An Investigation of Stylistic Strategies in Wole Soyinka’s Telephone Conversation

Abstract

The purpose of present study is to investigate stylistic strategies in Wole Soyinka’s poem Telephone Conversation. The present research is mainly based on qualitative method. It incorporates Leech and Short’s Style in Fiction while focusing on different levels of stylistic analysis. The findings reveal that Wole Soyinka has very exquisitely employed stylistic devices at phonological level in the form of alliteration, consonance, assonance, onomatopoeia, contractions and rhyme in this poem. At morphological level, the poem contains inversion, compounding, backformation, slang and jargon. Capitalization is graphological deviation. At Lexico-semantic level the writer has employed different stylistic devices such as simile, hyperbole and hyponymy to convey deep meanings. Syntactic deviation in the form of parallelism and foregrounding play a great role. These stylistic devices contribute in conveying the overarching theme of racism. The present research is delimited to Wole Soyinka’s one poem it can be further extended to his other poetical works.