Linguistic choices and transcultural identity construction in Mary Specht’s Migratory animals

Abstract

The study of literary texts within their contexts of production has been the primary concern of literary discourse analysts. Against this backdrop, this paper examines the confl uence between Mary Helen Specht’s use of language in her novel, Migratory animals, and the articulation of transcultural identity. The preference for Migratory animals over other novels is motivated by the fact that the novel provides evidence of how people live in transculturalism. The analysis is anchored on literary discourse analysis, an aspect of discourse analysis that deals with the social context that backgrounds the production of literary texts. The paper reveals that though an American, Specht deploys Nigerian expressions, loanwords from Nigerian languages and Nigerian Pidgin expressions to situate her novel in the context of transculturalism. Also, the analysis suggests that the way people use language in socio-discursive situations can enrich our understanding of the identities they create either for themselves or for others.