A Sociopragmatic Investigation of Yejide Kilanko’s Daughters Who Walk This Path

Sociopragmatic study of Nigerian novels has received insufficient research attention. This paper undertakes a sociopragmatic investigation of Yejide Kilanko's Daughters Who Walk This Path. Data for the study were excerpts from the primary text which were considered as evidence of the author’s reliance on her sociolinguistic and cultural background in her language use. The excerpted data were analyzed qualitatively and discursively using Pragmatics as the theoretical framework. The result of the data analysis revealed that the language Kilanko uses is contextually Yoruba and Nigerian, hence captures the construction of her dual identity. The language demonstrates a strategy she employs to construct both her indigenous-cum-national identity on the one hand, and her literary English identity on the other. The study shows that a full comprehension of the text requires an understanding of the author’s sociolinguistic and cultural background in which different indigenous languages co-exist with English. However, English (an imported language) plays a dominant role in Nigeria’s linguistic space, but its co-existence with the indigenous languages shapes the author’s literary English.