A stylistics analysis of Maya Angelou’s “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings” and “Equality”
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Abstract
Language is a very important tool in literature, as literature cannot be studied without language, be it written or spoken. Language is used differently by different writers; therefore, it is important to analyse how language is used to create an effect and as such, bring out meaning. Stylistics is the study of text from it literary and linguistics perspective. It studies the feature and functions of both spoken and written texts ‒ it is a practical way of understanding the meaning of a given text. Writers have diverse ways of communicating idea, and using literary and linguistic categories to communicate ideas in a text is simply doing a stylistic analysis of the text. The purpose of this paper is to analyse the poems, “I know Why the Caged Bird Sings” and “Equality” by Maya Angelou, so as to know how language brings out the stylistic effects of a writer, and contributes in generating meaning. The stylistics tool explore in this study are: graphology, syntax, semantics, lexico-semantics, phonology, morphology, foregrounding, contrast, imagery, personification, metaphor, simile etc. This study has as findings that language is the essential part of any work of arts, and the achievement of any work centers on how the artist uses language to communicate meaning.
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References
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