Cohesion and Coherence in Literary Discourse: A Stylistic Reappraisal of Telephone Conversation by Wole Soyinka

This study offers an expanded stylistic and postcolonial analysis of Telephone Conversation by Wole Soyinka, foregrounding the interplay between cohesion, coherence, and ideology. Drawing on Systemic Functional Linguistics (Halliday & Hasan, 1976), text linguistics (Beaugrande & Dressler, 1981), and African literary criticism, the paper demonstrates that Soyinka’s linguistic strategies—particularly lexical repetition, referential cohesion, and structural parallelism—are central to the poem’s satirical force. Engaging critically with scholars such as Chinua Achebe, Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o, Abiola Irele, and Biodun Jeyifo, the study situates the poem within broader debates on language, identity, and postcolonial resistance. It argues that cohesion and coherence function not merely as textual properties but as ideological mechanisms that expose and subvert racial discourse. By integrating close textual analysis with African literary theory, the paper contributes to interdisciplinary scholarship on stylistics and postcolonial poetics. It argues that cohesion and coherence function not merely as textual properties but as ideological mechanisms that expose and subvert racial discourse.