Interpersonal Meaning Analysis of two Excerpts from Mariama Bâ‟s So Long A Letter: A Systemic Approach

Abstract

Abstract This research work explores the interpersonal meaning in two excerpts from Mariama Bâ’s novel entitled So Long A Letter. Indeed, the research aims not only at finding out how interactants in the selected excerpts have established and maintained social role relationships but also at examining their use of the English language to make sense of the world around them. It further aims at decoding both the author’s world view and ideology behind her writing for a better understanding of the studied excerpts on the one hand and the whole novel as an indirect result on the other. To achieve such aims two excerpts have been culled from the above mentioned novel on purpose and scrutinized in the light of the Systemic Functional Linguistics theory being applied. Following the quantitative method, statistics of the data collected from the analysis carried out have been drawn not only for the classification and counting of the excerpts linguistic features but also to pave the way for the qualitative method which has provided avenues to the discovery of deepest levels of the studied excerpts meanings via the interpretation of the findings. Indeed, the results arrived at clearly indicate, that Mariama Bâ has encoded tremendous meanings through her outstanding use of the declarative mood types. This is revelatory of the author’s serious concern about widowhood, remarriage, levirate, and polygamy in Africa and how important she believes it is to share knowledge about such social evils for better African families’ lives. The higher use of modalisation in both studied excerpts reveals the suggestive tenor created by the author to balance the power inequality inherent in modulation. The high specification of circumstantial meaning in the studied texts provides details to the information given therein and contributes to boost their experiential density. Keywords: Interpersonal meaning, modality, Mood, SFL, tenor.