EXAMINING THE CLARITY OF EXPRESSIONS IN DESCRIBING THE BLACK WOMAN’S OPPRESSION IN KENNEDY'S “FUNNYHOUSE OF A NEGRO”

Abstract

Purpose of study: This study tries to figure out whether Adrienne Kennedy’s play “Funnyhouse of a Negro” was direct and clear or indirect and implicit when she expresses a black woman’s struggle with identity. Methodology: This study adopts a mix mode approach of Martin and white (2005) attitudinal category of Appraisal theory so as to analyze, frame, and to answer the research questions by which is proposed for this full research paper. Main Findings: The inscribed instances have exceeded the invoked ones in the whole corpus of “Funnyhouse of a Negro”, concerning how did Sarah; the protagonist, as well as her split figures, have portrayed her white mother and a black father. The outcomes suggest that Kennedy was very clear and direct to deliver her moral judgment to her audiences/readers regarding the status of African American women in American based on analyzing the discourses of the main characters in the play. Implications/Applications: Therefore, this play has gained very much respect and admiration from critics, readers, and audiences because of the playwright’s direct descriptions of Sarah and her parents in the American arena as well as her attempt to form new status as an individual human being who have a right to live such as any white American civilian. Originality/Novelty of Study: The appraisal approach is a fairly new extension in the area of Systemic Functional Linguistics. It has been applied mainly to non-fictional discourse, particularly to certain texts with an argumentative task such as journalistic and political speeches. There is an increasing interest in the utilization of this theory to the analysis of literary texts, involving narrative fiction (Alsanafi&Mohd Noor, 2019). The researcher does not find any study employs Appraisal category to discover the clearness of expressions to describe woman’s oppression in Adriane Kennedy’s “Funnyhouse of a Negro”.