Sixteenth International Conference on New Directions in the Humanities

Abstract

Previous studies on prostitution and sex slavery in African literature have focused chiefly on the thematic concerns of the novels such as the moral dimensions of the acts, the violence and inhuman treatments associated with it, the role of the social actors involved in it, and the narrative representations of the acts, among others. None of the studies has explored the role of language as a form of representation that enables the reader to infer the psychological conditions and attitudes of discourse participants either as victims of prostitution and sex slavery or as active agents in the sustenance of the acts. Literary discourse as a social semiotic mode can be and has been used to frame all forms of social experiences that exist in the real and imaginary worlds. The systemic functional linguistic (SFL) model of M.A.K. Halliday contends that the resources of language enable language users to construe their knowledge of the natural world and the inner world of their own consciousness. Working within the systemic linguistic orientation, therefore, this study explores the linguistic representation of the inner feelings and attitudes of victims of sex slavery and prostitution and that of the powerful social actors behind the business as framed in Amma Darko’s “Beyond the Horizon” (1995), Akachi Adimora-Ezeigbo’s “Trafficked” (2008), and Ifeanyi Ajaegbo’s “Sarah House” (2013). The texts under study present sex slavery and prostitution as forms of physical and mental violence on the humanness of their victims.