Analysis Of Half Of A Yellow Sun By Chimamanda Adichie

“What is worrisome is not that we have all learned to think in English, but that our education devalues our cultures, that we are not taught to write Igbo and that middle-class parents don’t much care that their children do not speak their native language or have a sense of their history.” [ Nigel – do I a) have to reference this quote (I did refrence it at the end) and b) indent it? ]

Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Adichie is a compelling novel about life during the Biafran War. Set in Nigeria, it concerns itself with several characters and how they experience love, turmoil and hardship that appears throughout the duration of the war. Also included in the novel is the importance of language during such a fragile time. This can mostly be seen through the Yoruba and Igbo speakers. An important factor pertaining to Adichie’s use of language is the stylistic devices of code switching and code mixing that she utilizes. Through these devices Adichie accomplishes the incorporation and promotion of Nigeria’s indigenous languages as well as reaffirming the concept that African languages have a place in our 21st century, English-dominated world. It can thus be stated that code alteration strengthens indigenous cultures and languages in Half of a Yellow Sun.

Set in the 1960s the story follows several characters whom are on the Biafran side of the …show more content…
Her Nigerian culture is revealed to the reader through the language that she chooses to write in and for someone living in a country as multilingual as Nigeria, code alternation is a necessary must in order to narrate her story and portray her idea effectively. Her code mixing methods confirm the Nigerian, and overall African literature efforts, of trying to create a language that incorporates an indigenous cultural identity as well as appealing to an international