An Evaluation of Stylo-Semantic Imports in Selected Performance Poetry

Abstract

Style and its study, stylistics, are at the fulcrum of linguistic description and critical interpretation.
As an offshoot of rhetoric, stylistics specifically focuses on analytical and descriptive approaches
to the investigation of the effectiveness of the use of language in a textual creation. One such
approach is semantics, a linguistic approach to the evaluation of the meanings that a text
conveys. Beyond conveying meaning, texts sometimes import meaning from their contextual
usage to communicate underlying messages. This study focuses on the evaluation of stylosemantic imports in selected performance poetry with the aim of considering how hidden
meanings are created, and hidden messages are passed across in performance poetry. The
poetry under evaluation was selected randomly across three poets, each representing a major
Nigerian tribe. Data were analysed using semantic toolkits. The study found that imports of
cohesive relations characterise the selected performance poetry, and personal pronouns were
used in place of their antecedents. The use of pronouns in place of their antecedents was
intended to avoid repetition. These cohesive strategies were employed by the poets to avoid the
redundancy and boredom often associated with nominal repetition. The study concludes that
even though performance poetry, like any other genre of poetry, is primarily intended to pass
certain information or promote some forms of ideologies by way of persuasion, the use of stylosemantic imports has helped to communicate the underlying ideologies that may not be well
captured by the conventional medium of communication.