Utilising motifs as a technique in isiXhosa creative texts through the lens of narratology theory

This article examines the use of motifs as literary devices to reinforce a central idea and themes, and to enhance the narrative features of isiXhosa creative texts. The motifs are not only crucial for reinforcing the central idea of a story or poem but are also useful for enhancing emplotment, plot, and explotment of a story. However, the pivotal role of motifs is often overlooked by some isiXhosa creative writers in their literary works. To accentuate the role of motifs in isiXhosa creative work, this study employed narratology as its theoretical framework and adopted qualitative and quantitative analysis as approaches to identify, interpret, and encode motifs using the integer coding method. The results highlight that motifs are crucial not only for enhancing the narrative features of a text but also for directing the reader to the main theme and central idea of the text.   Key words: Motifs, narratology, isiXhosa, creative texts.