Interlingual Malapropism in a Bilingual Context: Insights from Icheoku and Masquerade

This paper investigates the linguistic defect of malapropism in two Nigerian media comedies, Icheoku and Masquerade . Using mainly qualitative content/textual analysis, the paper demonstrates that malapropism in a second-language bilingual context is a consequence not only of inadequate mastery of the vocabulary in a language (as in a monolingual’s malapropism) but also of interference from the subordinate bilingual’s first language or mother tongue with the target second language (and vice versa). In contrast with the classical pattern where lexical items in the same language are confused, in interlingual malapropism the confusion is between lexical items in two (and possibly more) languages which share some phonological affinity. The artistic element in this linguistic phenomenon as exemplified by the two series is also examined.  Thus, it is demonstrated that malapropism is a (socio-)linguistic problem that is satirized in fictional terms in the two works. The findings here complement and expand the classical notion of malapropism by taking cognisance of the incompetent bilingual in a multilingual setting. Keywords: malapropism, interlingual malapropism, perceptive malapropism, art, parody, Icheoku, Masquerade DOI: 10.7176/JLLL/65-04 Publication date: February 29 th 2020

ridiculous meaning in the context of utterance. The malapropism or confusion of phonologically contiguous but semantically distinct codes, then, is not on the part of the speaker or writer (as in the traditional notion), but that of the listener or reader who has perceived it wrongly as being in a word or phrase in another language which the speaker never spoke in the first instance.
Specifically, in perceptive malapropism, the unfitness or unsuitability of a word or expression becomes manifest not by one's use of the wrong word or expression but by one's interpretation of such word either through a wrong translation into another language or through a wrong physical or verbal response. In other words, the malapropriation arises from one's wrong perception or reception of the word at issue, where one misunderstands the term to be another with which there is some phonological affinity (but little or no semantic sameness). Perceptive malapropism may also arise among native speakers of a language, but it is particularly prominent among subordinate bilinguals whose mastery of their second language is significantly limited.
The situation is more complex when this perceptive malapropism is interlingual: where the subordinate bilingual "mishears" a word or utterance in the second language to be a word or utterance in the mother tongue (Igbo, in this case) as if the speaker (of English, in this case) had actually uttered the expression in the receiver's mother tongue.
The central proposition in this paper, then, is as follows: Icheoku and Masquerade are artistic demonstrations of the trend that in a second language context, malapropism is a consequence both of inadequate mastery of the lexico-semantic patterns of the second language and of interference from the indigenous mother tongue or first language.

Method
Icheoku and Masquerade are not in print (in their published forms). Icheoku is a television series produced by the Nigerian television Authority, NTA, most of the episodes by the Lagos national headquarters and a few by the Enugu national station. Therefore the texts are in the audio-visual medium (videocassettes). Masquerade is both a television and a radio series. Hence, it is in both the audio-visual and the audio media. The episodes in the audio medium -in long playing records and audiocassettes -have been chosen because this medium presents certain linguistic and paralingusitc features which are not manifest in the audio-visual (where the pictorial props reduces their prominence). The combination of the purely aural in Masquerade with the visual in Icheoku brings a fuller picture of the patterns and issues in second-language use. Relevant texts (of video episodes and audiocassettes) from each series have been faithfully transcribed for the analysis. For Icheoku the analysis in this paper is taken largely from the English sub-titles provided in the videotapes as much of the dialogue is in Igbo, one of the major languages in Nigeria whose environment constitutes the ethno-linguistic setting for the drama. Two bilingual dictionaries -Kay Williamson's Igbo-English Dictionary (1972) and H.I. Nnaji's Modern Igbo-English Dictionary (1985) have also aided the interpretations. An interview between Chief Chika Okpala, the man who has played the role of Chief Zebrudaya (Zebi) of Masquerade from the 1970's to date has helped in the interpretation of the sociolinguistic dimensions of the texts (Okpala, 1993). The researcher also resorted to Igbo native speakers as informants and resource persons as occasions demanded.
In subject matter, Icheoku and Masquerade are both comedies that satirize social issues. Icheoku deals with domestic and communal concerns in a typical traditional Igbo community during the colonial era. Each episode concentrates on some family squabble or social miscreant and the effort of the colonialists in the image of the District Officer (D.O) or District Commissioner (D.C) to dispense justice in a foreign terrain with the Court Clerk (C.C), who is severely handicapped in the D.O's language (English), as the interpreter from English to Igbo and vice-versa. 1 Masquerade deals with contemporary issues in Nigeria with each episode focusing on a specific malaise in politics, religion, social manners, marriage, etc. But the comedies are given a highly linguistic tinge: the works equally ridicule linguistic manners, in that they parody the trials, travails and triumphs of the English language and its users in second-language settings. Icheoku aptly captures the intriguing challenges that attended the use of English as a vehicle for communication between the English monolingual colonial masters and the African monolingual populace through the instrumentality of interpreters like the Court Clerk. This suggests the name Icheoku, meaning "Parrot," which is the emblem used in the programme. This relates to Kachru's "regulative" function of non-native "Englishes" (Kachru 1983: 41-42). On the other hand, Masquerade is an eloquent demonstration of Kachru's "interpersonal" function of non-native Englishes where the language functions as a vehicle of communication among the members of Africa's multilingual nations and states. 2 A word also needs to be said about the authorship of these texts. Although the scripts of the episodes are written by individuals, the authorship is normally ascribed to the body producing and presenting them since the text as performed normally involves much more than what is found on the script. Thus out of the many episodes of Icheoku studied, all those produced by the NTA Headquarters, Lagos, are written by Peter Eneh; two of the four produced by the NTA Enugu are written by Emeka Nwagwu while two have no script writer identified. Therefore, the authorship is ascribed to NTA Lagos and NTA Enugu respectively. Secondly, while all the episodes produced by the Lagos headquarters have titles, those produced by Enugu NTA have no titles. We cite the titles of those produced by NTA Lagos. For ease of reference to those by the NTA Enugu, the researcher suggests titles for them (enclosed in square brackets) based on the issues dealt with in them. For Masquerade all the texts are named. The LPs and audiocassettes are produced under two names to which the authorship is ascribed -James Iroha and the Masquerades, and Zebrudaya and His Concert Party.
On scholarship on such creative works adopting non-standard second language, Braj B. Kachru, while discussing the four functional aspects of non-native "Englishes", has lamented the lack of research into the "imaginative / innovative" function of "pidginized or 'broken' variety" (Kachru, 1983, p. 41). He adds that "this [creative] aspect of non-native English has unfortunately not attracted much attention from linguists, but has now been taken seriously by literary scholars." Ayo Banjo has specifically called attention to the English spoken by Chief Zebrudaya, especially in terms of "aesthetic considerations" (Banjo, 1979, p. 11). David Jowitt has also made reference to the language of Chief Zebrudaya (Jowitt, 1991, p. 37) in his discussion of varieties of "Nigerian English," noting it as "severely sub-standard English" (p. 51). While the language used by these two speakers may appear idiolectal (even idiosyncratic -for Zebi), it must be emphasized that they are sociolinguistic "types"; hence "the variety of English which is being parodied does exist outside the NTV 3 studios, and in many cases is the only variety its speakers are capable of" (Banjo, 1979, p. 11). However, lately the non-standard language used in Icheoku and Masquerade has received considerable academic attention (Teilanyo 2003a(Teilanyo , 2003b(Teilanyo , 2009(Teilanyo , 2010.
The method of analysis adopted in this study is essentially textual content analysis without the invocation of any particular theoretical linguistic framework. In the analysis, however, specific principles and concepts are invoked from specific aspects of linguistics and literary criticism to explain the issues that arise.

Result 3.1 A Typology of Malapropism
Malapropism can be either intralingual or interlingual. It is intralingual when there is confusion of lexical items or expressions in a single language. On the other hand in interlingual malapropism an individual confuses lexical items in two different languages, lexical items that share some phonological feature(s). For a monolingual -like Mrs. Malaprop -only intralinqual malapropism is to be expected since the individual has no knowledge of any other language from which to transfer linguistic habits, but interlingual malapropism (along with the intralingual) would obtain for the subordinate bilingual who has inadequate mastery of one of the languages he uses. Both intralingual and interlingual malapropism may each be expressive or perceptive (or receptive). In expressive intralingual malapropism (which is the classical type), the malaprop speaks or writes one word that phonologically resembles but is semantically different from the appropriate one. The manifestation of this in The Rivals, Masquerade and Icheoku has been studied elsewhere (Teilanyo, 2011). In perceptive intralingual malapropism -which is studied elsewhere (Teilanyo, 2003a) -the malaprop in his response to a speaker's utterance demonstrates that he has misunderstood the word that was spoken as being another with which it has phonological affinity but no semantic affinity. Intralingual malapropism can be found in both monolingual and bilingual/multilingual contexts. Interlingual malapropism and its sub-types obtains only in bilingual/multilingual situations and is a manifestation of linguistic interference. In expressive interlinlingual malapropism, the malaprop utters a word in one language resembling a word in another language although there is no semantic relationship between them. In perceptive interlingual malapropism, the malaprop "mis-perceives" a word uttered in one language as being a word in another language in his linguistic repertoire.
These patterns are presented schematically as follows: Malapropism There is a large quantity of each of these types of malapropism in Icheoku and Masquerade -expressive intraligual malapropism, perceptive intralingual malapropism and expressive interlingual malapropism and (perceptive) interlingual malapropism. 4 The first two types and their reflection in the two mass media comedies have been discussed elsewhere (Teilanyo, 2003a): Only a few samples of each type are given below: Expressive Intralingual Malapropism: 1. I would have her instructed in geometry, that she might know something about contagious countries -, … that she might reprehend the true meaning of what she is saying … I don't think there is a superstitious article in it. [geography, contiguous, comprehend, superior] (Sheridan, 1966, p. 127).
2. And we struggle all four corner of the world to confuse them to settle the matter with myself, not to go for court. 5  --NTA Icheoku "Bush"

Interlingual Malapropism in Icheoku
In this section we wish to consider those malapropisms in which there is a false type of code-mixing 6   [He says Odemena is killing you.] --NTA Icheoku "Son" In 6 the D.O simply says "Okay" (or "OK"), meaning "all right; satisfactory or in a satisfactory way" (Hornby, 2005); but the C.C decodes it wrongly to mean Oke which is a common Igbo abbreviation for the human name Okechukwu. Hence he (the C.C) starts calling out for the individual named Oke. In 7 he misconstrues the D.O's "adamant" for a lady Adanma, saying "D.O wants a damsel," consequent upon which a mother enthusiastically brings out her daughter named Adanma. So also in 8, "indemnify" is confused with the god Idemili and a lady Ify (that is, short for Ifeoma, Ifeyinwa, Ifeanyi, etc). The word "wool" in 9 is enough for the C.C to pronounce an innocent woman Nwula as being an accomplice in crime. In 10 "loan" becomes Lolo while in 11 the woman suffering from the disease "oedema" is told that she is being killed by an individual named Odemena.

Other Igbo Lexical Items
In the other set of interlingual malapropisms, it is a common concept or object in Igbo, rather than a proper name, that is deciphered wrongly by the C.C in place of an English lexical item used by the D O correctly explains later as meaning " from the beginning") is wrongly decoded as abu di n'isi ("pus for head") where abu is Igbo for "pus" and isi is "head". In 14 "brutality" is construed as "cut away the head of foofoo" because in some dialects of Igbo "to cut" or "kill" is buru or ogburu or bepu (Nnaji, 1985, p. 107) and bu is "to uproot" (Williamson, 1972, p. 73) while some dialects have foofoo (that is cassava meal or pounded yam) as utala. For 15 since "sand" is aja in Igbo (Nnaji, 1985, p. 281;Willliamson, 1972, p. 16), the C.C interprets the idea of a woman being "fragile" as implying that somebody "poured sand in their mouths." And in 16 -gies in "strategies" (as devised by the Nigerian government's National Directorate of Employment, N.D.E.) is wrongly considered as implying "yams" (ji in Igbo); hence "to redesign radical strategies to check unemployment" becomes "to give the youths pounded yam until they are employed." Of the two sub-types of interligual malapropism, the misapplication of Igbo proper nouns is more pardonable because the D.O might be calling some appellations of the Igbo natives. But the latter type is most outrageous since there is no evidence that the D.O understands a single ordinary word is Igbo. Furthermore, the incompetence of the C.C is most eloquent as he unable to relate the words in the utterance to one another, when in fact the meaning of an utterance emerges not just from the word alone but from its relationship with other words.
The analyses in the above sections establish the veracity of Alexander Pope's paradox that "a little learning is," indeed, "a dangerous thing". The C.C and Zebi have "little learning" of the English language, and the "shallow draughts" they have taken of the language "intoxicate the brain." They have tasted the "Pierian Spring" but have certainly not drunk "deep" (Pope, 1973, lines 215 -217). With their little learning they are not able to distinguish between minimal pairs; they are not able to know that phonological similarity does not mean semantic identity. While homonyms and polysems may result in ambiguity, one that has drunk deep from the Pierian Spring would be able to use contextual clues to disambiguate the utterances and save oneself from the topsy-turvydom that the C.C and Zebi have been subject to. The C.C can even be oblivious of the fact that the D.O would not be speaking any ordinary Igbo words as suggested above. Yet, because "shallow draughts intoxicate the [C.C's] brain" he does not consider it wise to readily admit his little learning. To him, he has to do some work or to be seen to be doing some interpretation. By implication, such malapropism is the lot of any bilinguals who would not take pains to "Drink deep" from the Pierian Spring of their L2. It is only "drinking largely" that "sobers us again" (Pope, 1973, line 218).

Discussion: The Art in Malapropism
In the above sections we have been looking at malapropism mainly as a linguistic and sociolinguistic issue. But Icheoku and Masquerade are works of art, in fact comedies, and undoubtedly the bulk of the humour derives Journal of Literature, Languages and Linguistics www.iiste.org ISSN 2422-8435 An International Peer-reviewed Journal Vol.65, 2020 37 from the malapropism displayed. Hence talking about Masquerade, Banjo (p. 1979, 11) rightly remarks that "a substantial part of the comedy in fact resides in the Chief's unmatchable use of English." This includes his malapropisms. Of course, the thrust of the comedy in Icheoku is the C.C's malapropist use and interpretation of English.
The crucial point is that the English featuring in both series is "a deliberate parody of a particular variety of English for artistic purposes … in many cases is the only variety that its speakers are capable of" (Banjo, 1979, 11). This means that the comedy series mimic a sociolinguistic reality, for "the variety of English which is being parodied does exist outside the NTV studios" (Banjo 1979, p. 11). In order to attain maximum humour, this linguistic reality is deliberately exaggerated, the artist often creating (false) pun. What is happening is that the difficulties and challenges posed by the English language to Nigerian (and other ESL) users is being put on stage so that we can laugh at ourselves and recognise the role and problems of the English language in the life of the Nigerian (and other Anglophone multilingual) society from the colonial times up to the present. Firstly, the language was needed to enable the colonial masters to interact with the natives as mediated by the C.C. From then English has become a "world language that history has forced down our throats" (Achebe, 1975, p. 59) to enable the multilingual peoples to communicate within the often artificial boundaries that they have been forced into by the colonialists -such as in Masquerade where the characters reflect the linguistic spread of the country. But there is the veiled criticism of the fact that the English language constituted as much a problem as, if not more a problem than, colonialism itself, going by the potentials of miscarriage and travesty of justice that must have taken place with the instrumentality of interpreters like our C.C.
But what is it that is done by the writers and producers of, specifically, Icheoku to ensure that these episodes -with the threat to justice posed by the malapropisms -still end up as comedies -with happy denouement? We observe a combination of plot manipulation and linguistic cushioning through what we may call the feedback device. Usually a malapropism causes a stir in the audience because of the oddity of the content that is interpreted. This stir necessitates the D.O doubting the felicity of the interpretation and compels the C.C to relate back what he (the C.C) had related to the people. The misinterpretation is discovered and corrected. To cite only one example (from intralingual perceptive malapropism), in ["Fraudster"]  While most impending crises springing from malapropisms are resolved in this way, there are a few cases that go unresolved. This is particularly so with interlingual malapropism. For example, in excerpt 9 above the audience would leave with the thought that Madam Nwula (ignorantly perceived in place of "wool") had been indicted of a crime. Indeed, she might be summoned to court to defend herself. Similarly in 10 above Madam Lolo (mistaken for "loan") keeps protesting until the end against the proposed use of her mortar as the C.C continually repeats that her mortar will be given to her only when the youths have returned from the train (the entrepreneurship training they will be engaged in to qualify for the loan). The following excerpts (cases of intralingual perceptive malapropism) give further credence to the dislocation of communication and justice arising from such malapropism: 18.
D.O. Tell Amajuoyi that I advise him to go to the hospital where he'll be treated; he'll be given chloroquine or treated with any other quine family… C.C. [You should go to the hospital where you see the queen's daughter called Caro-quine, who will cook dog meat for you. After the meal, you will be cured.] --NTA Icheoku "Sisi" 19.
D.O. The second skill you might call "Waste to Wealth," Under this scheme youths are taught how to use waste materials to create wealth. C.C. [This one called "Waste to Wealth" is the plan to teach boys and girls how to make money with their waists.] -NTA Icheoku "Sisi" 20.
D.O. The youths will be apprenticed to craftsmen and women in private and public institutions where they'll be taught the actual skills.
C.C. [These youths will become apprentices and sent to some small buildings where some tricky men and women will teach them how to be tricky.] --NTA Icheoku "Yehvoski" In 18 Amajuoyi will probably go to the hospital with the prospect of eating dog meat prepared by Caroquine ("chloroquine"), that is Caro ( short for "Caroline") who is the daughter of the queen ("quinine") in order to be cured of his fever. Again in 19 when the D.O says that youths would be "taught how to use waste materials to create wealth," the C.C confuses "waste" with its homonym "waist," saying that the plan would "teach boys and girls how to make money with their waists". This ludicrous misconception with the suggested immorality (sexual promiscuity) is left unresolved and the audience go home mumbling about this indecent proposal. So also in 20 the natives go away with the wrong impression that the "craftsmen and women" --misconceived as crafty men and women --will teach their youths how to be mischievous.

Conclusion
The above pages have discussed the concept of malapropism and the burlesque of this malaise in a second language context. Illustrations have been drawn from two Nigerian media comedies Icheoku and Masquerade. In all, it has been demonstrated that malapropism in a second-language bilingual context could be more complex than it would be in a monolingual (mother-tongue) context in that the confusion of words goes beyond poor mastery of the lexical items in the language being performed to include negative transfer of habits from the L1/MT to the L2 in phonology, lexis and semantics.
While the problems involved in such second-language malapropism may have been exaggerated for the purpose of artistically ridiculing the real-life defect, there would be little doubt that the observations would be useful in shedding more light on this global linguistic problem and extend the frontiers of the attempts to understand the challenges in second language acquisition and learning.