RACISM IN CHIMAMANDA NGOZI ADICHIE’S AMERICANAH: A CRITICAL DISCOURSE ANALYSIS

Since the slavery and colonial eras, racism and ethnic issues, power and class relations between individuals, entities, communities and dominance have been the major issues in the world. Racism enacts superiority of a race over another, and this act affects people not only on interpersonal level but also through the broader structures of society most notably in the system of education, justice, media, policing, immigration and employment as well as through hate activities and government policies. This study portrays how Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie is able to manipulate her choice of words in describing the stigma that a society has attached to individuals because of their colour. Fairclough and Dijk’s Critical Discourse Analysis approaches guided the analyses. CDA is an indispensable tool for the analysis of any discourse that portrays social practices. The study concludes that discrimination is not only done by mainstream or the in-group members of a society but the out-group members also engage in this act of disassociation which is caused by the migration of people from one country to the other either for better opportunities or for educational purposes as portrayed in the novel.