Stylistic Representation of Metaphor and Discourse Issues in Ebi Yeibo's the Forbidden Tongue

Ebi Yeibo is one of the third generation of Nigerian writers whose works have received global attention. Extant studies on the poetics of Ebi Yeibo have paid insufficient scholarly attention to metaphorisation of political trauma in selected works of Nigerian writers especially Ebi Yeibo’s the Forbidden Tongue. This study, therefore, investigated stylistic representation of metaphor and discourse issues in Ebi Yeibo’s The Forbidden Tongue with a view to unpacking the stylistic devices used in construing the realities in the Niger-Delta. While Charteris-Black’s Critical Metaphor theory served as theoretical framework, Ebi Yeibo’s The Forbidden Tongue is selected because it is the representation of realities in the Niger Delta. Five metaphor types are identified namely: nature, human, animal, food, and place. Source domain “drought” and target domain “politicians” are conceptualised as ‘Politicians are the drought’ as explicated in “they are the dragons, and the drought, the hunters and the hounds”. Source domain “Mother Theresa” and target domain the “Niger-Delta region” as denoted in “they forget, Mother Theresa breathed fresh air, into suffocating seas, from Calcutta’s black hole” is conceptualised as ‘politicians are merchants of power’. Source domain “upturned cockroaches” and target domain “the people” as exemplified in “like upturned cockroaches, we struggle in vain” is conceptualized as ‘the people are the upturned cockroaches”.