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Literature And Language Use Question Paper

Literature And Language Use

Course:Bachelor Of Education (Arts)

Institution: Jaramogi Oginga Odinga University Of Science And Technology question papers

Exam Year:2014

JARAMOGI OGINGA ODINGA UNIVERSITY OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
UNIVERSITY EXAMINATION 2013/2014
2ND YEAR 1ST SEMESTER EXAMINATION FOR THE DEGREE OF BACHELOR OF EDUCATION ARTS
WITH IT
[REGULAR]
COURSE CODE: ALI 201
COURSE TITLE: LITERATURE AND LANGUAGE USE
INSTRUCTIONS
1. This paper contains FIVE [5] questions
2. Answer question 1 [compulsory] and any other TWO [2] questions
3. Write all answers in the booklet provided

Q1. Using relevant examples, explain the following characteristics of human language
[30mks]

a) Language as symbolic systems
b) Adequacy
c) Capacity for growth
d) Historical change
e) Language as species specific
f) Duality of patterning

Q2. Drawing illustrations from any two literary texts, discuss the significance of any three facets of phonological structures to a literary writer [20mks].

Q3. Referring to Achebe Chinua, Obi Wali, Wole Soyinka, Cyrian Ekwensi and Ngugi Wa
Thiongo, examine the various critical standpoints inherent in writing in indigenous
African languages [20mks]

Q4. Drawing illustrations from Wahome Mutahi’s The Jailbug explain any five factors that affect the understanding of meaning [20mks]

Q5. Read the poem below and answer the question that follows:
Louis MacNeice

PRAYER BEFORE BIRTH
I am not yet born;O hear me
Let not the bloodsucking bat or the rat or the stoat or the club-
Footed ghoul come near me
I am not yet born; console me
I fear that the human race may with tall walls wall me,
With strong drugs dope me, with wise lies lureme,
On black racks rack me, in blood-baths roll me.
I am not yet born; provide me
With water to dandle me, grass to grow for me, trees to talk
To me, sky to sing to me, birds and a white light
In the back of my mind to guide me.
Iam not yet born; forgive me
For the sins that in me the world shall commit, my words
When they speak me, my thoughts when they think me,
My treason engendered by traitors beyond me,
My life when they murder by means of my
Hands,my death when they live me.
I am not yet born; rehearse me
In the parts I must play and the cues I must take when
Old men lecture me, bureaucrats hector me, mountains
Frown on me, lovers laugh at me, the white
Waves call me to folly and the desert calls
Me to doom and the beggar refuses
My gift and my children curse me.
I am not yet born; O hear me,
Let not the man who is beast or who thinks he is God
Come near me
I am not yet born; O fill me
With strength against those who would freeze my
Humanity, would dragoon me into a lethal automaton,
Would make me a cog in a machine a thing with
One face, a thing, and against all those
Who would dissipate my entirety, would
Blow me like thistledown hither and
Thither or hither in the
Like water held in the
Hands would spill me
Letthem not make me a stone and let them not spill me,
Otherwise kill me

Question: Write a critical appreciation of the quoted poem assessing its total impact
through the deliberate choice of linguistic items. [20mks]

Literature And Language Use Question Paper

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