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alluded to. A text, therefore, being a tissue of quotations drawn from the innumerable existing or existed episodes, is a multi-dimensional space in which a variety of writings, none of them original, blend and clash.
Furthermore, the concept of intertextuality is also an attempt to provide explanations that both reading and writing texts are products of a text’s interaction with prior texts, writers, readers, historical periods, and conventions. Kristeva (1981: 36), who developed this concept, points out that a given text is ‘a permutation of texts, an (sic) intertextuality: in the space of a given text, several utterances; taken from other texts, intersect and neutralises one other’ (sic). For Kristeva (1981: 69), intertextuality, therefore, describes the complex and heterogeneous nature of discursive events which intersect in particular textual production, giving it some sort of relationship with prior texts. In the above regard, Kristeva refers to text in terms of two axes: (a) a horizontal axis which connects the author and reader of a text, (b) and a vertical axis, which connects the text to other texts. Thus, as Kristeva (1980) and Bakhtin (1981; 1986) assert, texts are products of, and understood in relation to, other texts in the same social formation.
Besides, scholars in different fields consider the concept of Intertextuality from different perspectives for different purposes. These scholars could be roughly categorised into two groups. The first group is constituted by scholars from the so-called literary semiotics. These include Kristeva, 1981; Riffaterre, 1978; Culler, 1981; and Chandler, 2005. The concern of this group is to explore the complex and heterogeneous nature of literary texts by appropriating the concept of Intertextuality. Their studies range from the search for influences or antecedents for a particular literary work to the analysis of literary conventions and codes as prerequisites for literary communication. This concern has recently been extended from literary writing to studies of mass media communication, such as advertisements, TV dramas and Web pages. The second group is drawn from the core area of discourse analysis and critical discourse analysis. These include CDA analysts such as Fairclough (1992; 1995), Bazerman (1993; 2004), Devitt (1991), Beaugrande and Dressler (1981), and White (2002). The concern of this group is with the non-literary text for textual analysis on the basis of Intertextuality. The CDA group consider intertextuality as not only a form through which texts are interrelated but also as a social practice that involves particular socially regulated ways of producing and interpreting them.
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Intertextuality, as Bakhtin (1981; 1986) observes, is concerned with how specific utterances are produced and understood, against the background of other concrete utterances on the same theme. Apparently, the concept implies both intrusions of previous texts into a new text either through citation, attribution or reference, and also the hybridisation of one genre or type with another. It is, therefore, closely linked to the notions of recreation, reiteration and interpretation. In critical discourse analysis, Bloor and Bloor (2007) submit that, intertextuality plays an important role in revealing speakers’ or writers’ strategies by reinforcing or reformulating ideas and beliefs.
Intertextuality is also capable of revealing traces of the dominant ideology or evidence of ideological struggle and cultural change. This argument subscribed to the traditional notion that all new ideas are based on what has gone before and that we rely on our forebears for any scientific or artistic achievement. Actual events are therefore reproduced in later texts, and it is a way of bringing not only the events but the people concerned.
A text is also said to stand in contrast to all other texts since it reflects the specific context of its creation. According to Bloor and Bloor (2007) a conspicuous example of intertextuality in literature is drawn from Eliot’s poem titled: The Waste Land (1922), which lifts from different historical periods and languages drawn from Germany, French, Latin and Sanskrit, among others. Texts are frequently dependent on previous texts in terms of meaning, wordings, settings and characterisation. The meanings, wordings or characterisation usually undergo modifications and restructuring in new texts to create new meanings.
To Fairclough (1995), an intertextual analysis of a text attempts to show how texts selectively draw upon orders of discourse-the particular configuration of conventionalised practices (genre, discourses, narratives, etc) which are available to text producers and interpreters in particular social circumstances. Bakhtin (1986), on the other hand, is of the opinion that intertextual analysis is a necessary complement to linguistic analysis.
Intertextual analysis draws attention to the dependence of texts upon society and history in the form of the resources made available within the order of discourse, and how the text transforms these social and historical narratives. Intertextual analysis mediates the connection between language and the social context, and facilitates a more satisfactory bridging of the gap between texts and contexts. Fairclough (1989; 1992; and
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1995) refers to these as the three-dimensional framework for discourse analysis in which intertextual analysis occupies this mediating position. Intertextual properties of a text are therefore realised in its linguistic features which provide ‘‘…a solid and more tangible analytical grounding for identification of moves and strategies’’ (Fairclough, 1992: 202).
Furthermore, intertextuality is viewed as the relations between the alluding text and the referent text are reciprocal and dialogical and at the same time, intertextuality comprises both literary history and the historical moment and the present time, and these relations are possible through quotations, parodies of different texts, imitations of texts etc. These intertextual relations are viewed in terms of temporality. To Plett (2004), temporality is a factor of prime importance in intertextuality. He discusses this concept from two radically opposite perspectives of synchronic and diachronic temporal relations.
With the synchronic perspective, he claims that all texts possess a simultaneous existence; this entails the levelling of all temporal differences; history suspended in favour of the co-presence of the past. So, if the allusion as an allusive signal is the origin of Intertextuality it is also the point where the aspects of temporality, the past and the present intersect.
There is no single approach to analysing the complex phenomenon of intertextuality in writing production and interpretation. Approaches used in analysis of intertextuality, range from focusing on linguistic and social conventions. However, an elementary type of analysis is to examine the intertextual composition of a single text;
describing both the explicit (direct quotations) and implicit (social contexts).
From the new rhetoric tradition, scholars like Devitt (1991; 1993) and Bazerman (1993; 2004), have analysed the concept of intertextuality in non-literary texts. They approach intertextual relations as social practice, as more or less stable conventions of a particular discourse community. Devitt’s (1991) study of the writing of text accountants reveals that all genres that text accountants use have strong intertextual connections with the legal text code, but these intertextual connections are displayed and used differently in different genres. Bazerman (1993; 2004), on the other hand, compares the rhetorical presentation of the cited articles in modern scientific articles to the texts of the original articles to uncover the ways in which the authors construct the intertextual field to position their own argument as a powerful antidote. He therein proposes a procedure of analysing Intertextuality to include (a) levels of Intertextuality, (b) techniques of intertextual representations, (c) intertextual distance or reach, and (d) translation across
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contexts contextualization. Bazerman (2004) states inter alia that intertextuality is not just a matter of which texts you refer to, but how you use them, what you use them for, and ultimately, how you position yourself as a writer to make your own statement.
Intertextual studies is, therefore, concerned with the recurrent discourse and activity patterns of the community and how they are constituted by, introduced in, and interconnected or disjoined through particular texts. That is, by exploring intertextuality, the relationship between a specific text and a genre could be revealed; or, the relationship between a text and its cultural context could partially be understood.
According to Fairclough (1992; 1995), Intertextual analysis therefore points to how text can transform prior texts and restructure existing conventions to generate new ones. In his book titled: Media Discourse (1995), Fairclough puts forward a three-dimensional framework for analysing intertextuality in media discourse. These include:
(a) analysis of discourse representation, (b) generic analysis of discourse types, and (c) analysis of discourse in texts. Discourse representation, to Fairclough (1992; 1995) represents a form of intertextuality in which parts of specific texts are incorporated into a text and are usually, but not always, explicitly marked with devices such as quotation marks and reporting clauses. The category referred to as the ‘discourse types’, on the other hand, is to attempt a configuration of genres and discourses. Fairclough (1995) suggests that analysing discourse types may involve complex configuration of several genres and several discourses. Though central to Fairclough, intertextual analysis is the concern for power relations, which suggest that aside other issues, intertextuality can become a ground for contestation and struggle which will not only be for power and ideology but social cohesion could as well be the focus of these relations.
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CHAPTER THREE METHODOLOGY
3.0 Introduction
This study primarily uses the CDA analytical approach to demonstrate how the language employed by Adichie in PH, HOAYS and AH has reinforced the concept of social solidarity and structural solidity in the novels. This chapter, therefore, provides clarifications on how Adichie’s deployment of insights from Halliday’s SFL, Fairclough’s model of CDA and Durkheim’s concept of social solidarity explicate discourse strategies that evoke social solidarity and enhance textual cohesion in the novels.