Verbal Hygiene and the Negotiation of Interpersonal Relationships in Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Americanah and Chika Unigwe’s On Black Sisters’ Street

Abstract

The work investigates verbal hygiene in Chimamanda Adichie's Americanah and Chika Unigwe’s on Black Sisters’ Street and how the practice of verbal hygiene, or the lack thereof, shaped the relationships of the characters in the novels. Data were collected using a purposive sampling technique from the novels Americanah and On Black Sisters’ Street. This is to enable the researcher to collect quality data that are most relevant to the study. The collected data were analyzed textually through the lens of Relational Work Theory by Locher and Watts. It was found that verbal hygiene is very much present in Chimamanda Adichie's Americanah and Chika Unigwe’s On Black Sisters’ Street   and that the practice of verbal hygiene helped the characters to build relationships that are peaceful and harmonious. This work also discovered that the words of some characters analyzed in this work are verbally hygienic and aimed at enhancing the positive face of other characters. This contributes immensely to some of the characters having a strong positive face. The researcher recommends that verbal hygiene be taught as early as literature is introduced to pupils in schools to enable people who do not have the privilege of acquiring higher education to learn the importance of being verbally hygienic, as this will help them become better parents, teachers and citizens.