The Role of Yorùbá Dialects in Selected Yorùbá Novels

Abstract

There are variants of Yorùbá dialects, which are mostly in oral form. They are reduced to writing to become a national language of the Yorùbá people of South-West, Nigeria. Anybody using Yorùbá dialects where the Yorùbá language should be used is regarded as uneducated, uncultured and lacking in prestige. Observation today reveals that Yorùbá dialects are present in many Yorùbá novels that are purported to be written exclusively in the Yorùbá language. This work, therefore, using a reading method, examines the role of Yorùbá dialects in the work of three selected novelists: Olúmúyìwá (2012), Adágbádá (2014) and Awẹ́ (2015). The Sociology of Literature, from the perspective of the Mirror Image Approach, is adopted for this work. The theory sees literature as a product of society. Our findings show that the novelists promote the use of Yorùbá dialects, regardless of their relationship with the speech community. The sociology of literature employed suggests that the use of dialects in novels serves specific purposes, including: to demonstrate the authors' affection for the dialects, to preserve them from extinction, and to show that the novelists are proficient in both the Yorùbá language and the dialects depicted. The paper suggests that more novelists should incorporate dialects from various Yorùbá communities into their works of art to help preserve these dialects from extinction