1Íkala, Revista de Lenguaje y Cultura
Medellín, C oloMbia, V ol. 29 issue 1 (January-april, 2024), pp. 1-19, issn 0123-3432
www.udea.edu.co/ikala
Emmanuel Mensah Bonsu
Researcher, University of Cape
Coast, Ghana.
ebonsu@stu.ucc.edu.gh
https://orcid.
org/0000-0002-7867-8204
Samuel Kwesi Nkansah
Senior Lecturer, University of Cape
Coast, Ghana.
snkansah@ucc.edu.gh
https://orcid.
org/0000-0002-0181-4589
Abstract
The numerous literary explorations of Ayi Kwei Armah’s novels reveal his aes-
thetic creativity and relevance in addressing African and diasporic issues that have
contemporary relevance. Guided by two objectives, this corpus study set out to
analyse the narration and thematisation of Armah’s Fragments (1970) through
part-of-speech and semantic domain tags using Wmatrix. We compared Frag-
ments as a target corpus with two other novels by Armah. Results of the analysis
suggest that Armah alternates between homodiegetic narrative in character dia-
logues and monologues, which dominate the main heterodiegetic discourse
narration. He also provides a critical perspective on the immediacy of a historic
and instantaneous present by giving a specific past account that projects a possible
continuity of events in Ghana and Africa. Additionally, Armah discusses the geo-
graphic mobility of characters as a metaphor for a quest for a place of being and
identity. These findings illustrate the value of applying computational tools like
Wmatrix to examine African literary texts and provide a base for further studies.
Keywords: Ayi Kwei Armah, Fragments, narration, thematisation, Wmatrix
Resumen
Las numerosas exploraciones literarias de las novelas de Ayi Kwei Armah revelan
su creatividad estética y su pertinencia en el tratamiento de cuestiones africanas y
diaspóricas de relevancia actualmente. Con dos objetivos trazados, este estudio de
corpus se propuso analizar la narración y la tematización de Fragments (1970) de
Armah mediante etiquetas de campo semántico y parte del discurso utilizando
Wmatrix. Comparamos Fragments como corpus objetivo con otras dos novelas
de Armah. Los resultados del análisis indican que Armah alterna entre la narrativa
homodiegética en los diálogos y los monólogos de los personajes, los cuales domi-
nan la narración principal del discurso heterodiegético. El autor también aporta
una perspectiva crítica sobre la inmediatez de un presente histórico e instantáneo
Re-visioning Ayi Kwei Armah’s Fragments:
A Corpus Stylistic Analysis Using Wmatrix
Un replanteamiento de Fragments, de Ayi Kwei Armah: análisis estílístico
de corpus con Wmatrix
Repenser les Fragments d’Ayi Kwei Armah : analyse stylistique du corpus
avec Wmatrix
Repensando os Fragments de Ayi Kwei Armah: análise estilística de corpus
com Wmatrix
Received: 2023-02-14 / Accepted: 2023-10-31 / Published: 2024-01-31
https://doi.org/10.17533/udea.ikala.352656
Editor: Luanda Soares Sito, Universidad de Antioquia, Medellín, Colombia.
Copyright, Universidad de Antioquia, 2024. This is an open access article, distributed in compliance with the terms of the
Creative Commons license by-nc-sa 4.0 International.
Medellín, C oloMbia, V ol. 29 issue 1 (January-april, 2024), pp. 1-19, issn 0123-3432
www.udea.edu.co/ikala
Emmanuel Mensah Bonsu
Researcher, University of Cape
Coast, Ghana.
ebonsu@stu.ucc.edu.gh
https://orcid.
org/0000-0002-7867-8204
Samuel Kwesi Nkansah
Senior Lecturer, University of Cape
Coast, Ghana.
snkansah@ucc.edu.gh
https://orcid.
org/0000-0002-0181-4589
Abstract
The numerous literary explorations of Ayi Kwei Armah’s novels reveal his aes-
thetic creativity and relevance in addressing African and diasporic issues that have
contemporary relevance. Guided by two objectives, this corpus study set out to
analyse the narration and thematisation of Armah’s Fragments (1970) through
part-of-speech and semantic domain tags using Wmatrix. We compared Frag-
ments as a target corpus with two other novels by Armah. Results of the analysis
suggest that Armah alternates between homodiegetic narrative in character dia-
logues and monologues, which dominate the main heterodiegetic discourse
narration. He also provides a critical perspective on the immediacy of a historic
and instantaneous present by giving a specific past account that projects a possible
continuity of events in Ghana and Africa. Additionally, Armah discusses the geo-
graphic mobility of characters as a metaphor for a quest for a place of being and
identity. These findings illustrate the value of applying computational tools like
Wmatrix to examine African literary texts and provide a base for further studies.
Keywords: Ayi Kwei Armah, Fragments, narration, thematisation, Wmatrix
Resumen
Las numerosas exploraciones literarias de las novelas de Ayi Kwei Armah revelan
su creatividad estética y su pertinencia en el tratamiento de cuestiones africanas y
diaspóricas de relevancia actualmente. Con dos objetivos trazados, este estudio de
corpus se propuso analizar la narración y la tematización de Fragments (1970) de
Armah mediante etiquetas de campo semántico y parte del discurso utilizando
Wmatrix. Comparamos Fragments como corpus objetivo con otras dos novelas
de Armah. Los resultados del análisis indican que Armah alterna entre la narrativa
homodiegética en los diálogos y los monólogos de los personajes, los cuales domi-
nan la narración principal del discurso heterodiegético. El autor también aporta
una perspectiva crítica sobre la inmediatez de un presente histórico e instantáneo
Re-visioning Ayi Kwei Armah’s Fragments:
A Corpus Stylistic Analysis Using Wmatrix
Un replanteamiento de Fragments, de Ayi Kwei Armah: análisis estílístico
de corpus con Wmatrix
Repenser les Fragments d’Ayi Kwei Armah : analyse stylistique du corpus
avec Wmatrix
Repensando os Fragments de Ayi Kwei Armah: análise estilística de corpus
com Wmatrix
Received: 2023-02-14 / Accepted: 2023-10-31 / Published: 2024-01-31
https://doi.org/10.17533/udea.ikala.352656
Editor: Luanda Soares Sito, Universidad de Antioquia, Medellín, Colombia.
Copyright, Universidad de Antioquia, 2024. This is an open access article, distributed in compliance with the terms of the
Creative Commons license by-nc-sa 4.0 International.
2Íkala EmmanuEl mEnsah Bonsu and samuEl KwEsi nKansah
Medellín, C oloMbia, V ol. 29 issue 1 (January-april, 2024), pp. 1-19, issn 0123-3432
www.udea.edu.co/ikala
al ofrecer un relato específico del pasado que proyecta una posible continuidad
de los acontecimientos en Ghana y África. Además, Armah analiza la movilidad
geográfica de los personajes como metáfora de la búsqueda de un lugar del ser y de
la identidad. Estas conclusiones ilustran el valor de aplicar herramientas informá-
ticas como Wmatrix para examinar textos literarios africanos y proporcionan una
base para futuros estudios.
Palabras clave: Ayi Kwei Armah, Fragments, narración, tematización, Wmatrix
Résumé
Les nombreuses explorations littéraires des romans d’Ayi Kwei Armah révèlent sa
créativité esthétique et sa pertinence dans le traitement des questions africaines
et diasporiques d’actualité aujourd’hui. Guidée par deux objectifs, cette étude
de corpus a pour but d’analyser la narration et la thématisation du roman Frag-
ments (1970) d’Armah à l’aide d’étiquettes de parties de discours et de domaines
sémantiques en utilisant Wmatrix. Nous avons comparé Fragments comme le cor-
pus cible avec deux autres romans d’Armah. Les résultats de l’analyse suggèrent
qu’Armah alterne entre une narration homodiégétique dans les dialogues des
personnages et les monologues, qui dominent la narration discursive hétérodié-
gétique principale. Il offre également une perspective critique sur l’immédiateté
d’un présent historique et instantané en donnant un récit passé spécifique qui pro-
jette une continuité possible des événements au Ghana et en Afrique. En outre,
Armah aborde la mobilité géographique des personnages comme une métaphore
de la quête d’un lieu d’existence et d’une identité. Ces résultats illustrent la valeur de
l’application d’outils informatiques tels que Wmatrix pour examiner les textes lit-
téraires africains et fournissent une base pour des études plus approfondies.
Mots clef : Ayi Kwei Armah, Fragments, narration, thématisation, Wmatrix
Resumo
As inúmeras explorações literárias dos romances de Ayi Kwei Armah revelam sua
criatividade estética e sua relevância na abordagem de questões africanas e diaspó-
ricas que têm relevância hoje. Orientado por dois objetivos, este estudo de corpus
se propôs a analisar a narração e a tematização de Fragments (1970) de Armah por
meio de etiquetas de parte do discurso e de domínio semântico usando o Wma-
trix. Temos comparado Fragments como corpus alvo com dois outros romances
de Armah. Os resultados da análise sugerem que Armah alterna entre a narrativa
homodiegética nos diálogos e monólogos de personagens, que dominam a narra-
ção do discurso heterodiegético principal. Ele também oferece uma perspectiva
crítica sobre o imediatismo de um presente histórico e instantâneo, apresentando
um relato específico do passado que projeta uma possível continuidade de eventos
em Gana e na África. Além disso, Armah discute a mobilidade geográfica dos per-
sonagens como uma metáfora para a busca de um lugar de existência e identidade.
Essas descobertas ilustram o valor da aplicação de ferramentas computacionais
como a Wmatrix para examinar textos literários africanos e fornecem uma base
para estudos futuros.
Palavras chave: Ayi Kwei Armah, Fragments, narração, tematização, Wmatrix
Medellín, C oloMbia, V ol. 29 issue 1 (January-april, 2024), pp. 1-19, issn 0123-3432
www.udea.edu.co/ikala
al ofrecer un relato específico del pasado que proyecta una posible continuidad
de los acontecimientos en Ghana y África. Además, Armah analiza la movilidad
geográfica de los personajes como metáfora de la búsqueda de un lugar del ser y de
la identidad. Estas conclusiones ilustran el valor de aplicar herramientas informá-
ticas como Wmatrix para examinar textos literarios africanos y proporcionan una
base para futuros estudios.
Palabras clave: Ayi Kwei Armah, Fragments, narración, tematización, Wmatrix
Résumé
Les nombreuses explorations littéraires des romans d’Ayi Kwei Armah révèlent sa
créativité esthétique et sa pertinence dans le traitement des questions africaines
et diasporiques d’actualité aujourd’hui. Guidée par deux objectifs, cette étude
de corpus a pour but d’analyser la narration et la thématisation du roman Frag-
ments (1970) d’Armah à l’aide d’étiquettes de parties de discours et de domaines
sémantiques en utilisant Wmatrix. Nous avons comparé Fragments comme le cor-
pus cible avec deux autres romans d’Armah. Les résultats de l’analyse suggèrent
qu’Armah alterne entre une narration homodiégétique dans les dialogues des
personnages et les monologues, qui dominent la narration discursive hétérodié-
gétique principale. Il offre également une perspective critique sur l’immédiateté
d’un présent historique et instantané en donnant un récit passé spécifique qui pro-
jette une continuité possible des événements au Ghana et en Afrique. En outre,
Armah aborde la mobilité géographique des personnages comme une métaphore
de la quête d’un lieu d’existence et d’une identité. Ces résultats illustrent la valeur de
l’application d’outils informatiques tels que Wmatrix pour examiner les textes lit-
téraires africains et fournissent une base pour des études plus approfondies.
Mots clef : Ayi Kwei Armah, Fragments, narration, thématisation, Wmatrix
Resumo
As inúmeras explorações literárias dos romances de Ayi Kwei Armah revelam sua
criatividade estética e sua relevância na abordagem de questões africanas e diaspó-
ricas que têm relevância hoje. Orientado por dois objetivos, este estudo de corpus
se propôs a analisar a narração e a tematização de Fragments (1970) de Armah por
meio de etiquetas de parte do discurso e de domínio semântico usando o Wma-
trix. Temos comparado Fragments como corpus alvo com dois outros romances
de Armah. Os resultados da análise sugerem que Armah alterna entre a narrativa
homodiegética nos diálogos e monólogos de personagens, que dominam a narra-
ção do discurso heterodiegético principal. Ele também oferece uma perspectiva
crítica sobre o imediatismo de um presente histórico e instantâneo, apresentando
um relato específico do passado que projeta uma possível continuidade de eventos
em Gana e na África. Além disso, Armah discute a mobilidade geográfica dos per-
sonagens como uma metáfora para a busca de um lugar de existência e identidade.
Essas descobertas ilustram o valor da aplicação de ferramentas computacionais
como a Wmatrix para examinar textos literários africanos e fornecem uma base
para estudos futuros.
Palavras chave: Ayi Kwei Armah, Fragments, narração, tematização, Wmatrix
3Íkala R e - visioning A yi K wei ARmAh ’ s
FRAgments: A C oRpus stylistiC A nAlysis using wmAtRix
Medellín, ColoMbia, Vol. 29 issue 1 (January -april, 2024), pp. 1-19, issn 0123-3432
www.udea.edu.co/ikala
Introduction
The creative works of Ayi Kwei Armah address
critical issues in Ghana and Africa. His novels are
best known for their vivid language that informs
pan-Africanism as a metaphor through vision-
ary symbolism. His novels are The Beautyful
Ones Are Not Yet Born (1968), Fragments (1970),
Why Are We So Blest? (1972), Two Thousand
Seasons (1973), The Healers (1978), Osiris Rising
(1995), kmt: The House of Life (2002), and The
Resolutionaries (2013). The themes in the novels
transcend the spatio-cultural and epistemic limita-
tions associated with colonialism, as most African
novels feature. Armah’s novels break the tradition
of writing to recount periods in African history.
This earns his novels critical attention from liter-
ary critics and researchers.
Concerning previous studies on Armah’s works,
Wright (1990) reviewed almost all the novels of
Armah and accounted for the thematic and charac-
terisation issues inherent in the novels. He traced
lineages between the novels through themes.
Conversely, Lindfors (1996) analysed Armah’s
Osiris Rising as a literary genre that documents
Africa’s past, present, and future. Quite related
to the present study, Berry and Kumar (2021)
explored Fragments to reveal how returnees from
abroad face injustices that generally corrupt the
motto of Ghana. Also, Rao (1993) commented
that Ghanaian society and Africa at large are
fragmented in the absence of social justice and
credible ideology.
Other scholars have argued that the consumerism
and materialism in Fragments are effects of the
trans-Atlantic slave trade (Murphy, 2008). Several
studies have literarily examined Armah’s narra-
tive technique (Lazarus, 1982; Lorentzon, 1998),
materialism (Ayuk, 1984), nationalist ideologies
(Adeoti, 2005; Macheka, 2014; O’Connell, 2012;
Retief, 2009), and metaphor of worlds (Asaah &
Zou, 2022; Nama, 1988; Wright, 1985). Quite
recently, Mangwanda’s (2019) literary analysis
compared Armah’s Fragments and Two Thousand
Seasons to examine how the lexical items in the
novels mediate ideologies. He observed contra-
dictory and complementary ideologies in the
novels based on their lexical choices. The numer-
ous literary explorations of Ayi Kwei Armah’s
novels demonstrate his aesthetic creativity and rel-
evance in addressing African and diasporic issues
that have contemporary relevance. In this work, we
focus on Armah because, as a renowned African
novelist, he addresses the myriad identities and
predicaments of Africa, particularly Ghana. He
aims to create an agency of pan-Africanism that
embraces several cultures and languages in Africa.
This article aims to examine the novel possibilities
of corpus stylistics in analysing African litera-
ture, mainly prose fiction. This study is guided by
two main objectives: (a) to investigate the narration
through parts-of-speech (pos) in Fragments by Ayi
Kwei Armah; (b) to explore the dominant seman-
tic fields and themes in Fragments by Ayi Kwei
Armah.
The importance of the study lies on two main aspects.
First, this study makes a novel contribution by apply-
ing corpus stylistics techniques to examine African
fiction, an underexplored area in computational lit-
erary analysis. This provides a counternarrative to
Western-dominated texts in computational literary
analysis (Mahlberg & McIntyre, 2011; McIntyre
& Archer, 2010). A comprehensive search of
the literature reveals Moustafa (2022), Nkansah
(2021), and Nkansah and Bonsu (2022) as the
only studies that adopted corpus approaches to anal-
yse African fiction. While we acknowledge these
studies, they analysed only one novel without a com-
parative focus, except for Moustafa (2022), who
compared two novels.
In addition, the study adopts a novel corpus
stylistic approach using Wmatrix to analyse a post-
colonial African literary text. This addresses the
lack of computational analysis of African prose fic-
tion. The findings from this study can complement
existing qualitative scholarship on Armah’s liter-
ary texts (such as Adjei, 2019; Fenderson, 2008;
FRAgments: A C oRpus stylistiC A nAlysis using wmAtRix
Medellín, ColoMbia, Vol. 29 issue 1 (January -april, 2024), pp. 1-19, issn 0123-3432
www.udea.edu.co/ikala
Introduction
The creative works of Ayi Kwei Armah address
critical issues in Ghana and Africa. His novels are
best known for their vivid language that informs
pan-Africanism as a metaphor through vision-
ary symbolism. His novels are The Beautyful
Ones Are Not Yet Born (1968), Fragments (1970),
Why Are We So Blest? (1972), Two Thousand
Seasons (1973), The Healers (1978), Osiris Rising
(1995), kmt: The House of Life (2002), and The
Resolutionaries (2013). The themes in the novels
transcend the spatio-cultural and epistemic limita-
tions associated with colonialism, as most African
novels feature. Armah’s novels break the tradition
of writing to recount periods in African history.
This earns his novels critical attention from liter-
ary critics and researchers.
Concerning previous studies on Armah’s works,
Wright (1990) reviewed almost all the novels of
Armah and accounted for the thematic and charac-
terisation issues inherent in the novels. He traced
lineages between the novels through themes.
Conversely, Lindfors (1996) analysed Armah’s
Osiris Rising as a literary genre that documents
Africa’s past, present, and future. Quite related
to the present study, Berry and Kumar (2021)
explored Fragments to reveal how returnees from
abroad face injustices that generally corrupt the
motto of Ghana. Also, Rao (1993) commented
that Ghanaian society and Africa at large are
fragmented in the absence of social justice and
credible ideology.
Other scholars have argued that the consumerism
and materialism in Fragments are effects of the
trans-Atlantic slave trade (Murphy, 2008). Several
studies have literarily examined Armah’s narra-
tive technique (Lazarus, 1982; Lorentzon, 1998),
materialism (Ayuk, 1984), nationalist ideologies
(Adeoti, 2005; Macheka, 2014; O’Connell, 2012;
Retief, 2009), and metaphor of worlds (Asaah &
Zou, 2022; Nama, 1988; Wright, 1985). Quite
recently, Mangwanda’s (2019) literary analysis
compared Armah’s Fragments and Two Thousand
Seasons to examine how the lexical items in the
novels mediate ideologies. He observed contra-
dictory and complementary ideologies in the
novels based on their lexical choices. The numer-
ous literary explorations of Ayi Kwei Armah’s
novels demonstrate his aesthetic creativity and rel-
evance in addressing African and diasporic issues
that have contemporary relevance. In this work, we
focus on Armah because, as a renowned African
novelist, he addresses the myriad identities and
predicaments of Africa, particularly Ghana. He
aims to create an agency of pan-Africanism that
embraces several cultures and languages in Africa.
This article aims to examine the novel possibilities
of corpus stylistics in analysing African litera-
ture, mainly prose fiction. This study is guided by
two main objectives: (a) to investigate the narration
through parts-of-speech (pos) in Fragments by Ayi
Kwei Armah; (b) to explore the dominant seman-
tic fields and themes in Fragments by Ayi Kwei
Armah.
The importance of the study lies on two main aspects.
First, this study makes a novel contribution by apply-
ing corpus stylistics techniques to examine African
fiction, an underexplored area in computational lit-
erary analysis. This provides a counternarrative to
Western-dominated texts in computational literary
analysis (Mahlberg & McIntyre, 2011; McIntyre
& Archer, 2010). A comprehensive search of
the literature reveals Moustafa (2022), Nkansah
(2021), and Nkansah and Bonsu (2022) as the
only studies that adopted corpus approaches to anal-
yse African fiction. While we acknowledge these
studies, they analysed only one novel without a com-
parative focus, except for Moustafa (2022), who
compared two novels.
In addition, the study adopts a novel corpus
stylistic approach using Wmatrix to analyse a post-
colonial African literary text. This addresses the
lack of computational analysis of African prose fic-
tion. The findings from this study can complement
existing qualitative scholarship on Armah’s liter-
ary texts (such as Adjei, 2019; Fenderson, 2008;
4Íkala EmmanuEl mEnsah Bonsu and samuEl KwEsi nKansah
Medellín, C oloMbia, V ol. 29 issue 1 (January-april, 2024), pp. 1-19, issn 0123-3432
www.udea.edu.co/ikala
Iboroma, 2017; Kakraba, 2011; Wilson-Tagoe,
1999). That is, we demonstrate the value of using
computational tools like Wmatrix (Rayson, 2003,
2008) to gain new perspectives on analysing liter-
ary texts such as Fragments, paving the way for future
applications in this under-researched area (Fialho &
Zyngier, 2014; Mahlberg & McIntyre, 2011).
The following paragraphs provide a plot summary
of the text in focus, the theoretical framework, the
methodological procedures adopted in the study,
the analysis, and a discussion and conclusion.
Finally, they present the study’s limitations, impli-
cations for methodological practice, and further
research.
Plot Summary of the Target Text
Fragments is the second novel by Ayi Kwei Armah.
In Fragments, readers get to know the story of
Onipa Baako, the protagonist, who is a ‘been-to’,
a person who has been abroad for education. On
his return to Ghana, he becomes superstitiously
connected to the western lifestyle. There is a repro-
duction of modern cargo mentality through the
complexities of colonial dependencies. The novel’s
triple narrative structure generally depicts the per-
sonal experiences of Baako upon his return from
America as a learned scholar. The unfulfilled expec-
tations of not bringing home material possessions,
which his family expects from him, break him.
Baako’s refusal to accept the identity thrust upon
him by his family makes him a stranger among his
family, but his mother was looking at him as if what
she was staring at was something behind him.
The novel’s contemporary significance mirrors an
urbanised Africa craving materialism, commodities,
status, lofty sinecures, and Western technologies.
Baako bears witness to the eventualities around
him as a sign of the corrupt Ghanaian society. He
is hounded into madness by his inability to effect
change and live up to expectations. In his trials,
Baako relies on Juana, a Puerto Rican psychia-
trist, for both spiritual and sexual companionship.
Throughout the narrative, Baako is helped by Naana’s
ancient wisdom, which depicts the timeless frame
of historical fragmentation that informs all of
Baako’s endeavours. All aspects of the novel high-
light a near-complete destruction of whatever fails
to provide instant gratification or fulfilment to char-
acters (including Baako). Through Fragments,
Armah contrasts materialistic and idealistic moral
values, dreams and corruption, and a world of
integrity and social pressure.
Theoretical Framework
In this study, we synergise post-colonial and migra-
tion theories and use corpus stylistics to explore
the socio-cultural, economic, and psychological
impacts of migration and colonialism based on
linguistic patterns and lexical choices. Specifically,
we use the concepts of part of speech and seman-
tic field to provide complementary stylistic
interpretations.
Post-Colonial and Migration Theories
Together, these theories are broad and complex
frameworks that encompass a wide range of
literary works that explore the experiences of indi-
viduals in the face of colonial legacies that shape
contemporary socio-cultural realities through migra-
tory discourses (Lazarus, 2011; Mensah & Bonsu,
2022; Moore-Gilbert, 1997). In complementar-
ity, these theories examine the social, political,
and economic factors that contribute to migra-
tion as well as the cultural, psychological, and
emotional effects of migration and colonialism
on individuals and communities (Grosfoguel &
Cordero-Guzman, 1998; Shuval, 2000).
Migration is a central theme in many post-colo-
nial literary texts. Post-colonial literature often
focuses on the experiences of migrants and the
ways migration disrupts and challenges power
structures (Childs & Williams, 2014) while
exploring the ongoing effects of colonialism on
cultural identity and representation (Gandhi,
2020). Further, the concept of diaspora, com-
mon to these theories, is an important concept that
Medellín, C oloMbia, V ol. 29 issue 1 (January-april, 2024), pp. 1-19, issn 0123-3432
www.udea.edu.co/ikala
Iboroma, 2017; Kakraba, 2011; Wilson-Tagoe,
1999). That is, we demonstrate the value of using
computational tools like Wmatrix (Rayson, 2003,
2008) to gain new perspectives on analysing liter-
ary texts such as Fragments, paving the way for future
applications in this under-researched area (Fialho &
Zyngier, 2014; Mahlberg & McIntyre, 2011).
The following paragraphs provide a plot summary
of the text in focus, the theoretical framework, the
methodological procedures adopted in the study,
the analysis, and a discussion and conclusion.
Finally, they present the study’s limitations, impli-
cations for methodological practice, and further
research.
Plot Summary of the Target Text
Fragments is the second novel by Ayi Kwei Armah.
In Fragments, readers get to know the story of
Onipa Baako, the protagonist, who is a ‘been-to’,
a person who has been abroad for education. On
his return to Ghana, he becomes superstitiously
connected to the western lifestyle. There is a repro-
duction of modern cargo mentality through the
complexities of colonial dependencies. The novel’s
triple narrative structure generally depicts the per-
sonal experiences of Baako upon his return from
America as a learned scholar. The unfulfilled expec-
tations of not bringing home material possessions,
which his family expects from him, break him.
Baako’s refusal to accept the identity thrust upon
him by his family makes him a stranger among his
family, but his mother was looking at him as if what
she was staring at was something behind him.
The novel’s contemporary significance mirrors an
urbanised Africa craving materialism, commodities,
status, lofty sinecures, and Western technologies.
Baako bears witness to the eventualities around
him as a sign of the corrupt Ghanaian society. He
is hounded into madness by his inability to effect
change and live up to expectations. In his trials,
Baako relies on Juana, a Puerto Rican psychia-
trist, for both spiritual and sexual companionship.
Throughout the narrative, Baako is helped by Naana’s
ancient wisdom, which depicts the timeless frame
of historical fragmentation that informs all of
Baako’s endeavours. All aspects of the novel high-
light a near-complete destruction of whatever fails
to provide instant gratification or fulfilment to char-
acters (including Baako). Through Fragments,
Armah contrasts materialistic and idealistic moral
values, dreams and corruption, and a world of
integrity and social pressure.
Theoretical Framework
In this study, we synergise post-colonial and migra-
tion theories and use corpus stylistics to explore
the socio-cultural, economic, and psychological
impacts of migration and colonialism based on
linguistic patterns and lexical choices. Specifically,
we use the concepts of part of speech and seman-
tic field to provide complementary stylistic
interpretations.
Post-Colonial and Migration Theories
Together, these theories are broad and complex
frameworks that encompass a wide range of
literary works that explore the experiences of indi-
viduals in the face of colonial legacies that shape
contemporary socio-cultural realities through migra-
tory discourses (Lazarus, 2011; Mensah & Bonsu,
2022; Moore-Gilbert, 1997). In complementar-
ity, these theories examine the social, political,
and economic factors that contribute to migra-
tion as well as the cultural, psychological, and
emotional effects of migration and colonialism
on individuals and communities (Grosfoguel &
Cordero-Guzman, 1998; Shuval, 2000).
Migration is a central theme in many post-colo-
nial literary texts. Post-colonial literature often
focuses on the experiences of migrants and the
ways migration disrupts and challenges power
structures (Childs & Williams, 2014) while
exploring the ongoing effects of colonialism on
cultural identity and representation (Gandhi,
2020). Further, the concept of diaspora, com-
mon to these theories, is an important concept that
5Íkala R e - visioning A yi K wei ARmAh ’ s
FRAgments: A C oRpus stylistiC A nAlysis using wmAtRix
Medellín, ColoMbia, Vol. 29 issue 1 (January -april, 2024), pp. 1-19, issn 0123-3432
www.udea.edu.co/ikala
conditions a relationship between the synergised
frameworks. That is, ‘diaspora’ characterises fea-
tures such as a sense of displacement, longing, and
nostalgia, as well as the ability to adapt and create
new cultural forms in response to their experiences.
These features are common to post-colonialism and
migration. They reflect and represent a process of
dislocation and adaptation, tradition and moder-
nity, continuity, and change, as individuals and
communities negotiate their relationships with their
new environments while also maintaining connec-
tions to their homelands (Dagnino, 2013; Davies,
2016; Fernandez Melleda & Alonso Alonso,
2022; Jules-Rosette, 2015).
Fragments falls within this scope, where Baako tries
to negotiate his identity in a materialistic Ghanaian
society. Such interpretations condition the ‘cargo
mentality’ in Ghanaian society. Conclusively, the
synergy between post-colonialism and migration
theories, discussed within the frame of diaspora
in literary texts, provides a rich and diverse land-
scape for exploring the multifaceted experiences
of Baako as a migrant. Fragments is used as a target
text to offer insights into the social, cultural, and psy-
chological effects of migration on individuals and
communities and highlight the importance of under-
standing the complex factors that drive migration to
create more inclusive and equitable societies.
Corpus Stylistics Studies
Several studies have adopted corpus approaches to
explore literary texts. Such studies are stylistic and
are particularly characterised as corpus stylistics.
Stylistic analysis is a relatively comparative process
(Leech, 2013). Corpus stylistics reveals insights into
a text by focusing on linguistic patterns through
identification between quantitative and qualitative
analysis (Mahlberg & McIntyre, 2011). Leech and
Short (1981) proposed the need for quantitative
confirmation of style and other literary interpreta-
tions as concrete evidence. Corpus stylistics has the
potential to unravel crucial textual features that lit-
erary critics overlook (Stubbs, 2005).
Most corpus stylistic studies have focused on
a single text (Balossi, 2014, 2020; McIntyre &
Archer, 2010; Stubbs, 2005). For instance, Balossi
(2020) used Wmatrix to analyse key pronouns
in Conrad’s The Shadow Line. His investiga-
tion of narrative voices in the work revealed that
I-voice is central to the text and helped to iden-
tify other foregrounded pronouns. Previously,
Balossi (2014) tested the difference in characters’
language use in Virginia Wolf ’s The Waves using
parts of speech and semantic domains. Stubbs’s
(2005) analysis of lexicogrammatical patterns in
Conrad’s Heart of Darkness revealed the idiosyn-
cratic meaning of words. McIntyre and Archer
(2010) revised the traditional qualitative study of
a character’s mind style in novels using Wmatrix.
Culpeper (2009) explored the semantic catego-
ries of keywords and parts of speech concerning
characters in Romeo and Juliet. Mahlberg and
McIntyre (2011) explored keywords and key
semantic domains in Fleming’s Casino Royale
using the Wmatrix package (Rayson, 2008). They
divided the generated keywords into two groups:
fictional worlds and thematic concerns. These
groups were further divided into two categories:
text-centred and reader-centred. We draw such
inspiration from their study.
These studies provide empirical bases to juxtapose
the present study’s findings and expand the frames
of corpus stylistics. Most of these studies are intra-
textual; that is, they examine variation in the style
of individual authors (Hoover, 2017), while oth-
ers consider the stylistic properties of literary texts
in terms of educational significance (Damerau,
1975; McIntyre & Archer, 2010). These studies
focused on single novels rather than a comparative
perspective on two or more texts. Also, the studies
rely heavily on quantitative analysis of linguistic
features without supporting it with qualitative
analysis to fully interpret the thematic issues in
the texts. As such, in the present study, we com-
plement the corpus approach with qualitative
interpretation to reveal the nuances in the texts.
FRAgments: A C oRpus stylistiC A nAlysis using wmAtRix
Medellín, ColoMbia, Vol. 29 issue 1 (January -april, 2024), pp. 1-19, issn 0123-3432
www.udea.edu.co/ikala
conditions a relationship between the synergised
frameworks. That is, ‘diaspora’ characterises fea-
tures such as a sense of displacement, longing, and
nostalgia, as well as the ability to adapt and create
new cultural forms in response to their experiences.
These features are common to post-colonialism and
migration. They reflect and represent a process of
dislocation and adaptation, tradition and moder-
nity, continuity, and change, as individuals and
communities negotiate their relationships with their
new environments while also maintaining connec-
tions to their homelands (Dagnino, 2013; Davies,
2016; Fernandez Melleda & Alonso Alonso,
2022; Jules-Rosette, 2015).
Fragments falls within this scope, where Baako tries
to negotiate his identity in a materialistic Ghanaian
society. Such interpretations condition the ‘cargo
mentality’ in Ghanaian society. Conclusively, the
synergy between post-colonialism and migration
theories, discussed within the frame of diaspora
in literary texts, provides a rich and diverse land-
scape for exploring the multifaceted experiences
of Baako as a migrant. Fragments is used as a target
text to offer insights into the social, cultural, and psy-
chological effects of migration on individuals and
communities and highlight the importance of under-
standing the complex factors that drive migration to
create more inclusive and equitable societies.
Corpus Stylistics Studies
Several studies have adopted corpus approaches to
explore literary texts. Such studies are stylistic and
are particularly characterised as corpus stylistics.
Stylistic analysis is a relatively comparative process
(Leech, 2013). Corpus stylistics reveals insights into
a text by focusing on linguistic patterns through
identification between quantitative and qualitative
analysis (Mahlberg & McIntyre, 2011). Leech and
Short (1981) proposed the need for quantitative
confirmation of style and other literary interpreta-
tions as concrete evidence. Corpus stylistics has the
potential to unravel crucial textual features that lit-
erary critics overlook (Stubbs, 2005).
Most corpus stylistic studies have focused on
a single text (Balossi, 2014, 2020; McIntyre &
Archer, 2010; Stubbs, 2005). For instance, Balossi
(2020) used Wmatrix to analyse key pronouns
in Conrad’s The Shadow Line. His investiga-
tion of narrative voices in the work revealed that
I-voice is central to the text and helped to iden-
tify other foregrounded pronouns. Previously,
Balossi (2014) tested the difference in characters’
language use in Virginia Wolf ’s The Waves using
parts of speech and semantic domains. Stubbs’s
(2005) analysis of lexicogrammatical patterns in
Conrad’s Heart of Darkness revealed the idiosyn-
cratic meaning of words. McIntyre and Archer
(2010) revised the traditional qualitative study of
a character’s mind style in novels using Wmatrix.
Culpeper (2009) explored the semantic catego-
ries of keywords and parts of speech concerning
characters in Romeo and Juliet. Mahlberg and
McIntyre (2011) explored keywords and key
semantic domains in Fleming’s Casino Royale
using the Wmatrix package (Rayson, 2008). They
divided the generated keywords into two groups:
fictional worlds and thematic concerns. These
groups were further divided into two categories:
text-centred and reader-centred. We draw such
inspiration from their study.
These studies provide empirical bases to juxtapose
the present study’s findings and expand the frames
of corpus stylistics. Most of these studies are intra-
textual; that is, they examine variation in the style
of individual authors (Hoover, 2017), while oth-
ers consider the stylistic properties of literary texts
in terms of educational significance (Damerau,
1975; McIntyre & Archer, 2010). These studies
focused on single novels rather than a comparative
perspective on two or more texts. Also, the studies
rely heavily on quantitative analysis of linguistic
features without supporting it with qualitative
analysis to fully interpret the thematic issues in
the texts. As such, in the present study, we com-
plement the corpus approach with qualitative
interpretation to reveal the nuances in the texts.
6Íkala EmmanuEl mEnsah Bonsu and samuEl KwEsi nKansah
Medellín, C oloMbia, V ol. 29 issue 1 (January-april, 2024), pp. 1-19, issn 0123-3432
www.udea.edu.co/ikala
While most of the reviewed studies on corpus sty-
listics are outside the African context, Moustafa
(2022) compared Gordimer’s My Son’s Story and
Coetzee’s Disgrace through corpus stylistics, focus-
ing on themes and characters. He pointed out the
intersectionality of race and gender in the novels.
Nkansah and Bonsu (2022) examined the fore-
grounding of verbal processes in Adichie’s Zikora
using AntConc. They reported the deconstruction
of the myriad sufferings of women and found that
the foregrounded verbal processes created shared
character roles and attributed actions to characters.
Previously, Nkansah’s (2021) corpus analy-
sis of Armah’s The Beautyful Ones Are Not Yet
Born revealed that the total breakdown of soci-
ety through rot, decay, corruption, and bribery
rests on seemingly peripheral characters. The
review indicates the relevance of computer-aided
approaches in the study of literature from several
perspectives. While there are some contributions
from South Africa and Ghana, the link between
linguistic patterns and sociocultural themes needs
further exploration. This implies that corpus analy-
sis is yet to be widely adopted in African literary
criticism. No known studies have used Wmatrix
to analyse Ghanaian fiction. This, thus, adds to
the relevance of the present study.
The Concept of Part of Speech
and Semantic Field
Part of speech focuses on the categorisation of
words into their lexical and grammatical units.
For the lexical, we have nouns, adjectives, and
lexical verbs, while the grammatical units are pro-
nouns, conjunctions, determiners, and auxiliary
verbs. In terms of classification, one could distin-
guish between lexical and grammatical units with
the latter referring specifically to the fact that new
members are not readily accepted. Through the
web-based interface of Wmatrix, a part-of-speech
(pos) tag or grammatical word classification is
assigned to every word in running text at the first
stage of annotation with about 96-97% accuracy
(Leech, 2013), for example, “vvd” for past tense
of lexical verbs and “vm” for modal auxiliaries.
The semantic fields in Wmatrix use semi-hierarchical
structures where words or multi-word expressions
are classified based on lexical fields. In the seman-
tic process, Wmatrix assigns semantic tags to each
word or cluster of words using 21 major semantic
domains that expand into 232 categories (Rayson
et al., 2004). Through the categorisation, we iden-
tify more or less frequent themes in comparison
to a reference corpus. In this regard, it is possi-
ble to identify patterns and trends that might be
difficult to spot at the word level. The individual
words together form a key semantic group, which
points to the discussion of themes in the corpus.
According to Archer (2007), the semantic fields
are relevant for corpus stylistic studies because
they reveal recurrent themes. Complementarily,
the part of speech, which focuses on grammar,
feeds into the semantic field, which considers the
meaning of the words. As such, the part-of-speech
and semantic domain analyses give rise to analytical
categories for analysis.
Method
For this research, we compared the target text,
Fragments (fs), to a reference corpus (i.e., The
Beautyful Ones Are Not Yet Born (1968) [tboanyb]
and Two Thousand Seasons (1973) [tts]). We chose
these two texts as the reference corpus based on
availability (Balossi, 2020; Leech, 2013; Mahlberg,
2007). More importantly, the chosen texts share
key similarities in terms of genre, cultural or geo-
graphical setting, and thematic preoccupations
with the target novel, making them appropriate
reference samples despite the convenience-based
selection. Additionally, the three novels belong to
his “novels of formation” as a single genre. Also,
we chose Fragments as the target corpus because
it mediates between tboanyb and tts. That is,
while tboanyb was written before Fragments, tts
was written after it. Socio-culturally, Armah is an
outstanding Ghanaian novelist who has produced
phenomenal works addressed to socio-political and
historical milieus in Ghana (tboanyb and fs) and
Africa (tts) generally.
Medellín, C oloMbia, V ol. 29 issue 1 (January-april, 2024), pp. 1-19, issn 0123-3432
www.udea.edu.co/ikala
While most of the reviewed studies on corpus sty-
listics are outside the African context, Moustafa
(2022) compared Gordimer’s My Son’s Story and
Coetzee’s Disgrace through corpus stylistics, focus-
ing on themes and characters. He pointed out the
intersectionality of race and gender in the novels.
Nkansah and Bonsu (2022) examined the fore-
grounding of verbal processes in Adichie’s Zikora
using AntConc. They reported the deconstruction
of the myriad sufferings of women and found that
the foregrounded verbal processes created shared
character roles and attributed actions to characters.
Previously, Nkansah’s (2021) corpus analy-
sis of Armah’s The Beautyful Ones Are Not Yet
Born revealed that the total breakdown of soci-
ety through rot, decay, corruption, and bribery
rests on seemingly peripheral characters. The
review indicates the relevance of computer-aided
approaches in the study of literature from several
perspectives. While there are some contributions
from South Africa and Ghana, the link between
linguistic patterns and sociocultural themes needs
further exploration. This implies that corpus analy-
sis is yet to be widely adopted in African literary
criticism. No known studies have used Wmatrix
to analyse Ghanaian fiction. This, thus, adds to
the relevance of the present study.
The Concept of Part of Speech
and Semantic Field
Part of speech focuses on the categorisation of
words into their lexical and grammatical units.
For the lexical, we have nouns, adjectives, and
lexical verbs, while the grammatical units are pro-
nouns, conjunctions, determiners, and auxiliary
verbs. In terms of classification, one could distin-
guish between lexical and grammatical units with
the latter referring specifically to the fact that new
members are not readily accepted. Through the
web-based interface of Wmatrix, a part-of-speech
(pos) tag or grammatical word classification is
assigned to every word in running text at the first
stage of annotation with about 96-97% accuracy
(Leech, 2013), for example, “vvd” for past tense
of lexical verbs and “vm” for modal auxiliaries.
The semantic fields in Wmatrix use semi-hierarchical
structures where words or multi-word expressions
are classified based on lexical fields. In the seman-
tic process, Wmatrix assigns semantic tags to each
word or cluster of words using 21 major semantic
domains that expand into 232 categories (Rayson
et al., 2004). Through the categorisation, we iden-
tify more or less frequent themes in comparison
to a reference corpus. In this regard, it is possi-
ble to identify patterns and trends that might be
difficult to spot at the word level. The individual
words together form a key semantic group, which
points to the discussion of themes in the corpus.
According to Archer (2007), the semantic fields
are relevant for corpus stylistic studies because
they reveal recurrent themes. Complementarily,
the part of speech, which focuses on grammar,
feeds into the semantic field, which considers the
meaning of the words. As such, the part-of-speech
and semantic domain analyses give rise to analytical
categories for analysis.
Method
For this research, we compared the target text,
Fragments (fs), to a reference corpus (i.e., The
Beautyful Ones Are Not Yet Born (1968) [tboanyb]
and Two Thousand Seasons (1973) [tts]). We chose
these two texts as the reference corpus based on
availability (Balossi, 2020; Leech, 2013; Mahlberg,
2007). More importantly, the chosen texts share
key similarities in terms of genre, cultural or geo-
graphical setting, and thematic preoccupations
with the target novel, making them appropriate
reference samples despite the convenience-based
selection. Additionally, the three novels belong to
his “novels of formation” as a single genre. Also,
we chose Fragments as the target corpus because
it mediates between tboanyb and tts. That is,
while tboanyb was written before Fragments, tts
was written after it. Socio-culturally, Armah is an
outstanding Ghanaian novelist who has produced
phenomenal works addressed to socio-political and
historical milieus in Ghana (tboanyb and fs) and
Africa (tts) generally.
7Íkala R e - visioning A yi K wei ARmAh ’ s
FRAgments: A C oRpus stylistiC A nAlysis using wmAtRix
Medellín, ColoMbia, Vol. 29 issue 1 (January -april, 2024), pp. 1-19, issn 0123-3432
www.udea.edu.co/ikala
We used Wmatrix, a computer-mediated approach
for comparing bodies of texts, to characterise the
differences between the two corpora. Wmatrix
(https://ucrel-wmatrix5.lancaster.ac.uk/cgi-bin/
wmatrix5/show_dir.pl) is a web-based software
programme that automatically tags texts and
presents the distribution of such texts and their
semantic fields (related meanings). We uploaded
the corpora to Wmatrix and used the tag wizard,
which automatically annotated the corpora gram-
matically (pos) using Constituent Likelihood
Automatic Word-tagging System (claws) and
semantically (semantic tags, semtag) using
ucrel Semantic Analysis System (usas) anno-
tation tools. First, each pos tag was assigned to
lexemes or multi-word phrases (mwe) using a
probabilistic Markov model of the more likely
pos sequence. This stage achieves 97% accuracy.
Once completed, the output was fed into
semtag, which assigned tags based on pattern
matches between the text and computer diction-
aries developed for use in the programme. This
stage achieved 92% accuracy, which required
some manual reviews and revisions after an ini-
tial scan of the results. Although we adopted these
two procedures, the semantic domains were cru-
cial for the present study given their potential for
recurrent literary thematisation (Archer, 2007).
After downloading the digital forms (.pdf ) of
the texts, we converted the file to word docu-
ment format (.doc) for revision. We deleted the
title pages and forewords in the texts. We inserted
ankle brackets around the page numbers of the
texts and chapter numbers so that the program
would ignore those parts. After this, we converted
the texts to plain text formats (.txt), which are
machine-readable by Wmatrix. Although there
were some inconsistencies (such as wrong codes
for some words and the presence of numbers) in
processing the texts, they did not affect the analy-
sis of the data or its interpretation. Tables 1 and 2
present the word types and tokens of the selected
novels for the study.
The reference corpus had to be larger than the
target text to facilitate the key semantic and pos
analyses. We acknowledge that, while larger refer-
ence corpora are ideal, small specialised corpora
are still useful for focused literary analysis, which
could still reveal insights even if the corpora are
not enormous (Leech, 2013). Also, while the
small corpus allows for a specific and detailed
analysis, the computational methods support our
interpretation of the text. We determined the
keyness between the two corpora using statisti-
cal comparisons (Baker, 2014). Mahlberg and
McIntyre (2011) described the foregrounding
effects by comparing quantitative results with a
reference corpus. Two word-frequency lists, one
from the target corpus and one from the reference cor-
pus, were compared for a keyness analysis. We
measured keyness using loglikelihood (ll) rather
than relative frequency alone. By comparing the two
corpora, this statistical test establishes whether the
relative frequencies are significant.
We chose the key pos and semantic domains over
other approaches such as keyword analysis because
keyword analysis delivered more results than the
researchers could analyse (Berber, 1999). This
raises concerns about what is “key” among other
words. Also, while most low-frequency words that
may be significant may not be identified as key, key-
words only focus on lexical differences rather than
semantic and grammatical differences (Baker, 2004).
Finally, while there are several contentions about
the context of keyness in data, we agree with Scott
Table 1 Word Type and Token of Target Novel
Target Novel Word Types Tokens
Fragments 8430 80423
Table 2 Word Type and Token of Reference Novels
Reference Novels Word Types Tokens
The Beautyful Ones
Are Not Yet Born 5710 70411
Two Thousand
Seasons 7310 90420
Total 160831
FRAgments: A C oRpus stylistiC A nAlysis using wmAtRix
Medellín, ColoMbia, Vol. 29 issue 1 (January -april, 2024), pp. 1-19, issn 0123-3432
www.udea.edu.co/ikala
We used Wmatrix, a computer-mediated approach
for comparing bodies of texts, to characterise the
differences between the two corpora. Wmatrix
(https://ucrel-wmatrix5.lancaster.ac.uk/cgi-bin/
wmatrix5/show_dir.pl) is a web-based software
programme that automatically tags texts and
presents the distribution of such texts and their
semantic fields (related meanings). We uploaded
the corpora to Wmatrix and used the tag wizard,
which automatically annotated the corpora gram-
matically (pos) using Constituent Likelihood
Automatic Word-tagging System (claws) and
semantically (semantic tags, semtag) using
ucrel Semantic Analysis System (usas) anno-
tation tools. First, each pos tag was assigned to
lexemes or multi-word phrases (mwe) using a
probabilistic Markov model of the more likely
pos sequence. This stage achieves 97% accuracy.
Once completed, the output was fed into
semtag, which assigned tags based on pattern
matches between the text and computer diction-
aries developed for use in the programme. This
stage achieved 92% accuracy, which required
some manual reviews and revisions after an ini-
tial scan of the results. Although we adopted these
two procedures, the semantic domains were cru-
cial for the present study given their potential for
recurrent literary thematisation (Archer, 2007).
After downloading the digital forms (.pdf ) of
the texts, we converted the file to word docu-
ment format (.doc) for revision. We deleted the
title pages and forewords in the texts. We inserted
ankle brackets around the page numbers of the
texts and chapter numbers so that the program
would ignore those parts. After this, we converted
the texts to plain text formats (.txt), which are
machine-readable by Wmatrix. Although there
were some inconsistencies (such as wrong codes
for some words and the presence of numbers) in
processing the texts, they did not affect the analy-
sis of the data or its interpretation. Tables 1 and 2
present the word types and tokens of the selected
novels for the study.
The reference corpus had to be larger than the
target text to facilitate the key semantic and pos
analyses. We acknowledge that, while larger refer-
ence corpora are ideal, small specialised corpora
are still useful for focused literary analysis, which
could still reveal insights even if the corpora are
not enormous (Leech, 2013). Also, while the
small corpus allows for a specific and detailed
analysis, the computational methods support our
interpretation of the text. We determined the
keyness between the two corpora using statisti-
cal comparisons (Baker, 2014). Mahlberg and
McIntyre (2011) described the foregrounding
effects by comparing quantitative results with a
reference corpus. Two word-frequency lists, one
from the target corpus and one from the reference cor-
pus, were compared for a keyness analysis. We
measured keyness using loglikelihood (ll) rather
than relative frequency alone. By comparing the two
corpora, this statistical test establishes whether the
relative frequencies are significant.
We chose the key pos and semantic domains over
other approaches such as keyword analysis because
keyword analysis delivered more results than the
researchers could analyse (Berber, 1999). This
raises concerns about what is “key” among other
words. Also, while most low-frequency words that
may be significant may not be identified as key, key-
words only focus on lexical differences rather than
semantic and grammatical differences (Baker, 2004).
Finally, while there are several contentions about
the context of keyness in data, we agree with Scott
Table 1 Word Type and Token of Target Novel
Target Novel Word Types Tokens
Fragments 8430 80423
Table 2 Word Type and Token of Reference Novels
Reference Novels Word Types Tokens
The Beautyful Ones
Are Not Yet Born 5710 70411
Two Thousand
Seasons 7310 90420
Total 160831
8Íkala EmmanuEl mEnsah Bonsu and samuEl KwEsi nKansah
Medellín, C oloMbia, V ol. 29 issue 1 (January-april, 2024), pp. 1-19, issn 0123-3432
www.udea.edu.co/ikala
(2010) that the context of a keyword is a matter of
choice. To address these issues, we conducted key
pos and semantic analyses, resulting in the following
categories: (1) fewer keywords, thereby reducing the
number of categories a researcher has to consider;
and (2) grouping low-frequency words into groups
where possible, which does not appear by itself as a
keyword and thus may be ignored (Rayson, 2008).
Hu (2015) adopted similar procedures.
Analysis
We sorted the data with pos and usas tags. We
considered fifteen (15) pos tags and Semtags with
loglikelihood significance. Each of the seman-
tic fields had a loglikelihood statistical test (ll)
of +7 (ll ≥ +7), which meant that the tags were
statistically significant for the analysis. We used
loglikelihood, which is preferred to chi-square in
Wmatrix. This is because loglikelihood can indi-
cate which corpus is overusing a feature, while
chi-square just identifies a difference. Also, the
loglikelihood compares the observed and expected
frequencies, taking sample size into account. The
normal level for statistical significance is a 95%
confidence level (p<0.05) chi-square value, which
equates to an ll value of 3.8 or above. The recom-
mended ll value for a word or tag to be statistically
significant is above 6.63, as this is the cut-off point
representing 99% confidence in its significance.
We determined these following Rayson’s (2003)
cut-off value for a 99% confidence level. Tables 3
and 4 show the summary of the keyness of pos
tags and Semtags with their observed frequencies
in the target text and reference corpus (01 and 02,
respectively), overuse and underuse (%1 and %2)
relative to 01 and 02, respectively, sorted on ll.
Underuse refers to the use of a word or phrase
that occurs less frequently in the target than in the
comparison corpus, while overuse refers to the use
of words or phrases that occur more frequently in
the target than in the comparison corpus.
Results
In this section, we present the results of the analysis
of the text. First, we present the results for the key
parts-of-speech tags in Armah’s Fragments. The
second part focuses on the results for the domi-
nant key semantic domains in Armah’s Fragments.
Key Parts-of-Speech Tags in Armah’s Fragments
To achieve the first research objective, we analysed
the key pos tags, which reflect the various gram-
matical choices and expressions used in Fragments
as compared to tboanyb and tts. The tags are
arranged based on loglikelihood (ll) in descend-
ing order. The higher the ll value, the more
significant the difference between the target and
reference corpus. This is presented in Table 3.
The pos in the data indicates the different linguis-
tic levels operating in the text. The pos analysis
shows the overuse of specific patterns. We find that
Table 3 Top Fifteen pos Keyness Analysis
Item 01 %1 02 %2 LL
VV0 1385 2.27 1522 1.09 + 379.07
PPIS1 647 1.06 548 0.39 + 290.20
PPHS1 1516 2.49 2090 1.50 + 218.84
NP1 1136 1.86 1468 1.05 + 202.64
PPY 635 1.04 653 0.47 + 200.76
PPHO1 600 0.98 712 0.51 + 136.13
PPIO1 217 0.36 176 0.13 + 104.03
VVD 3121 5.12 5928 4.24 + 70.70
AT1 1639 2.69 2913 2.09 + 66.09
CC 1880 3.09 3427 2.45 + 62.15
VVG 1479 2.43 2690 1.93 + 49.80
RP 335 0.55 479 0.34 + 42.33
NN1 9105 14.94 19860 14.22 + 15.22
NNB 17 0.03 10 0.01 + 12.16
CCB 432 0.71 848 0.61 + 6.75
pos keys: VV0 (base form of lexical verb), PPIS1 (1st person
sing. subjective personal pronoun), PPHS1 (3rd person sing.
subjective personal pronoun), NP1 (singular proper noun),
PPY (2nd person personal pronoun), PPHO1 (3rd person sing.
objective personal pronoun), PPIO1 (1st person sing. objective
personal pronoun), VVD (past tense of lexical verb), AT1
(singular article), VVG (-ing participle of lexical verb), RP
(prepositional adverb, particle), NN1 (singular common
noun), NNB (preceding noun of title), and CCB (adversative
coordinating conjunction).
Medellín, C oloMbia, V ol. 29 issue 1 (January-april, 2024), pp. 1-19, issn 0123-3432
www.udea.edu.co/ikala
(2010) that the context of a keyword is a matter of
choice. To address these issues, we conducted key
pos and semantic analyses, resulting in the following
categories: (1) fewer keywords, thereby reducing the
number of categories a researcher has to consider;
and (2) grouping low-frequency words into groups
where possible, which does not appear by itself as a
keyword and thus may be ignored (Rayson, 2008).
Hu (2015) adopted similar procedures.
Analysis
We sorted the data with pos and usas tags. We
considered fifteen (15) pos tags and Semtags with
loglikelihood significance. Each of the seman-
tic fields had a loglikelihood statistical test (ll)
of +7 (ll ≥ +7), which meant that the tags were
statistically significant for the analysis. We used
loglikelihood, which is preferred to chi-square in
Wmatrix. This is because loglikelihood can indi-
cate which corpus is overusing a feature, while
chi-square just identifies a difference. Also, the
loglikelihood compares the observed and expected
frequencies, taking sample size into account. The
normal level for statistical significance is a 95%
confidence level (p<0.05) chi-square value, which
equates to an ll value of 3.8 or above. The recom-
mended ll value for a word or tag to be statistically
significant is above 6.63, as this is the cut-off point
representing 99% confidence in its significance.
We determined these following Rayson’s (2003)
cut-off value for a 99% confidence level. Tables 3
and 4 show the summary of the keyness of pos
tags and Semtags with their observed frequencies
in the target text and reference corpus (01 and 02,
respectively), overuse and underuse (%1 and %2)
relative to 01 and 02, respectively, sorted on ll.
Underuse refers to the use of a word or phrase
that occurs less frequently in the target than in the
comparison corpus, while overuse refers to the use
of words or phrases that occur more frequently in
the target than in the comparison corpus.
Results
In this section, we present the results of the analysis
of the text. First, we present the results for the key
parts-of-speech tags in Armah’s Fragments. The
second part focuses on the results for the domi-
nant key semantic domains in Armah’s Fragments.
Key Parts-of-Speech Tags in Armah’s Fragments
To achieve the first research objective, we analysed
the key pos tags, which reflect the various gram-
matical choices and expressions used in Fragments
as compared to tboanyb and tts. The tags are
arranged based on loglikelihood (ll) in descend-
ing order. The higher the ll value, the more
significant the difference between the target and
reference corpus. This is presented in Table 3.
The pos in the data indicates the different linguis-
tic levels operating in the text. The pos analysis
shows the overuse of specific patterns. We find that
Table 3 Top Fifteen pos Keyness Analysis
Item 01 %1 02 %2 LL
VV0 1385 2.27 1522 1.09 + 379.07
PPIS1 647 1.06 548 0.39 + 290.20
PPHS1 1516 2.49 2090 1.50 + 218.84
NP1 1136 1.86 1468 1.05 + 202.64
PPY 635 1.04 653 0.47 + 200.76
PPHO1 600 0.98 712 0.51 + 136.13
PPIO1 217 0.36 176 0.13 + 104.03
VVD 3121 5.12 5928 4.24 + 70.70
AT1 1639 2.69 2913 2.09 + 66.09
CC 1880 3.09 3427 2.45 + 62.15
VVG 1479 2.43 2690 1.93 + 49.80
RP 335 0.55 479 0.34 + 42.33
NN1 9105 14.94 19860 14.22 + 15.22
NNB 17 0.03 10 0.01 + 12.16
CCB 432 0.71 848 0.61 + 6.75
pos keys: VV0 (base form of lexical verb), PPIS1 (1st person
sing. subjective personal pronoun), PPHS1 (3rd person sing.
subjective personal pronoun), NP1 (singular proper noun),
PPY (2nd person personal pronoun), PPHO1 (3rd person sing.
objective personal pronoun), PPIO1 (1st person sing. objective
personal pronoun), VVD (past tense of lexical verb), AT1
(singular article), VVG (-ing participle of lexical verb), RP
(prepositional adverb, particle), NN1 (singular common
noun), NNB (preceding noun of title), and CCB (adversative
coordinating conjunction).
9Íkala R e - visioning A yi K wei ARmAh ’ s
FRAgments: A C oRpus stylistiC A nAlysis using wmAtRix
Medellín, ColoMbia, Vol. 29 issue 1 (January -april, 2024), pp. 1-19, issn 0123-3432
www.udea.edu.co/ikala
pronoun) with a ll of 200.76, and ppho1 (3rd
person sing. objective personal pronoun) with a
ll of 136.13 (see Figure 2). This highlights the
psychological processes that followed Baako’s
experiences and near-madness upon his return.
We find it essential to distinguish between
I-pronouns referring to the protagonist and those
referring to other characters speaking directly. We
have provided instances in Extracts 1 and 2.
(1) But I remembered how perfect the words had
been for his departure and his protection, and I was
happy inside myself that I had taken the drink from
Foli and given the ancestors their need. (16)
(2) I don’t see what else I could have done. I have my
certificates, and if they want to test me… (68)
Extract (1) presents a first-person reference from
Naana, Baako’s grandmother, whose narration
begins the novel. Extract (2) is another from
Baako. We distinguish between the first-per-
son pronouns of Naana and Baako based on the
use of historic past tense forms in Naana’s nar-
ration as opposed to the base and present tense
forms in Baako’s narration. This reiterates the
occurrence of vv0 and vvd in the corpus analy-
sis. On this note, the novel focuses on the central
character, Baako. A brief etymology of the name
“Baako” means “one” which is evidenced in the
“I” (oneness) of the narration through the base
form of lexical verbs. Although this provides an
Figure 1 kiic Context of the Base Form of Lexical Verbs
Figure 2 kiic Context of 1st Person Singular Subjective Personal Pronoun
the base form of lexical verbs has a higher ll score of
379.07. This result reveals the observed features of
literary analysis, which contributed to foreground-
ing this pattern even more. To deepen the essence
of verbs in the target text, past tense and -ing parti-
ciple forms of lexical verbs were also identified with
loglikelihoods of 70.70 and 49.80, respectively.
What appears to be central in Armah’s Fragments
is his use of lexical verbs and their meaning. The
quantitative analysis shows the pervasiveness of
lexical verbs and their forms in the novel. Figure 1
provides a concordance instance of vv0.
When compared to the reference corpus, the lex-
ical verbs (vv0, vvd, and vvg) in the target text
take up more space than they do in the refer-
ence corpus. This is because Armah captures the
immediacy of a historic and instantaneous pres-
ent (vv0) by giving a specific account of the past
(vvd) to project a possible continuity of events
(vvg) in Africa. Leech (2013) reported similar
findings where the s-form of lexical verbs vvz, as
well as vv0 and “is” (vbz), was key. In this regard, we
anticipate a possible semantic domain in the sec-
ond portion of the analysis.
Another striking feature is the dominant use of
pronouns such as ppis1 (1st person sing. subjec-
tive personal pronoun) with a ll of 290.20, pphs1
(3rd person sing. subjective personal pronoun)
with a ll of 218.84, ppy (2nd person personal
FRAgments: A C oRpus stylistiC A nAlysis using wmAtRix
Medellín, ColoMbia, Vol. 29 issue 1 (January -april, 2024), pp. 1-19, issn 0123-3432
www.udea.edu.co/ikala
pronoun) with a ll of 200.76, and ppho1 (3rd
person sing. objective personal pronoun) with a
ll of 136.13 (see Figure 2). This highlights the
psychological processes that followed Baako’s
experiences and near-madness upon his return.
We find it essential to distinguish between
I-pronouns referring to the protagonist and those
referring to other characters speaking directly. We
have provided instances in Extracts 1 and 2.
(1) But I remembered how perfect the words had
been for his departure and his protection, and I was
happy inside myself that I had taken the drink from
Foli and given the ancestors their need. (16)
(2) I don’t see what else I could have done. I have my
certificates, and if they want to test me… (68)
Extract (1) presents a first-person reference from
Naana, Baako’s grandmother, whose narration
begins the novel. Extract (2) is another from
Baako. We distinguish between the first-per-
son pronouns of Naana and Baako based on the
use of historic past tense forms in Naana’s nar-
ration as opposed to the base and present tense
forms in Baako’s narration. This reiterates the
occurrence of vv0 and vvd in the corpus analy-
sis. On this note, the novel focuses on the central
character, Baako. A brief etymology of the name
“Baako” means “one” which is evidenced in the
“I” (oneness) of the narration through the base
form of lexical verbs. Although this provides an
Figure 1 kiic Context of the Base Form of Lexical Verbs
Figure 2 kiic Context of 1st Person Singular Subjective Personal Pronoun
the base form of lexical verbs has a higher ll score of
379.07. This result reveals the observed features of
literary analysis, which contributed to foreground-
ing this pattern even more. To deepen the essence
of verbs in the target text, past tense and -ing parti-
ciple forms of lexical verbs were also identified with
loglikelihoods of 70.70 and 49.80, respectively.
What appears to be central in Armah’s Fragments
is his use of lexical verbs and their meaning. The
quantitative analysis shows the pervasiveness of
lexical verbs and their forms in the novel. Figure 1
provides a concordance instance of vv0.
When compared to the reference corpus, the lex-
ical verbs (vv0, vvd, and vvg) in the target text
take up more space than they do in the refer-
ence corpus. This is because Armah captures the
immediacy of a historic and instantaneous pres-
ent (vv0) by giving a specific account of the past
(vvd) to project a possible continuity of events
(vvg) in Africa. Leech (2013) reported similar
findings where the s-form of lexical verbs vvz, as
well as vv0 and “is” (vbz), was key. In this regard, we
anticipate a possible semantic domain in the sec-
ond portion of the analysis.
Another striking feature is the dominant use of
pronouns such as ppis1 (1st person sing. subjec-
tive personal pronoun) with a ll of 290.20, pphs1
(3rd person sing. subjective personal pronoun)
with a ll of 218.84, ppy (2nd person personal
10Íkala EmmanuEl mEnsah Bonsu and samuEl KwEsi nKansah
Medellín, C oloMbia, V ol. 29 issue 1 (January-april, 2024), pp. 1-19, issn 0123-3432
www.udea.edu.co/ikala
authority of experience in Fragments, it raises crit-
ical concerns about who owns the narrative. The
quantitative analysis provides a stronger valida-
tion of the 1st-person singular subjective personal
pronoun. This contrasts with the first-person plu-
ral, “we” narrative style used in tts. In tts, the
first chapter opens with a bold statement from a
plural perspective: “We are not a people of yes-
terday” (1). In tts, the narrator establishes the
authority to speak on behalf of this collective, and
there is also a “they” who does not understand the
“we”. This is opposed to the homodiegetic experi-
ences of individual characters in Fragments, which
signifies the alienation of an individual from soci-
ety (Ampofo et al, 2020).
Also, the frequency of occurrence of ppio1 (1st
person sing. objective personal pronoun [me])
supports the results. This shows one aspect of
the triad narrative form of the novel, where Baako
becomes the first-person experiencer, as opposed to
Naana, the third-person narrator. A concordance
search of pphs1 confirms the third-person (see
Figure 3). We argue that the third-person narration
is dominant in tboanyb. However, the context of
the I-pronoun indicates its stylistic implications.
The overrepresented narrative of the I-pattern is
strengthened through the keyness analysis between
Fragments and the reference corpus. Observing the
pos tags, we find that ppho1 has a lower frequency
compared to the other forms.
From Figure 3, the mention of Baako in Line 19
of the concordance reflects that the higher fre-
quency of “he” compared to “she” and “it” in the
text relates mostly to Onipa Baako. Given that
the novel revolves around Baako, the higher fre-
quency of “he” is appreciable and expected. This
hints at a narrative centred around an inter-
nal self-referential I-voice (ppis1) with a strong
focus on the external referential “he”, mostly used
by Naana, which reflects Baako. From the con-
cordances provided, the he-pronoun that is used
by other narrators, such as Naana, usually refers
to the I-protagonist, Baako. There is a notable
underuse of plural pronouns in the text. This
marked underuse is a stylistically salient pattern.
Another pos tag that requires attention is ppy (2nd
person personal pronoun). In its stylistic use within
the context of Fragments, it addresses and positions
the reader as the writer, with a clear implication
that functions identically. Some examples include
Where you are going, go softly (5), How did you forget,
then? (12), and You can wait here for me (52). The
frequency of ppys in the novel constitutes deliber-
ate stylistic mannerisms that carry critical intent,
as explained. Additionally, the frequent use of “I”
Figure 3 kiic Context of ‘He’ in 3rd Person Sing. Subjective Personal Pronoun
Medellín, C oloMbia, V ol. 29 issue 1 (January-april, 2024), pp. 1-19, issn 0123-3432
www.udea.edu.co/ikala
authority of experience in Fragments, it raises crit-
ical concerns about who owns the narrative. The
quantitative analysis provides a stronger valida-
tion of the 1st-person singular subjective personal
pronoun. This contrasts with the first-person plu-
ral, “we” narrative style used in tts. In tts, the
first chapter opens with a bold statement from a
plural perspective: “We are not a people of yes-
terday” (1). In tts, the narrator establishes the
authority to speak on behalf of this collective, and
there is also a “they” who does not understand the
“we”. This is opposed to the homodiegetic experi-
ences of individual characters in Fragments, which
signifies the alienation of an individual from soci-
ety (Ampofo et al, 2020).
Also, the frequency of occurrence of ppio1 (1st
person sing. objective personal pronoun [me])
supports the results. This shows one aspect of
the triad narrative form of the novel, where Baako
becomes the first-person experiencer, as opposed to
Naana, the third-person narrator. A concordance
search of pphs1 confirms the third-person (see
Figure 3). We argue that the third-person narration
is dominant in tboanyb. However, the context of
the I-pronoun indicates its stylistic implications.
The overrepresented narrative of the I-pattern is
strengthened through the keyness analysis between
Fragments and the reference corpus. Observing the
pos tags, we find that ppho1 has a lower frequency
compared to the other forms.
From Figure 3, the mention of Baako in Line 19
of the concordance reflects that the higher fre-
quency of “he” compared to “she” and “it” in the
text relates mostly to Onipa Baako. Given that
the novel revolves around Baako, the higher fre-
quency of “he” is appreciable and expected. This
hints at a narrative centred around an inter-
nal self-referential I-voice (ppis1) with a strong
focus on the external referential “he”, mostly used
by Naana, which reflects Baako. From the con-
cordances provided, the he-pronoun that is used
by other narrators, such as Naana, usually refers
to the I-protagonist, Baako. There is a notable
underuse of plural pronouns in the text. This
marked underuse is a stylistically salient pattern.
Another pos tag that requires attention is ppy (2nd
person personal pronoun). In its stylistic use within
the context of Fragments, it addresses and positions
the reader as the writer, with a clear implication
that functions identically. Some examples include
Where you are going, go softly (5), How did you forget,
then? (12), and You can wait here for me (52). The
frequency of ppys in the novel constitutes deliber-
ate stylistic mannerisms that carry critical intent,
as explained. Additionally, the frequent use of “I”
Figure 3 kiic Context of ‘He’ in 3rd Person Sing. Subjective Personal Pronoun
11Íkala R e - visioning A yi K wei ARmAh ’ s
FRAgments: A C oRpus stylistiC A nAlysis using wmAtRix
Medellín, ColoMbia, Vol. 29 issue 1 (January -april, 2024), pp. 1-19, issn 0123-3432
www.udea.edu.co/ikala
and “you” is an attempt to avoid self-reference and
excessive egotism in the text. An attempt to embed
ppis1 and ppy would generalise the narrative situ-
ation and constitute a maxim of behaviour guiding
the reader to prepare for such events. This is viable
given the contemporaneity of “been to” and “cargo
mentality” among Ghanaians. The effect of unmet
expectations makes such experiences dishearten-
ing. The next portion of the analysis focuses on the
semantic domains in the target text.
Dominant Key Semantic Domains
in Armah’s Fragments
The key semantic domains show the “aboutness” of
the text rather than conventional stylistic charac-
teristics. The semantic domains are categorised and
interpreted to unravel thematic issues in Fragments.
The key semantic domains in Fragments are sorted
based on ll (see Table 4).
Readers of Armah’s novels would understand and agree
that features such as M3, Z2, M5, H3, and M1 have
a “key” role in Armah’s novels. He typifies the sig-
nificance of geography and movement (migration)
generally for metaphorical implications. Comparing
the target text with the reference corpus, some
semantic tag areas show strikingly high loglike-
lihoods. For instance, “vehicles and transport on
land” (such as cars, lorry, road, vehicles, and drivers),
“geographical names” (such as Accra, Jamestown,
America, Paris, Britain, Africa, and Ghana), “fly-
ing and aircraft” (such as airplane, airliner, airfield,
plane, and flying), “areas around or near houses”
(such as side-street, alley, and yard), and “moving
coming and going” (such as moving, journeys, gone,
left, return, travelling, and departure) are catego-
rised from a spatio-temporal perspective, which
relates to the theme of migration in the target text.
The geographical names (Z2) reflect the various
settings of the narrative. For instance, geographies
such as Accra, Jamestown, Africa, and Ghana inter-
act with Western and European geographies such
as America, Paris, and Britain. Figure 4 illustrates
the concordance for M3, which is the most over-
used semantic domain in the text.
The semantic domains (M3, M5, H3, and M1)
reflect movement, implying migration. For instance,
M3 and H3 signify intra-migration, while M5
and M1 reflect inter-migration. We find an asso-
ciation between migration, “been to”, and “cargo
mentality”. The theme of migration has been
explored minimally in Armah’s novels, such as tts
(Dieng, 2018; Guendouzi, 2017) and Osiris
Rising (Ozoh, 2018), and only once in Fragments
(Opoku-Agyemang, 2013) in a meeting paper.
This elusive theme revealed through the analysis
requires critical attention.
Although more abstract semantic domains such as
B3 (examples are clinic, hospital, nurses, and healer)
are challenging to interpret, they arguably mirror
Armah’s exploration of practical reality and pro-
vide remedies for purification and healing from
corruption, familial antagonism, materialism,
and psychological traumas. That aside, “speech:
Table 4 Top Fifteen usas Keyness Analysis
Item 01 %1 02 %2 LL
M3 446 0.73 595 0.43 + 71.94
B3 101 0.17 71 0.05 + 58.91
Z2 152 0.25 145 0.10 + 55.65
E4.1+ 301 0.49 403 0.29 + 47.99
Z3 137 0.22 136 0.10 + 46.50
Q1.2 136 0.22 143 0.10 + 41.04
M5 64 0.11 49 0.04 + 33.34
H3 40 0.07 23 0.02 + 29.28
B5 218 0.36 313 0.22 + 27.11
M1 1451 2.38 2871 2.06 + 20.48
Q2.1 701 1.15 1326 0.95 + 16.55
Y2 14 0.02 6 0.00 + 13.27
Q4.3 24 0.04 21 0.02 + 10.22
Z8 7709 12.65 16933 12.12 + 9.53
A5.1- 57 0.09 78 0.06 + 8.44
usas tag keys: M3 (Vehicles and transport on land), B3
(Medicines and medical treatment), Z2 (Geographical
names), E4.1+ (Happy), Z3 (Other proper names), Q1.2
(Paper documents and writing), M5 (Flying and aircraft),
H3 (Areas around or near houses), B5 (Clothes and
personal belongings), M1 (Moving coming and going), Q2.1
(Speech: Communicative), Y2 (Information technology and
computing), Q4.3 (The Media: TV, Radio and Cinema), Z8
(Pronouns), and A5.1- (Evaluation: Bad).
FRAgments: A C oRpus stylistiC A nAlysis using wmAtRix
Medellín, ColoMbia, Vol. 29 issue 1 (January -april, 2024), pp. 1-19, issn 0123-3432
www.udea.edu.co/ikala
and “you” is an attempt to avoid self-reference and
excessive egotism in the text. An attempt to embed
ppis1 and ppy would generalise the narrative situ-
ation and constitute a maxim of behaviour guiding
the reader to prepare for such events. This is viable
given the contemporaneity of “been to” and “cargo
mentality” among Ghanaians. The effect of unmet
expectations makes such experiences dishearten-
ing. The next portion of the analysis focuses on the
semantic domains in the target text.
Dominant Key Semantic Domains
in Armah’s Fragments
The key semantic domains show the “aboutness” of
the text rather than conventional stylistic charac-
teristics. The semantic domains are categorised and
interpreted to unravel thematic issues in Fragments.
The key semantic domains in Fragments are sorted
based on ll (see Table 4).
Readers of Armah’s novels would understand and agree
that features such as M3, Z2, M5, H3, and M1 have
a “key” role in Armah’s novels. He typifies the sig-
nificance of geography and movement (migration)
generally for metaphorical implications. Comparing
the target text with the reference corpus, some
semantic tag areas show strikingly high loglike-
lihoods. For instance, “vehicles and transport on
land” (such as cars, lorry, road, vehicles, and drivers),
“geographical names” (such as Accra, Jamestown,
America, Paris, Britain, Africa, and Ghana), “fly-
ing and aircraft” (such as airplane, airliner, airfield,
plane, and flying), “areas around or near houses”
(such as side-street, alley, and yard), and “moving
coming and going” (such as moving, journeys, gone,
left, return, travelling, and departure) are catego-
rised from a spatio-temporal perspective, which
relates to the theme of migration in the target text.
The geographical names (Z2) reflect the various
settings of the narrative. For instance, geographies
such as Accra, Jamestown, Africa, and Ghana inter-
act with Western and European geographies such
as America, Paris, and Britain. Figure 4 illustrates
the concordance for M3, which is the most over-
used semantic domain in the text.
The semantic domains (M3, M5, H3, and M1)
reflect movement, implying migration. For instance,
M3 and H3 signify intra-migration, while M5
and M1 reflect inter-migration. We find an asso-
ciation between migration, “been to”, and “cargo
mentality”. The theme of migration has been
explored minimally in Armah’s novels, such as tts
(Dieng, 2018; Guendouzi, 2017) and Osiris
Rising (Ozoh, 2018), and only once in Fragments
(Opoku-Agyemang, 2013) in a meeting paper.
This elusive theme revealed through the analysis
requires critical attention.
Although more abstract semantic domains such as
B3 (examples are clinic, hospital, nurses, and healer)
are challenging to interpret, they arguably mirror
Armah’s exploration of practical reality and pro-
vide remedies for purification and healing from
corruption, familial antagonism, materialism,
and psychological traumas. That aside, “speech:
Table 4 Top Fifteen usas Keyness Analysis
Item 01 %1 02 %2 LL
M3 446 0.73 595 0.43 + 71.94
B3 101 0.17 71 0.05 + 58.91
Z2 152 0.25 145 0.10 + 55.65
E4.1+ 301 0.49 403 0.29 + 47.99
Z3 137 0.22 136 0.10 + 46.50
Q1.2 136 0.22 143 0.10 + 41.04
M5 64 0.11 49 0.04 + 33.34
H3 40 0.07 23 0.02 + 29.28
B5 218 0.36 313 0.22 + 27.11
M1 1451 2.38 2871 2.06 + 20.48
Q2.1 701 1.15 1326 0.95 + 16.55
Y2 14 0.02 6 0.00 + 13.27
Q4.3 24 0.04 21 0.02 + 10.22
Z8 7709 12.65 16933 12.12 + 9.53
A5.1- 57 0.09 78 0.06 + 8.44
usas tag keys: M3 (Vehicles and transport on land), B3
(Medicines and medical treatment), Z2 (Geographical
names), E4.1+ (Happy), Z3 (Other proper names), Q1.2
(Paper documents and writing), M5 (Flying and aircraft),
H3 (Areas around or near houses), B5 (Clothes and
personal belongings), M1 (Moving coming and going), Q2.1
(Speech: Communicative), Y2 (Information technology and
computing), Q4.3 (The Media: TV, Radio and Cinema), Z8
(Pronouns), and A5.1- (Evaluation: Bad).
12Íkala EmmanuEl mEnsah Bonsu and samuEl KwEsi nKansah
Medellín, C oloMbia, V ol. 29 issue 1 (January-april, 2024), pp. 1-19, issn 0123-3432
www.udea.edu.co/ikala
communicative” (Q2.1), “the media: tv, radio and
cinema” (Q4.3), and “paper documents and writ-
ing” (Q1.21) mark a critical perspective associated
with communication and verbal processes. Some
instances from Q2.1 are said, told, voice, spoke,
and chatting. These construct a dialogic exchange
between characters in the novel (Nkansah &
Bonsu, 2022). The domain of Y2 is incidental to
the text. This is because, in a contextual review of
the concordance, words such as screen, web, ping,
and lan (local area network) had no significance.
The relevance of Z8 (pronouns) (such as he, I, my,
everything, myself, that, you, and her) is identified
in the novel as well. Pronouns play stylistically rele-
vant roles in several interrelated literary features and
their associated meanings. Perhaps the pronouns are
a fundamental part of the construction and manipu-
lation of narrative or poetic voice. Figure 5 illustrates
some concordance of pronouns in Fragments.
A large proportion of pronouns expresses both
objectivity and signification, acting in sentences as
subject and object on the one hand and definition
on the other (Dilfuza, 2022). This property of pro-
nouns fundamentally sets them apart from nouns and
adjectives. In all literary text types, pronouns are
key elements in generating rhetorical structures
of orientation, interaction, and addressing at and
beyond the narrative level.
The theme of materialism through a “cargo men-
tality” in Ghanaian society is portrayed through
B5 (clothes and personal belongings; caps, t-shirts,
Figure 4 kiic Context of M3
Figure 5 kiic Context of Pronouns
Medellín, C oloMbia, V ol. 29 issue 1 (January-april, 2024), pp. 1-19, issn 0123-3432
www.udea.edu.co/ikala
communicative” (Q2.1), “the media: tv, radio and
cinema” (Q4.3), and “paper documents and writ-
ing” (Q1.21) mark a critical perspective associated
with communication and verbal processes. Some
instances from Q2.1 are said, told, voice, spoke,
and chatting. These construct a dialogic exchange
between characters in the novel (Nkansah &
Bonsu, 2022). The domain of Y2 is incidental to
the text. This is because, in a contextual review of
the concordance, words such as screen, web, ping,
and lan (local area network) had no significance.
The relevance of Z8 (pronouns) (such as he, I, my,
everything, myself, that, you, and her) is identified
in the novel as well. Pronouns play stylistically rele-
vant roles in several interrelated literary features and
their associated meanings. Perhaps the pronouns are
a fundamental part of the construction and manipu-
lation of narrative or poetic voice. Figure 5 illustrates
some concordance of pronouns in Fragments.
A large proportion of pronouns expresses both
objectivity and signification, acting in sentences as
subject and object on the one hand and definition
on the other (Dilfuza, 2022). This property of pro-
nouns fundamentally sets them apart from nouns and
adjectives. In all literary text types, pronouns are
key elements in generating rhetorical structures
of orientation, interaction, and addressing at and
beyond the narrative level.
The theme of materialism through a “cargo men-
tality” in Ghanaian society is portrayed through
B5 (clothes and personal belongings; caps, t-shirts,
Figure 4 kiic Context of M3
Figure 5 kiic Context of Pronouns
13Íkala R e - visioning A yi K wei ARmAh ’ s
FRAgments: A C oRpus stylistiC A nAlysis using wmAtRix
Medellín, ColoMbia, Vol. 29 issue 1 (January -april, 2024), pp. 1-19, issn 0123-3432
www.udea.edu.co/ikala
pockets, luggage, sandals, clothes, jumpers, jewel-
lery, and suits) with an ll of 27.11 and heavily
supported by Z3 (other proper names) with an
ll of 46.50. Examples from Z3 concordances are
Mercedes, regal, Peugeot, martinis, and Avenida
Hotel. These instances are symbols of affluence
demonstrated on the altar of materialism, instant
gratification, and aggrandisation. Such events are
depicted in urbanised Accra, Ghana, which corre-
lates with the geographic name domain (Z2).
The frequency of the occurrence of “Happy”
(E4.1+) in Fragments proves contradictory yet
insightful. Wright (1990) asserts that Armah’s
vision in Fragments is darkened because, unlike in
tboanyb, where the man metaphorically serves
as a vehicle for purification, in Fragments, Baako
acts as a victim of expected materialism. This
interpretation contradicts the “Happy” semantic
tag of the novel. We provide concordance for this
field in Figure 6.
From the concordance of the text in Figure 6,
past tense forms concerning E4.1+ are domi-
nant. This places E4.1+ in the past rather than
the present. The nominal use of “smile” ironically
deviates from the base form, which does not sig-
nify an action. The occurrence of smile cannot be
associated with positive emotions because smiles
are conceptualised as frequent facial expressions
that may not bear any significance (Ruch, 1990).
Suppressed titters in Line 64 of the concordance
support this interpretation. This means that the hap-
piness in the novel is a forced emotion given the
ruinous and tragic events surrounding the main
character, Baako.
Discussion and Conclusion
In this study, we analysed Armah’s Fragments
through parts-of-speech and semantic domain
tags compared to his two other novels. Through
the analyses, we identified the distinctiveness of
Fragments as contrasted with the reference corpus.
We found that Armah crafted first-person pronouns
around the main third-person narration, providing
authorial credibility and emotional involvement in
the novel. Given that the I-narrator is the sole occu-
pant of the narrative, the concordances contained
more I-pronouns, as this narrative focused exclu-
sively on the protagonist’s inner self. Although
Fragments was written in a third-person mode of
narration, the corpus indicated the dominance
of first-person singular pronouns. This contra-
dicts the findings of other scholars (Lorentzon,
1997), who characterised Armah’s writing from a
plural perspective. We argue that the first-person
Figure 6 kiic Context of ‘Happy’
FRAgments: A C oRpus stylistiC A nAlysis using wmAtRix
Medellín, ColoMbia, Vol. 29 issue 1 (January -april, 2024), pp. 1-19, issn 0123-3432
www.udea.edu.co/ikala
pockets, luggage, sandals, clothes, jumpers, jewel-
lery, and suits) with an ll of 27.11 and heavily
supported by Z3 (other proper names) with an
ll of 46.50. Examples from Z3 concordances are
Mercedes, regal, Peugeot, martinis, and Avenida
Hotel. These instances are symbols of affluence
demonstrated on the altar of materialism, instant
gratification, and aggrandisation. Such events are
depicted in urbanised Accra, Ghana, which corre-
lates with the geographic name domain (Z2).
The frequency of the occurrence of “Happy”
(E4.1+) in Fragments proves contradictory yet
insightful. Wright (1990) asserts that Armah’s
vision in Fragments is darkened because, unlike in
tboanyb, where the man metaphorically serves
as a vehicle for purification, in Fragments, Baako
acts as a victim of expected materialism. This
interpretation contradicts the “Happy” semantic
tag of the novel. We provide concordance for this
field in Figure 6.
From the concordance of the text in Figure 6,
past tense forms concerning E4.1+ are domi-
nant. This places E4.1+ in the past rather than
the present. The nominal use of “smile” ironically
deviates from the base form, which does not sig-
nify an action. The occurrence of smile cannot be
associated with positive emotions because smiles
are conceptualised as frequent facial expressions
that may not bear any significance (Ruch, 1990).
Suppressed titters in Line 64 of the concordance
support this interpretation. This means that the hap-
piness in the novel is a forced emotion given the
ruinous and tragic events surrounding the main
character, Baako.
Discussion and Conclusion
In this study, we analysed Armah’s Fragments
through parts-of-speech and semantic domain
tags compared to his two other novels. Through
the analyses, we identified the distinctiveness of
Fragments as contrasted with the reference corpus.
We found that Armah crafted first-person pronouns
around the main third-person narration, providing
authorial credibility and emotional involvement in
the novel. Given that the I-narrator is the sole occu-
pant of the narrative, the concordances contained
more I-pronouns, as this narrative focused exclu-
sively on the protagonist’s inner self. Although
Fragments was written in a third-person mode of
narration, the corpus indicated the dominance
of first-person singular pronouns. This contra-
dicts the findings of other scholars (Lorentzon,
1997), who characterised Armah’s writing from a
plural perspective. We argue that the first-person
Figure 6 kiic Context of ‘Happy’
14Íkala EmmanuEl mEnsah Bonsu and samuEl KwEsi nKansah
Medellín, C oloMbia, V ol. 29 issue 1 (January-april, 2024), pp. 1-19, issn 0123-3432
www.udea.edu.co/ikala
pronouns provide a critical reflection on the psy-
chological and emotional experiences of Baako. We
find little effect of Armah’s communal narrative
voices (Wright, 1990) in Fragments.
The first-person pronoun “I” forces readers to
envision the individuals in the text rather than
a collective society and their roles (Mahlberg,
2007). This explains why the novel features singu-
lar characters as opposed to tts. The emotional
involvement of Armah is characteristic of the dom-
inant first-person markers such as “I”. Although
the narration is from a third-person perspec-
tive, the corpus procedures reveal a dominant use
of first-person pronouns. That is, while the story
is told from a third-person perspective, the anal-
ysis reveals a dominant use of “I” from the main
character and other characters. The instances of
“I-narrative” language extracted by the computa-
tional process are sourced predominantly from
character dialogue and monologue rather than the
main narrative discourse itself.
This finding highlights the subtle intricacies of
voice, perspective, and identification with characters
that go beyond just the grammatical narrative per-
son. The patterns reflect the first-person thoughts,
emotions, and perspectives of specific characters
permeating the main heterodiegetic narrative. The
first-person markers in the text provide an experien-
tial environment within which the Baako functions.
This is because there is a statistical difference between
the ppis1 and the other forms of pronouns in the tar-
get text compared to the reference text. This suggests
that Armah’s Fragments relied on a dyadic I-he type
of narration, which is used in the subject position
and tends to exclude I-they, I-we, I-she, and I-it, as
was found by Balossi (2020).
Critically, the I-he narration informed a conflict
between Baako and Brempong based on the con-
cept of cargo mentality. That is, while “I” reflects
Baako, who gives personal accounts of not meeting
expectations of cargo mentality, he is associated
with Brempong from society’s perspective because
Brempong brings cargo on his return. Finally, the
dominance of the base forms of the lexical forms
deviates from the past narrative conventions of
most fictional writers (Leech, 2013). The past tense
forms of the lexical verbs provide a definite time ref-
erence that is separate from the present, rarely using
definite time adjuncts. Contextual examples from
Wmatrix reveal that most of these lexical verbs
relate to movement. Similarly, Mangwanda (2019)
identifies a high density of “motion verbs” (p. 73),
which evidence mobility. Although Mangwanda
interprets this in relation to life and death, the find-
ings from this study align with migration.
Concerning the semantic domains, the near absence
of plural pronouns suggests an underlying individ-
ualistic perspective permeating the novel’s stylistic
and thematic orientation. Given the post-colonial
Ghanaian context, such linguistic individual-
ism highlights the fragmentation and isolation of
the broader culture. Following Emmott’s (1997)
work on the role of pronouns in narrative com-
prehension, Stockwell (2000, 2002) addresses the
demonstrative function of pronouns in literature.
In this regard, Armah’s use of varied pronouns
contributes to readers’ narrative comprehension
and the real or conceptual construction of a liter-
ary world (Gavins, 2007). However, the minimal
use of plural subjective pronouns such as “we”
creates an ideological position that supports the
characterisation of Baako. Also, the pronouns
influence the ideological position of the target
text, Fragments. This conclusion is based on con-
text and function rather than the frequency of the
pronouns (Mahlberg, 2014).
In addition, the semantic tags project the themes
of materialism, migration or quest for a place of
being, and behavioural rot in Ghanaian soci-
ety. The studies on the target text have discussed
aspects of these themes. We emphasise that Armah
deals overtly with the materialistic associations
that have engulfed Ghanaian and most African
communities. Armah thus demonstrates that
Baako has difficulty building a strong relationship
with Ghanaians who have become materialistic
because they see been-tos as the source of luxury,
Medellín, C oloMbia, V ol. 29 issue 1 (January-april, 2024), pp. 1-19, issn 0123-3432
www.udea.edu.co/ikala
pronouns provide a critical reflection on the psy-
chological and emotional experiences of Baako. We
find little effect of Armah’s communal narrative
voices (Wright, 1990) in Fragments.
The first-person pronoun “I” forces readers to
envision the individuals in the text rather than
a collective society and their roles (Mahlberg,
2007). This explains why the novel features singu-
lar characters as opposed to tts. The emotional
involvement of Armah is characteristic of the dom-
inant first-person markers such as “I”. Although
the narration is from a third-person perspec-
tive, the corpus procedures reveal a dominant use
of first-person pronouns. That is, while the story
is told from a third-person perspective, the anal-
ysis reveals a dominant use of “I” from the main
character and other characters. The instances of
“I-narrative” language extracted by the computa-
tional process are sourced predominantly from
character dialogue and monologue rather than the
main narrative discourse itself.
This finding highlights the subtle intricacies of
voice, perspective, and identification with characters
that go beyond just the grammatical narrative per-
son. The patterns reflect the first-person thoughts,
emotions, and perspectives of specific characters
permeating the main heterodiegetic narrative. The
first-person markers in the text provide an experien-
tial environment within which the Baako functions.
This is because there is a statistical difference between
the ppis1 and the other forms of pronouns in the tar-
get text compared to the reference text. This suggests
that Armah’s Fragments relied on a dyadic I-he type
of narration, which is used in the subject position
and tends to exclude I-they, I-we, I-she, and I-it, as
was found by Balossi (2020).
Critically, the I-he narration informed a conflict
between Baako and Brempong based on the con-
cept of cargo mentality. That is, while “I” reflects
Baako, who gives personal accounts of not meeting
expectations of cargo mentality, he is associated
with Brempong from society’s perspective because
Brempong brings cargo on his return. Finally, the
dominance of the base forms of the lexical forms
deviates from the past narrative conventions of
most fictional writers (Leech, 2013). The past tense
forms of the lexical verbs provide a definite time ref-
erence that is separate from the present, rarely using
definite time adjuncts. Contextual examples from
Wmatrix reveal that most of these lexical verbs
relate to movement. Similarly, Mangwanda (2019)
identifies a high density of “motion verbs” (p. 73),
which evidence mobility. Although Mangwanda
interprets this in relation to life and death, the find-
ings from this study align with migration.
Concerning the semantic domains, the near absence
of plural pronouns suggests an underlying individ-
ualistic perspective permeating the novel’s stylistic
and thematic orientation. Given the post-colonial
Ghanaian context, such linguistic individual-
ism highlights the fragmentation and isolation of
the broader culture. Following Emmott’s (1997)
work on the role of pronouns in narrative com-
prehension, Stockwell (2000, 2002) addresses the
demonstrative function of pronouns in literature.
In this regard, Armah’s use of varied pronouns
contributes to readers’ narrative comprehension
and the real or conceptual construction of a liter-
ary world (Gavins, 2007). However, the minimal
use of plural subjective pronouns such as “we”
creates an ideological position that supports the
characterisation of Baako. Also, the pronouns
influence the ideological position of the target
text, Fragments. This conclusion is based on con-
text and function rather than the frequency of the
pronouns (Mahlberg, 2014).
In addition, the semantic tags project the themes
of materialism, migration or quest for a place of
being, and behavioural rot in Ghanaian soci-
ety. The studies on the target text have discussed
aspects of these themes. We emphasise that Armah
deals overtly with the materialistic associations
that have engulfed Ghanaian and most African
communities. Armah thus demonstrates that
Baako has difficulty building a strong relationship
with Ghanaians who have become materialistic
because they see been-tos as the source of luxury,
15Íkala R e - visioning A yi K wei ARmAh ’ s
FRAgments: A C oRpus stylistiC A nAlysis using wmAtRix
Medellín, ColoMbia, Vol. 29 issue 1 (January -april, 2024), pp. 1-19, issn 0123-3432
www.udea.edu.co/ikala
fame, and wealth. This finding supports several
relevant studies on the text (Ayuk, 1984; Dadja-
Tiou, 2022; Fraser, 1980; Ogbeide, 2011; Wright,
1990). Jilani (2020) characterises Armah’s writing
as overly framed around materialism among indi-
viduals. We, therefore, assert that materialism is
so “internalised” and normalised that it persists
implicitly.
On migration, the concept of cargo mentality
foregrounds the success or otherwise of return-
ees from abroad. Such assumptions coerce the
returnees to embattle several social expecta-
tions, which affect them psychologically. Hence,
they contest their identity and search for a place
of being that does not threaten their space (Osei-
Nyame, 2020). In Fragments, although Baako and
Brempong are both Western-educated been-tos,
their narratives differentiate them as represent-
ing divergent philosophical positions within the
discourse of nation-building and nationalism.
Baako was uncertain about his return to Ghana
because of the social expectations and behavioural
rot that would affect his philosophical positions.
Upon his arrival in Ghana, Baako experiences
alienation, which confirms his suspicions. Hence,
Baako’s idealistic aspirations turn into a night-
mare (Mangwanda, 2019). Brempong’s exuberant
nature is unperturbed because he fits perfectly
within the neocolonial-minded Ghanaian soci-
ety (Osei-Nyame, 2020). Materialism conditions
these complex relationships of migration and
behaviour.
Even though the aforementioned findings are enlight-
ening, the study had some limitations. First, there
are still some “mistakes made by the computer”
(Leech, 2013, p. 25) that should be manually
checked, even though pos tagging and semantic tag-
ging are highly accurate. According to Rayson et
al. (2004), the semantic tagger has an error rate of
91%. As a result, researchers should also take tag-
ging errors into account when manually analysing
the results, as we have done in this research. In
addition, a computer cannot recognise metaphors
or irony, which are aspects of stylistic (liter-
ary) analysis that require a deeper understanding
of meaning. Notwithstanding, our qualitative
interpretation makes up for this limitation. This
provides methodological rigour for the study.
As for implications, methodologically, we saw that
the Wmatrix could be an efficient tool to reveal the
linguistic patterns, themes, and abstract catego-
ries in literary texts. Indeed, the software gave key
prominence to some features and unravelled some
issues in Fragments which means that Wmatrix
provides a greater advantage for analysing liter-
ary texts faster, which points to its adaptability
for different kinds of texts. The keyness analysis
based on loglikelihood, frequencies, and concord-
ance supports the stylistic analysis. The extension
of the pos tag to a more abstract level provides
credence to the analysis and promises to be a fruit-
ful area for corpus stylistics broadly. Even though
some of the items highlighted are thematic and lit-
erary, they would probably have gone unnoticed
without the help of Wmatrix. As such, by evaluating
the loglikelihood score of the semantic domains,
we determine how abnormalities (as a result of
overuse or underuse) help to identify nuances of
linguistic behaviour that are difficult to identify
through purely qualitative analysis.
As for further research, a corpus study could be
conducted to compare the key pronouns and verbs
in Armah’s novels through clusters and repetitive
patterns. Such a study would bring Armah’s inter-
active approach from a specific context (Ghana)
to a wider society (Africa). This would contribute
to the social commentary and pan-Africanist ideas
provided by Armah, as reported by some scholars
(such as Ayivor, 2003; Fenderson, 2008; Nkansah,
2023). Also, another study could adopt a cross-cul-
tural approach by comparing Armah’s novels
with those of his contemporaries, such as Wole
Soyinka, Chinua Achebe, Ngugi wa Thiong’o, and
Nadine Gordimer. Such a study can report on the
converging and diverging points of narration and
thematisation in African novels.
FRAgments: A C oRpus stylistiC A nAlysis using wmAtRix
Medellín, ColoMbia, Vol. 29 issue 1 (January -april, 2024), pp. 1-19, issn 0123-3432
www.udea.edu.co/ikala
fame, and wealth. This finding supports several
relevant studies on the text (Ayuk, 1984; Dadja-
Tiou, 2022; Fraser, 1980; Ogbeide, 2011; Wright,
1990). Jilani (2020) characterises Armah’s writing
as overly framed around materialism among indi-
viduals. We, therefore, assert that materialism is
so “internalised” and normalised that it persists
implicitly.
On migration, the concept of cargo mentality
foregrounds the success or otherwise of return-
ees from abroad. Such assumptions coerce the
returnees to embattle several social expecta-
tions, which affect them psychologically. Hence,
they contest their identity and search for a place
of being that does not threaten their space (Osei-
Nyame, 2020). In Fragments, although Baako and
Brempong are both Western-educated been-tos,
their narratives differentiate them as represent-
ing divergent philosophical positions within the
discourse of nation-building and nationalism.
Baako was uncertain about his return to Ghana
because of the social expectations and behavioural
rot that would affect his philosophical positions.
Upon his arrival in Ghana, Baako experiences
alienation, which confirms his suspicions. Hence,
Baako’s idealistic aspirations turn into a night-
mare (Mangwanda, 2019). Brempong’s exuberant
nature is unperturbed because he fits perfectly
within the neocolonial-minded Ghanaian soci-
ety (Osei-Nyame, 2020). Materialism conditions
these complex relationships of migration and
behaviour.
Even though the aforementioned findings are enlight-
ening, the study had some limitations. First, there
are still some “mistakes made by the computer”
(Leech, 2013, p. 25) that should be manually
checked, even though pos tagging and semantic tag-
ging are highly accurate. According to Rayson et
al. (2004), the semantic tagger has an error rate of
91%. As a result, researchers should also take tag-
ging errors into account when manually analysing
the results, as we have done in this research. In
addition, a computer cannot recognise metaphors
or irony, which are aspects of stylistic (liter-
ary) analysis that require a deeper understanding
of meaning. Notwithstanding, our qualitative
interpretation makes up for this limitation. This
provides methodological rigour for the study.
As for implications, methodologically, we saw that
the Wmatrix could be an efficient tool to reveal the
linguistic patterns, themes, and abstract catego-
ries in literary texts. Indeed, the software gave key
prominence to some features and unravelled some
issues in Fragments which means that Wmatrix
provides a greater advantage for analysing liter-
ary texts faster, which points to its adaptability
for different kinds of texts. The keyness analysis
based on loglikelihood, frequencies, and concord-
ance supports the stylistic analysis. The extension
of the pos tag to a more abstract level provides
credence to the analysis and promises to be a fruit-
ful area for corpus stylistics broadly. Even though
some of the items highlighted are thematic and lit-
erary, they would probably have gone unnoticed
without the help of Wmatrix. As such, by evaluating
the loglikelihood score of the semantic domains,
we determine how abnormalities (as a result of
overuse or underuse) help to identify nuances of
linguistic behaviour that are difficult to identify
through purely qualitative analysis.
As for further research, a corpus study could be
conducted to compare the key pronouns and verbs
in Armah’s novels through clusters and repetitive
patterns. Such a study would bring Armah’s inter-
active approach from a specific context (Ghana)
to a wider society (Africa). This would contribute
to the social commentary and pan-Africanist ideas
provided by Armah, as reported by some scholars
(such as Ayivor, 2003; Fenderson, 2008; Nkansah,
2023). Also, another study could adopt a cross-cul-
tural approach by comparing Armah’s novels
with those of his contemporaries, such as Wole
Soyinka, Chinua Achebe, Ngugi wa Thiong’o, and
Nadine Gordimer. Such a study can report on the
converging and diverging points of narration and
thematisation in African novels.
16Íkala EmmanuEl mEnsah Bonsu and samuEl KwEsi nKansah
Medellín, C oloMbia, V ol. 29 issue 1 (January-april, 2024), pp. 1-19, issn 0123-3432
www.udea.edu.co/ikala
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Armah, A. K. (2013). The revolutionaries. Per Ankh.
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Baker, P. (2004). Querying keywords. Journal of Eng-
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org/10.1177/0075424204269894
Baker, P. (2014). Using corpora to analyze gender. A&C
Black.
Balossi, G. (2014). A corpus linguistic approach to literary lan-
guage and characterization: Virginia Woolf ’s The Waves.
John Benjamins. https://doi.org/10.1075/lal.18
Balossi, G. (2020). Key pronouns through Wmatrix in a
novel of formation: Conrad’s The Shadow-Line.
Umanistica Digitale, 4(9), 79–96. http://doi.
org/10.6092/issn.2532-8816/10542
Berber, S. T. (1999). Using keywords in text analysis: prac-
tical aspects. direct Working Papers, 42. http://
www2.lael.pucsp.br/direct/DirectPapers42.pdf
Berry, J. S., & Kumar, V. R. J. (2022). Freedom and justice:
A post-colonial analysis of Ayi Kwei Armah’s Frag-
ments. Journal of Language and Linguistic Studies,
17(4), 3183–3185.
Childs, P., & Williams, P. (2014). An introduction to
post-colonial theory. Routledge. https://doi.
org/10.4324/9781315847481
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org/10.1075/ijcl.14.1.03cul
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culture and tradition: A structuralist reading of Ayi
Kwei Armah’s Fragments. East African Journal of In-
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org/10.37284/eajis.5.1.836
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perspectives on being a woman. Emerald Group
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Dilfuza, S. (2022). Forms of pronouns. Eurasian Journal of
Learning and Academic Teaching, 12, 23–26.
Emmott, C. (1997). Narrative comprehension: A discourse
perspective. Oxford University Press.
Medellín, C oloMbia, V ol. 29 issue 1 (January-april, 2024), pp. 1-19, issn 0123-3432
www.udea.edu.co/ikala
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to live”: Neocolonialism and the resistant subject
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https://doi.org/10.1080/17449855.2019.1701067
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in The beautyful ones are not yet born: A therapeu-
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3(4), 306–313.
Lazarus, N. (1982). Implications of technique in Ayi kwei
Armah’s The Healers. Research in African Literatures,
13(4), 488–498.
Lazarus, N. (2011). What postcolonial theory doesn’t
say. Race & Class, 53(1), 3–27. https://doi.
org/10.1177/0306396811406778
Leech, G. (2013). Virginia Woolf meets Wmatrix. Études
de Stylistique Anglaise, 4, 15–26. https://doi.
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57–58. https://doi.org/10.7202/1042697ar
Lorentzon, L. (1997). Ayi Kwei Armah’s epic we-narrator.
Critique: Studies in Contemporary Fiction, 38(3),
221–234. https://doi.org/10.1080/00111619.199
7.10543177
Lorentzon, L. (1998). The narratee of two of Ayi Kwei
Armah’s novels: A use of narratology. Research in
African Literatures, 29(3), 58–69.
Macheka, M. T. (2014). An evaluation of post-colonial
African leadership: A study of Ayi Kwei Armahs
The Beautiful Ones Are Not Yet Born, and Chinua
Achebe’s A Man of the People. International Journal
of English and Literature, 5(1), 14–18. https://doi.
org/10.5897/IJEL11.087
Mahlberg, M. (2007). Corpus stylistics: Bridging the gap
between linguistic and literary studies. In M. Hoey,
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Routledge.
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19Íkala R e - visioning A yi K wei ARmAh ’ s
FRAgments: A C oRpus stylistiC A nAlysis using wmAtRix
Medellín, ColoMbia, Vol. 29 issue 1 (January -april, 2024), pp. 1-19, issn 0123-3432
www.udea.edu.co/ikala
How to cite this article: Bonsu, E. M. & Nkansah, S. K. (2024). Re-visioning Ayi Kwei Armah’s
Fragments: A corpus stylistic analysis using Wmatrix. Íkala, Revista de Lenguaje y Cultura, 29(1), 1-19.
https://doi.org/10.17533/udea.ikala.352656
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of his novels and histories. International Fiction Re-
view, 8, 29-61.
FRAgments: A C oRpus stylistiC A nAlysis using wmAtRix
Medellín, ColoMbia, Vol. 29 issue 1 (January -april, 2024), pp. 1-19, issn 0123-3432
www.udea.edu.co/ikala
How to cite this article: Bonsu, E. M. & Nkansah, S. K. (2024). Re-visioning Ayi Kwei Armah’s
Fragments: A corpus stylistic analysis using Wmatrix. Íkala, Revista de Lenguaje y Cultura, 29(1), 1-19.
https://doi.org/10.17533/udea.ikala.352656
Wilson-Tagoe, N. (1999). Narrative, history, novel: in-
tertexuality in the historical novels of Ayi Kwei
Armah and Yvonne Vera. Journal of African
Cultural Studies, 12(2), 155–166. https://doi.
org/10.1080/13696819908717847
Wright, D. (1985). The metaphysical and material worlds:
Ayi Kwei Armah’s ritual cycle. World Literature Today,
59(3), 337-342. https://doi.org/10.2307/40140838
Wright, D. (1990). Ayi Kwei Armah and the significance
of his novels and histories. International Fiction Re-
view, 8, 29-61.