Appropriation and Abrogation in African-American Literature
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Course
African-American Literature
Institution
African-American Literature
This essay provides a short overview of African-American literature and the important writers who have contributed to it. It delves into the concepts of appropriation and abrogation in African-American literature, with a focus on the differing opinions of writers Chinua Achebe and Ngugi wa Thiong'o...
Since the era of post colonialism in Africa, the use of language has been a major issue in writing
literature. After successfully colonizing the African land, they were targeting the African people,
their indigenous languages and culture. In Africa, there are more than hundred languages being
spoken for instance Somali, Amharic, Igbo, Swahili, Hausa, and Yoruba. Colonizers aimed to
impose their language that is English onto the Africans with the purpose of diminishing their
indigenous languages. A thrash back was an obvious response by the natives which resulted in the
birth of two terms i-e; Abrogation and Appropriation. For the response of this conspiracy African
writers came forward to defend their languages. Ultimately, African writers were divided into two
categories, each of them favoring their languages through the perspectives of Abrogation and
Appropriation.
Abrogation:
Abrogation refers to the rejection by colonial African writers of normative correct and Standard
English used by specific classes of people and also the concept of inferior dialects and variants. It
was one of the biggest political stances among Africans during the colonization period. Colonial
African writers were view of that using the colonizer’s language imprisons their imagination and
limits their freedom of thought process. Forceful use of Standard English over the time was vividly
molding the African’s perspective of their freedom. To cope with these circumstances, colonial
African writers came forward with the purpose of reclaiming their right of using the English
language with appropriation.
Appropriation:
The term appropriation refers to the way in which post-colonial societies use and alters colonizer’s
language, writing, theater, film and even their culture and thought pattern. By using this process,
they had develop their own way of expressing thoughts and emotions. The main purpose of this
new political stance was to retaliate against the dominant imperial power in Africa. The act of
appropriation may have an impact on various aspects of African culture, but the most potent are
the domains of language and textuality. Africans utilized the opportunity of appropriation to
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