GRAPHOLOGICAL FOREGROUNDING IN HELON HABILA’S OIL ON WATER

Abstract

This paper focuses on the stylistic effect of foregrounding in
Habila’s Oil on Water. As a stylistic device, foregrounding is used to
draw the readers’ attention to certain features as intended by the
writer in each text. Such foregrounded features may have to do with
phonology, lexis, grammar, semantics, pragmatics, and graphology
among others. However, this study chooses to take a closer look at
graphological foregrounding in Helon Habila’s Oil on Water. The
graphological devices examined in this discourse include
capitalization, italicization, hyphenation, bold print, ellipsis, and
pidgin. The argument is that there is an inherent relationship
between the appearance of words on paper and their function in
each text. Using Halliday’s Systemic Functional Grammar as a
framework, it is argued that the foregrounded structures are
functional. They draw the readers’ attention, create emphasis, guide
interpretation, as well as enhance the readers’ engagement,
understanding and interpretation of the text.

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