language jealously.

Hometalk  could be with the eyes. It is with the eyes we behold the world, and eyes can talk to eyes. Eyes should understand eyes. Eyes should always know what eyes are saying.

Hometalk excuses speech sometimes, and enlists the rest of the body. If not the eyes, the look on the face could say it visually and effectively. That may be one reason babies observe faces and make decisions based on what and how they read those faces. They are yet to deploy the so-called 'speech organs' but they can see and read faces.

What of even smells? Members of a home can recognise smells, and right from the crib. We should differentiate entities on the basis of their smells.

I don't blame that woman who searches for her real husband in the e-mail he has written to her. She is looking for him, for his voice, their shared feeling, in that email. She is looking for something intimate, and would see formality as a very uncomfortable distance. Why this distance in his language? Why the formality as if he is writing a memo to his staff? 

And if his memo to his shifts from an inappropriate "God bless you" of pretentious religiosity to even a vulgar "darling," she could shift in her seat and watch how he looks at her when he enters his office. Maybe something is coming!

Hometalk is the home. We all live or should live inside it. We all see other members through it. It is our mirror.

Whether hometalk is voiced or voiceless, whether hometalk is with the eyes or without them, whether hometalk is movement or no movement, et cetera, we need to learn it, master it, use it, or we are outside home.

What is even very crucial is the syntax or interaction of one sign in hometalk and another. These interactions and their decoding speak of competence. We need to understand how a look on the face and movement of a kind combine to provide an idea. Hometalk is a network of signs really, and speech may be a minor part of the whole in it.

The “Outer” World of English Language Usage

by

Obododimma Oha

The sociolinguist Braj Kachru classifies Nigeria under the Outer Circle of English Language because the country  was one of those that received the language through colonization by the British and has other indigenous languages. Negotiation of meaning in this anglophone country requires reconciling the local semiotic system with that of English. Other countries in this category are Ghana, Kenya, India, etc. There is the hope, however, that countries in the Outer Circle can, with time, become members of the Inner Circle, which is reserved for native speakers. But is this dependent on usage and, of course, a proper educational system that deploys English as a language of instruction. Otherwise, a member of the Outer Circle could slide into the Expanding Circle where English is weaker as a foreign language. Expanding Circle member countries were not previously colonized by Britain but find it necessary to use English for their commerce, politics, etc, and mainly because English is now a big-time international player. Since they cannot displace English in this globalized world, the wisest thing is to use it for these purposes while looking out for its loss of power!

I am interested in how Nigeria of the Outer Circle manages its status and what it can become in the future. Actually, it is good to think about what the "now"could be in the future. As a teacher of English in the Outer Circle, this should be one of my concerns. Not that one is out to promote linguistic imperialism and to perpetuate it. Not that learning or teaching English in the Outer Circle does not pose its interesting stylistic challenges -- challenges not available to Inner Circle use or pattern. In fact, one does not embark on the futile venture of trying to turn Outer Circle learners to Inner Circle speakers! Fair international intelligibility and sensitivity to context are just enough. There is no regional variety or dialect of English that does not have its interesting music of speech. But I am worried when the conditions for intelligibility and sensitivity are dwindling or not given enough attention. In that case, an Outer Circle member that authorizes "anything-goes" in usage may soon become even worse than the Expanding Circle, not relocating to it!

Perhaps the term "Outer Circle" even has some hidden meanings. As an "outsider" to usage, the speaker may become an Esu Elegba, that Yoruba prankster-god, who is kept outide so that he would not embarrass the gods with his mischief. An Outer Circle status then means something like the avoidance of a leper or an ostracism or just a strategic alienation in the circle. And being "outer," in the isolation scheme, is to narrate the strangeness of the occupant.

Yet many young users of English in the Outer Circle in Nigeria do not seem to mind. It is not only that they have now made permanent the dualization situation in which they (are forced) to use standard English in the classroom but fall back to pidgin English when  "liberated" from classroom situations. Many use pidgin as a mere "shield" to disguise their incompetence in conversations with friends or in other discourses. Apart from the wire hanging from ear to ear, what you are likely to hear when you come across them is: "a de do; a dey come!" Then, loud hip-hop music! The false assumption many have is that they have escaped to a form of expression less stringent in rules, or that in pidgin, anything goes! Of course, the use of pidgin is liberating and is humorous, but are these enough reasons to abandon standard forms needed out there for a sound production and dissemination of knowledge?

Many Nigerian youths are content with being handed banners with so much stain, including banners of "sick" expression. One is not talking about the wrong assumption that we have been created English or that English is the norm. One is not talking about the laziness that prevents somebody from learning the languages used by Nigeria's neighbours -- French, Spanish (thanks to some business persons who cross the borders and try to speak these languages....); it is either English or no other language! One has to be terribly English, just the same way Nigeria's politicians have to go to Britain, Nigeria's former colonial master, to present political handouts at Chatham House and to get approval from the master. Or is it their medical treatment? Is it not the former colonial master that is trustworthy enough to carry out a diagnosis and prescribe treatment? Indeed, its linguists also prescribe treatment for Nigeria's attention to language.

I must have frightened some friends when I told them recently that in the future, maybe 1,000 years from now, when my bones must have whitened in the grave, I would like to come out once in a while to sit on my tombstone and look around to see what the world has become, especially the Outer Circle. I would like to see whether its Englishness is still there, whether some people that are mindful of time still greet "good evening" in the morning, or whether a man is still referred to as a "she" in the shithole! Then, I would quietly return to my grave and remain dead. Just to satisfy my curiosity!

It is painful to remain brutally and crudely English, what more staying alienated in usage and enjoying the embarrassment.

The Use of Igbo Proverbs in Christian Evangelization

By

Obododimma Oha

The use of some Igbo proverbs in Christian evangelization, whether in direct preaching or other modes like music and film, is one site of the meeting between the Christian and the indigenous, this time around in the province of signification. It is true that Christianity has been on the offensive path, looking at the indigenous as undesirable and signifying the presence of the devil, but Christianity and indigenous life have also been cooperating on other fronts. This “cooperation” does not mean that each does not look for an opportunity to gain advantage or to devour the other and become dominant. Happening at the site of signification, precisely rhetoric, the appropriation of Igbo proverbs might look simply as an endorsement of the validity of local thought, but it is also (and even more) an endorsement of the Christian and making the audience view the issue through the eyes of the expression they know and to which they subscribe fully. Thus, in a sense, it is strategic use, a pretentious use even.

Yes, the use of those proverbs indicates being mindful of the Igbo audience and getting to the hearts and liking of its members. It is, therefore, being context-sensitive in performance. The audience? Well, this audience is hybrid in its values. This audience has realized that it is inevitable to put new wine in old bottles, no matter what “new wine” and “old bottles” might refer to. In other words, the preacher can hypothesize that this audience believes what it believes or stands between two worlds of signification and would still be the one to make choices in the rhetoric, no matter the rhetoric the preacher comes from the Jewish world to impose. So, the audience, like the customer, is still king!

Of course, there are English or other proverbs in existence. There is even the Book of Proverbs in The Holy Bible. A preacher could have used these. But speaking mainly to the Igbo or in the Igbo world could mean the preference of an Igbo aesthetic. The preacher may want Igbo ears through Igbo proverbs, Igbo ears that care for the beauty of the speech provided by the proverbs!

Preachers that know their worth look out for strategies in discourse that would help in getting the target easily. It is just like market research. Yes; they  are marketing Jesus Christ and must study and know the market. This time around, the rhetoric mainly used in the market could be the answer.

Now, let us get closer to the actual use of these proverbs in contemporary Igbo evangelization. How could anyone forget the music of Bro. Paul Chigbo in this instance, apart from the numerous sermons in Catholic and Anglican churches in Nigeria’s South-East in which Igbo proverbs are freely deployed? In Paul Chigbo’s music, especially "Ike Si n’Elu", we find numerous interesting Igbo proverbs, apart from other forms. These proverbs can easily touch and arrest any Igbo listener.

I wrote about “arresting” the Igbo listener above. I hope that is only a metaphorical statement! I hope that security agents that can shoot themselves even are not also deployed to effect the "arrest". Well, that “captive audience” is oriented towards viewing proverbs with reverence as the wise words of the ancestors, even if the fellow next door has authored one. Have I not pointed out somewhere that being able to author these “wise sayings” is expected of us as competent users of linguistic signification? OK; I am saying so now. Another thing is that proverbs can also be “unwise,” voicing out sentiments of their authors, as in numerous proverbs denigrating womanhood in many cultures.

Proverbs as imagined words of the wise try to impose some values on the listener. A preaching applying them indicates an appropriation of what can impose a perspective on others and it can easily be accepted. Preaching hails and tries to intimidate us, even when we cannot see it. That it appropriates proverbs is an easy invitation to an ally. That one is pleased on listening to a preaching using them means that the alignment is a success.