A stylistic study of John Ruganda’s Shreds of Tenderness

Abstract

This study presents the results of a linguistic research on the use of stylistic aspects as manifested in John Ruganda’s text the Shreds of Tenderness. The results revealed that Ruganda’s use of these stylistic aspects enhanced his work a lot in terms of presentation of the problem, building of the conflict and shaping of other stylistic features in the text. In the study, we have looked at some of the stylistic features used by John Ruganda in shreds of Tenderness and established their effectiveness in literary communication. The study seeks to establish the figurative tropes used in the text and examine their roles. Moreover, the roles played by ambiguity, lexical choice, repetition and allusion are also examined. The research has been done through intensive reading of the text Shreds of Tenderness. Various words, phrases, clauses, sentences and parts of the text containing the stylistic aspects have been picked and each independently studied using stylistics theory. After studying them, then comments are made on how these elements are appropriately used to enhance the understanding of the text. It is observed that the use of these stylistic features is of the essence. They help us analyze the characters used and also get us to know the reasons why they engage in serious conflicts. We learn of the context and the setting of the play. We are also able to relate the episodes in the text with those in other texts, historical contexts and also other fields in the contemporary world. During the research, a lot of work by other researchers was reviewed. Much of it was to do with stylistic features. Leech’s approach from A linguistic Guide to English Poetry (1969) played a significant role in the analysis of the stylistic features. Apart from allusion which is not dealt with in Leech’s approach, all the other stylistic elements draw a background from Leech’s work. Allusion drew its background from other texts. This research was largely library based. Most of the data was drawn using purposive sampling. The study hypothesized that Ruganda has succeeded in the use of figures of speech in Shreds of Tenderness. It is acknowledged that ambiguity, lexical choice, repetition and allusion play major roles in communication in the text Shreds of Tenderness.