The Unsaid in Titles: A Critical Look at Bernard Nanga’s “Les Chauves-Souris” [Bats]

Bernard Ampong ORCID iD, Kofi Adu Manyah ORCID iD, Richard Senyo Kofi Kwakye ORCID iD, Melvin Nartey, Francis Douglas Appiah ORCID iD, Stella Afi Makafui Yegblemenawo ORCID iD & Paul Anning ORCID iD

Issue: Vol.5  No.6 Issue Article 6 pp.860-875
DOI: https://doi.org/10.38159/ehass.2024566 |   Published online 7th  June, 2024
© 2024 The Author(s). This is an open access article under the CCBY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).

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Having in mind the basic pragmalinguistic principle which argues that traces of the unsaid are always present in our communication and guided by Jacob L. Mey’s assertion that titles can be tricky, this study seeks to explore the elements that influence authors’ choice of titles and the opaque meanings of such titles.  This research adopted a pragmatic approach to discourse analysis with the aid of the notions of presuppositions, inferences, argumentative orientations, argumentative scales and the theory of possible worlds. Results indicate that the setting of a literary work, the cultural origin, beliefs and philosophies of its author, the era within which the work is written, and the use of figures of speech, among others, are elements that influence an author’s choice of a title of a literary piece.  This study has further revealed that careful consideration of these factors could play a critical role in helping a reader unravel the deeper meaning of the title of a piece of work as well as the entire text. This study is a scholarly contribution to titrology, pragmatics, and discourse analysis.

Keywords: Unsaid, Pragmatics, Title, Context, Inference, Metaphor

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Dr. Bernard Ampong is a Ghanaian born linguist specialising in pragmatics. Paramount among his works are the pragmatic analysis of the famous Ex-President Rawlings’ story of “Atta Mortuary-man” and the unsaid in titles of francophone African novels. He is currently a lecturer at the Department of Language and Communication Sciences, KNUST.His areas of research interest however include Onomastics (the scientific study of names), Translation and the Teaching and Learning of French.

Dr. Kofi Adu Manyah is a Faculty member in the Department of Language and Communication Sciences, KNUST. He was a Council Member of the International Phonetic Association, from 2015-2019. Major areas of his Speech and Language Science Research includes Phonetics and Phonology, Language Acquisition, Language Comparison and Language Documentation.

Richard Senyo Kofi Kwakye is a lecturer at the University of Health and Allied Sciences (UHAS), where he has been teaching since 2018. An active scholar, he has presented research papers at several conferences. His work has been published in top-tier journals such as Globe, Les cahiers de l’ACAREF, and Journal of Languages for Specific Purposes, demonstrating his expertise in discourse analysis and textual linguistics. Currently, Richard is pursuing his PhD in French at the University of Ghana, where he is exploring grammatical cohesion in argumentative essays written by Ghanaian undergraduate students in French as a foreign language (FFL).

Dr. Melvin Djorbuah Nartey is a Senior Lecturer at the Department of language and Communication Sciences, KNUST. He has special interest in Francophone African literature with special emphasis on narratology. Some of his published works are: « Le Mythe de Tiresias tel qu’il est présenté par Nicole Loraux » and « Les spécificités langagières de Boubacar Diop dans Les temps de Tamango, Les Tambours de la Memoire et les Traces de la Meute ».

Dr Francis Douglas Appiah researches Gender in Literature, Oral Literature, and Semantics. His areas of expertise include Feminism in Literature and Akan Paremiology. His passion for bringing out the condition of the woman in a phallocentric world is noteworthy. Some of his works include Matriarchy, Patriarchy and Feminism: A Comparative Study of the Condition of the Woman in Mariama Bâ’s ‘So Long a Letter’ and Ama Ata Aidoo’s ‘Anowa’; ‘The Status of the Woman and the Child in the Matriarcal Akan Society: An Investigation through Akan Proverbs; ‘The aesthetic consideration of proverbs and their influence on discourse: a literary and pragmatic analyses of some Akan proverbs’, among others.

Dr. Stella Afi Makafui Yegblemenawo is a lecturer and researcher at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST), Ghana who focuses on ecolinguistics, education, and sustainability, with a particular emphasis on linguistic rights, language education for sustainable development, and foreign language teaching. She is concerned about the potential loss of linguistic diversity due to the impact of climate change. She, therefore, explores innovative approaches to incorporating environmental awareness and sustainability concepts into language programmes.

Paul Anning is a Ghanaian and a researcher of literary works. Prominent among his repertoire of publications are ‘Crises sanitaires et réalites socioculturelles de la Peste d’Albert Camus et des faits liés à la pandémie de Covid-19 au Ghana, Aspects des activités funèbres influencées par la modernité et la préservation du riche patrimoine culturelle akan à travers les proverbes ancestraux. He is currently a lecturer at the Department of Languages and General Studies at the University of Energy and Natural Resources, Sunyani. His area of research interest is basically centered on African Literature (Oral Literature) with particular reference to Proverbs, folktales and African symboles of communication.

Ampong, Bernard, Kofi Adu Manyah, Richard Senyo Kofi Kwakye, Melvin Nartey, Francis Douglas Appiah, Stella Afi Makafui Yegblemenawo & Paul Anning. “The Unsaid in Titles: A Critical Look at Bernard Nanga’s “Les Chauves-Souris” [Bats],” E-Journal of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences 5, no.6 (2024): 860-875. https://doi.org/10.38159/ehass.2024566

© 2024 The Author(s). Published and Maintained by Noyam Journals. This is an open access article under the CCBY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).

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