Reiteration in Bena songs and folktales: a comparative approach

This study investigated reiteration as a cohesion (Halliday and Hasan 1976) in Bena (or Ikibena) texts, namely folktales and songs comparatively. The study is a stylistic one. The main aim of the study was to investigate the way reiteration functions in selected texts in Bena. The researcher collected the texts, numbered the sentences, and then analyzed them using the hallidayian model. Thereafter, the results from both genres were compared. The comparison between the genres took the following parameters into account: cohesive distance, tightness and looseness of reiteration, types of reiteration that dominates in the genre, and the way reiteration that dominates in the genre, and the way reiteration behaves in a genre. The study has revealed that there are crucial differences in regard to reiteration between Bena folktales and songs. On cohesive distance, it was found that folktales are characterized by greater cohesive distance than songs whose cohesive distance is relatively small. On tightness and looseness reiteration, the study has shown that cohesion of songs is tighter: here, cohesion between paragraphs is tighter than cohesion within a paragraph. On types of reiteration, there are similar results in both genres viz., in both cases the same types of reiteration are highly loaded and the same types are weak; the notable difference discovered had to do with percentages between the two.