Manipulative Strategies in Wole Soyinka’s The Trial of Brother Jero and Jero’s Metamorphosis

Abstract

The efficacy of language in any society or community can never be overemphasized; through it, communities are meaningfully structured and stratified. It is a major channel through which ideas and emotions are exchanged effectively. This means, communicating ideas and emotions is possible through the instrumentality of language. With the numerous known functions that language performs in a community, it is not an understatement to say that society cannot exist without language and vice-versa. It is in this light that scholars such as John Gumperz and Jenny Cook-Gumperz, “Studying language, culture, and society: Sociolinguistics or linguistic anthropology?” Journal of Sociolinguistics 12.4 (2008); Einar Haugen, “Dialect, Language, Nation” American Anthropologist 68.4 (1966); Florian Coulmas. “Sociolinguistics: The Study of Speakers’ Choices” (2005); Richard Anthony Hudson, “Sociolinguistics” (1996); among others elucidate the social use of language for effective communication in any society.