SEXUAL DISCOURSE IN NIYI OSUNDARE'S POETRY: A SOCIOLINGUISTIC READING

Abstract

Osundare the poet reads about sexual issues which inevitably employ those lexical items socially regarded as repugnant. His poetry and the accompanying linguistic choices are however controlled, indicating that he is conscious of the limits imposed on him by the Nigerian social conventions. One such control is the attempt to conform to the Yoruba convention which allows users of the language to mention sex organs only of animals or in allegory with material things. This is not a completely effective strategy, since he employs periphrastic statements which end up more repugnant than those unmentionable items. Periphrastic euphemisms are the chief method by which the Yoruba and English traditions avoid the employment of the socially unacceptable linguistic expressions, but when periphrases are without euphemisms, as they are in Osundare's poetry sex is made even more explicit than otherwise.