Restoration and Representation of Yoruba Culture in the Lion and the Jewel: A Stylistic Study
Paul Nepapleh Nkamta 
& Dekera Gerald Atim
Issue: Vol.7 No.3 2025 Article 1 pp.55 -67
DOI : https://doi.org/10.38159/motbit.2025731 | Published online 31st March, 2025
© 2025 The Author(s). This is an open access article under the CCBY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
This study examines the stylistic restoration and representation of Yoruba culture in Wole Soyinka’s The Lion and the Jewel, focusing on how linguistic choices serve as vehicles for cultural preservation and dramatic expression. Through detailed analysis of the play’s language, the study demonstrates how Soyinka creates a sophisticated dramatic idiom that successfully bridges traditional Yoruba cultural expression and modern theatrical conventions. The study identifies and analyses several key linguistic phenomena, including Yorubanised English, character-specific linguistic patterns, ritual language, and gender-linked discourse. The analysis reveals how different characters’ linguistic choices reflect their positions in the cultural conflict between tradition and modernity, with a particular emphasis on Lakunle’s affected modernism, Baroka’s traditional authority, and female characters’ strategic manipulation of linguistic forms. The study demonstrates how Soyinka’s stylistic choices create a “cultural-linguistic palimpsest” where multiple layers of meaning and cultural reference coexist within single utterances. Gender relations are shown to be mediated through sophisticated linguistic strategies. The findings indicate that successful cultural representation in drama requires the use of new dramatic idioms, which accommodate both traditional and modern modes of expression, and maintain artistic coherence. This study contributes to understanding how dramatic language can serve as a vehicle for cultural preservation while creating compelling theatrical experiences, suggesting new approaches to analysing the intersection of language, culture, and dramatic form in postcolonial contexts.
Keywords: Culture; Tradition; Language; Gender; Power; Drama; Yoruba
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Paul Nepapleh Nkamta is an Associate Professor in the Department of English, School of Languages, Faculty of Humanities, North-West University, Mafikeng Campus, Republic of South Africa. His research interests include linguistic inequality in advertising, multilingualism and multiculturalism. He is also interested in reading literacy among first and second language English speakers. He has published widely in peer reviewed journals, such as Cogent Arts and Humanities, South African Journal of African Languages, African Renaissance, Journal of Transdisciplinary Research in Southern Africa, Transylvanian Review, African Identities, Journal of Multicultural Discourses, Journal of Language, Discourse and Society, among others.
Dekera Gerald Atim is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow with many years of experience in research, lecturing and administration; he is presently with the Understanding and Processing Language in Complex Settings (UPSET) Research Entity, School of Languages, Faculty of Humanities, North-West University, Mafikeng Campus, South Africa. His research interests include but not limited to Applied Linguistics, multilingualism and multiculturalism, second language acquisition, reading literacies, language practice/teaching and learning, Sociolinguistics and language communications. He has widely published in reputable journals.
Nkamta, Paul Nepapleh, and Dekera Gerald Atim. “Restoration and Representation of Yoruba Culture in the Lion and the Jewel: A Stylistic Study,” Journal of Mother-Tongue Biblical Hermeneutics and Theology 7, no.3 (2025):55-67. https://doi.org/10.38159/motbit.2025731
© 2025 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/).
