Linguistic Deviances as a Stylistic Approach to Literary Texts: A Study of African Traditional Poem “Salute to the Elephant”

Considering the rules of grammaticality and acceptability in the field of linguistics and language in general, one wonders if the creative writers will be spared of the violation or breaching of the language code for stylistic effects. It is worth noting here that the essence of this violation in  language used among creative writers is to describe the formal features of texts, show their functional significance for the interpretation of texts and relate literary effects to linguistics causes where they are felt to be relevant. This paper which focuses on Linguistic Deviances as a Stylistic Approach to Literary Texts: A Study of African Traditional Poem “Salute to the Elephant” shall be considered under three sections. The first deals with linguistics deviances and literary texts, the second focuses on African Traditional poems and finally, stylistic analysis of ‘Salute to the Elephant’.