The Language Debate Posing two broad questions:

Why has the language question become a major problematic in African Literature? What are the ways in which this problematic is reflected in the analysis of African literary texts written in English?

[What is a problematic? Simply an intellectual question to which a solution or explanation is being sought using the methods and protocols of scientific inquiry.]

Question #1 Explanations (1) (2) Language as Discourse Language as Literary Discourse

Language as Discourse To speak a language is to take on a world, a culture. Frantz Fanon. This means that language inserts you into a particular world and culture, it creates you as a subject able to
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function in that world by giving a vocabulary of expression and a vocabulary of values. Values to assume a culture, to support the weight of a civilization (Fanon)

Specifically, in relation to English in Africa: Colonialism and subjugation Devaluation of things African including African Languages Racism and the tropes of race See William Blakes Little Black Boy Discursive Contestation in relation to Language

meant using the language but contesting the culture

and values underlying the language.

Language as Literary Discourse Three Points to Note: Conceptually - Language as Primary to Literary Discourse

 The Institutional of Literary Study defined in terms of Language and Nation. Homology between language, literature and nation. Primary Tool of Literary Study Close Reading The Paradox of African Literature in English

Disjuncture; No homology between language, literature, and nation.

This paradox raised 2 major issues The Problem of Inauthenticity The Anxiety of Appropriation The Language Debate arose out of attempts to resolve these issues Survey of the Language Debate History 1. Origins

Attempts to define African literature a move intended to discipline a body of writing into an object
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of scholarly attention by constructing a discursive category. The category of Literature and the Problem of English Expression. Conferences convened to carve out an object of study and a field (a) Conference of African Writers of English Expression Makerere College, Kampala June, 1962 (b) African Literature and the Universities March 26 April 9. Dakar University, Senegal Fourah Bay College, Freetown, Sierra Leone Makerere Conference Resolution

It was generally agreed that it is better for an African writer to think and feel in his own language and then look for an English transliteration approximating the original.

Freetown Conference Resolution The Freetown conference tentatively defined African Literature, for the purposes of discussion, as creative writing in which an African setting is authentically
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handled or to which experiences originating in Africa are integral.

Response to Makerere Conference and its Resolutions Obi Wali, The Dead End of African Literature. Transition 10 (Sept. 1963): 13-16.

An African writer who thinks and feels in his own language must write in that language. The question of transliteration, whatever that means, is unwise as it is unacceptable, for the original which is spoken of here, is the real stuff of literature and the imagination, and must not be discarded in favour of the copy which, as the passage admits, is merely an approximation. (14)

African Literature as now understood and practiced, is merely a minor appendage in the mainstream of European literature. (13) The purpose of this article.is to point out that that the whole uncritical acceptance of English and French as the inevitable medium of educated African writing, is misdirected, and has no chance of advancing African literature and culture. In other words, until these writers and their western midwives accept the fact that any true African literature must be written in African languages, they would merely be pursuing a dead end, which can only lead to sterility, uncreativity and frustration. (14) African literature in English and French, is a clear contradiction, and a false proposition, just as Italian literature in Hausa will be. (14)
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Responses to Obi Wali Every African writer and literary critic weighed in one way or the other in this debate. The Appropriationists 1. Ezekiel (now Eskia) Mphahlele:

common language with which to present a nationalist front against white oppressors. The goes on to give the example of Bantu education.

2. Chinua Achebe, English and the African Writer. Transition 18 (1965): 27-30.

But for me there is no other choice. I have been given this language and I intend to use itthe English language will be able to carry the weight of my African experience. But it will have to be a new English, still in communion with its ancestral home but altered to suit its African surroundings.

Achebe, The Role of the Writer in a New Nation.

For an African writing in English is not without its serious setbacks. He often finds himself describing situations or modes of thought that have no direct equivalence in the English way of life. Caught in that

situation he can do one of two things. He can try to contain what he wants to say within the limits of conventional English or try to push back those limits to accommodate his idea. 3. Gabriel Okara, English WordsAfrican Speech. 4. Ali Mazrui, Cultural Engineering and Nation Building in East Africa. Survey of the Language Debate Issues The Rejectionists 1. Obi Wali The major issues raised by Obi Wali's critique of the 1960s focused on

the literary text - original versus copy

the practices of critics and commentators the institutions of literature and literary study. 2. Ngugi wa Thiongo However, from the 1980s onwards when Nggi entered into the debate the terms of the debate changed considerably. The major issues became: the question of authenticity and the truth of representation the question of language and identity
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 the question of language and power Nggi's arguments Premises (a) Language as tool of communication (b) Language as expression of the Self and Identity (c) Language as Memory: historical and symbolic repertoire Argument Authenticity - Portrayal of Peasant Characters Identity Audiences and literary publics Power Imperialism and Control of Minds Question #2 Two Camps
(1)

Rejection Refusing to write in English; writing in African languages

(2) Appropriation - Appropriation English meant simulating the absent language within the English Text

Strategies of Appropriation or Simulation in African Literary Texts (a checklist) Translation and transliteration Untranslated words and terms The untranslatable Glossing cushioning contextualization Directly speaking the other language in English rhetorical devices and tropes of original language invoked. Interlanguage Fusion of the linguistic structures of the two languages Code- switching Consequences of Rejection Depending upon translation of the original into English

The Cultural Power of English transform the translation into the original

Consequences of Appropriation An overwhelming concern to inscribe the non-English origins and location of the text A ghostly original underlying the text serving both as source and origin. Origins/originals thus had to continually simulated English had to be appropriated to speak this original language.

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