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

Abstract

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