This paper discusses resistance consciousness in the language and ideology of social change project in Wole Soyinka's political discourse. The discussion is aimed at examining Wole Soyinka's text production strategies in his non-fictional writings. These writings weave a web of resistance ideologies that are enacted to instantiate social change on the political sphere of postcolonial states. This means that Soyinka produces texts aimed at instigating resistance consciousness in text consumers. The paper identifies the text production process for engaging the mind of the text consumer as semioticisation. The objective of Wole Soyinka's non-fictional writings, therefore, is to arouse consciousness for social change through deliberate acts of resistance against the anti-democratic dispositions, especially among Nigerian politicians. In this paper, the critical discourse review of the resistance consciousness draws upon the theory and methodology of critical discourse analysis (CDA) propounded by Teun van Dijk (2002) and Norman Fairclough (1992) These theoretical approaches were complemented by Jacob Mey's (2001) critical pragmatic theory and Michael A. K. Halliday's (1985) systemic functional theory. The blend of the theories and methodologies gives the study an interdisciplinary outlook that facilitates the understanding of Wole Soyinka's deployment of linguistic devices such as metaphor, lexicalisation, passivisation and intertextuality to produce political discourse (text) that arouses resistance consciousness for enacting social change.
The essay demonstrates that a literary writer is not just an advocate for the ideal life but is also capable of reflecting how life could be lived by confronting potentially emergent social changes. Drawing on theoretical and methodological tools of Faircloughian critical discourse analysis and using Nadine Gordimer’s No Time Like the Present, a novel that represents post-apartheid social realities as its data source, the essay shows that, after the collapse of apartheid, many problems remain with which South Africa must contend. Gordimer shows that post-apartheid South Africa must gradually extract itself from the psychological fangs of apartheid and make the transition to democracy. She draws attention to the benefits of the repeal of the racist laws of the apartheid regime and the need for democratic governance to have direct impact on the people. The essay concludes that with another twenty years from now, a vision Gordimer tenaciously holds to in her narrative, post-apartheid South Africa should rank among other democratic nations.
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