Reflections on Mafata’s evaluative language with reference to african culture and western education in his literary works

Abstract

Sarangi (2003), quoted by Fernandes (2011), states that language is primarily used for description and evaluation to recount stories and experiences as well as punctuating our narratives with our opinions and feelings. These evaluations are our everyday discourse that indicate our perspectives on the subject matter, which in turn engage our audience and make our narrative meaningful at personal level, and they are conveyed through  linguistic devices such as repetition and metaphor informative narratives. This article examines, through Appraisal theory, the writer’s cultural stances, in this case African culture and Western views, in this case western education, that impact the behaviour of his characters as reflected in one of Mafata’s novels, namely ‘Mosikong wa Lerato’. Focus is on one of the elements of Appraisal theory namely attitudinal positioning. The main objectives here is to evaluate how the author, in this case Mafata, (i) manages to raise emotions in the reader’s mind (affect), (ii) how he inscribes or evoke appraisal in his text (judgement) and (iii) finally if there is any form of positive evaluation in his writings (appreciation). The study observes that in this novel, culture and western education play pivotal roles in shaping the persona of the characters.

Keynote words: Basotho culture, Western culture, evaluative language, appraisal theory