A Stylistic Reading of Rome Aboh’s “Hour Of Truth”

Abstract

Language system offers varied choices to a language user for the expression of their thoughts and intents. However, these choices can be manipulated in distinctive ways to achieve particular purposes. Such motivated and distinctive uses of language are regarded as rhetorical arts that not only foreground language but also underscore the concept of style. The task, in this paper, is to examine style in Rome Aboh’s “hour of truth,” as an example of new Nigerian poetry. The analysis, conducted at the backdrop of foregrounding theory and systemic functional grammar, reveals that at every level, language is foregrounded to infer a pathetic quasi-antonymous relationship between nature’s beauty and humans’ acts of terror in the 21st century. Consequently, elements of language are tactically foregrounded to juxtapose the beauty, bliss, and unity in nature with the terrors of humans’ inhuman activities in order to lament the loss of bliss in the 21st century world. Beyond affirming Aboh as an artful master who knows how to bend or break language for the apt conveyance of his intent, his style validates him as a 21st century Nigerian poet.