Isaac N. Mwinlaaru
‘Free men we stand under the flag of our land’: A transitivity analysis of African anthems as discourses of resistance against colonialism
Mwinlaaru, Isaac N.; Nartey, Mark
Authors
Mark Nartey
Abstract
Recent studies on colonial discourse have demonstrated that the speeches of freedom activists in colonial Africa served as sites of resistance. One key text type that has, however, been neglected in the critical literature on the discourse of emancipation is the national anthem of colonised states. To fill this gap, the present study examines the discursive enactment of resistance in the anthems of former British colonies in Africa, focusing on the transitivity framework in systemic functional linguistics. Semantic and structural parallelisms across the anthems are identified as evidence of a collective memory, a cultural trauma reconfigured and reconstituted to reclaim a positive identity and project a desirable postcolonial future. They also foreground the motif of freedom and legitimise the African as the owner of the reclaimed territory. These procedures articulate an anti-imperialist and anti-establishment stance that provides hope, strength and encouragement to an oppressed group. This paper extends the scholarship on the discursive enactment of resistance by focusing attention on a context underexplored in the literature. It also illustrates the (re)construction of relevant ideologies in national anthems to stimulate desirable, progressive attitudes among citizenry in African states. The paper is furthermore significant to decolonial research and highlights the role of language in political decolonisation processes.
Citation
Mwinlaaru, I. N., & Nartey, M. (2022). ‘Free men we stand under the flag of our land’: A transitivity analysis of African anthems as discourses of resistance against colonialism. Critical Discourse Studies, 19(5), 556-572. https://doi.org/10.1080/17405904.2021.1999286
Journal Article Type | Article |
---|---|
Acceptance Date | Oct 5, 2021 |
Online Publication Date | Nov 10, 2021 |
Publication Date | Nov 30, 2022 |
Deposit Date | Jan 8, 2022 |
Publicly Available Date | May 11, 2023 |
Journal | Critical Discourse Studies |
Print ISSN | 1740-5904 |
Electronic ISSN | 1740-5912 |
Publisher | Taylor & Francis (Routledge) |
Peer Reviewed | Peer Reviewed |
Volume | 19 |
Issue | 5 |
Pages | 556-572 |
DOI | https://doi.org/10.1080/17405904.2021.1999286 |
Public URL | https://uwe-repository.worktribe.com/output/8539121 |
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‘Free men we stand under the flag of our land’: a transitivity analysis of African anthems as discourses of resistance against colonialism
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Copyright Statement
This is an Accepted Manuscript version of the following article, accepted for publication in Critical Discourse Studies: Mwinlaaru, I. N., & Nartey, M. (2022). ‘Free men we stand under the flag of our land’: A transitivity analysis of African anthems as discourses of resistance against colonialism. Critical Discourse Studies, 19(5), 556-572. https://doi.org/10.1080/17405904.2021.1999286. It is deposited under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
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