The Lexical Change in the Personal Name in Achebe’s Novels

Abstract

Language change is a process by which change occurs in the distribution of linguistic variants across sounds, words or constructions of a language. The change can be as a result of the following factors: contact, region, level of education, gender, age and so on. In the light of this, the research investigates the lexical change in the personal names that occur in the following novels of Chinua Achebe: Things fall apart, No longer at ease and Arrow of God. From the findings, this study portrays that contact is the major factor that brings about the lexical change in the personal names used in these novels. Furthermore, this contact is classified under religious contact, culture contact and education contact. Finally, Holmes (2013) opines that for there to be a language change, there must be language variation. In the case of language change in the personal names that occur in the aforementioned novels, there are no variations before the lexical change in the personal names. Eckert & McConnel- Ginet‟s (1992) proposition that no single variable can be held responsible for language change is visible also because inasmuch as the reason for the language change is stemmed to contact with the white men but it further spilled to other factors like education, religion and culture. Key words: Novel, language, Lexical Change