Bilingual Creativity In Chimamanda Adichie’s Purple Hibiscus

Abstract

Bilingual creativity is both a sociolinguistic and literary realities that the world of scholarship has accepted and identified with. It is not surprising since the world itself has had to record more instances of bilingualism than monolingualism. In other words, there are more societies, more individuals making use of two or more languages than those using only one language. And this trend seems to be on the increase. Grosjean (1982: viii) estimates that about half the world’s population is bilingual while Crystal (1997) and Grimes (1992) capture this rising trend of bilingualism. Crystal points out that twothirds of the world’s children grow up in a bilingual environment. Grimes demonstrates that today, there are many more bilingual or multilingual individuals in the world than there are monolinguals. The implication of this among other things is that bilingualism has received and is still receiving much scholarly attention in different parts of the world. Bilingual creativity in Chimamanda’s Purple Hibiscus is therefore a reflection of a sociolinguistic reality which contributes to the success of the novel.