Study of Stylistic Deviation in Two Selected Poems from I am a Rohingya

Abstract

This study presents a detailed analysis of poems from I Am a Rohingya. Two poems with the same theme hopeless are selected: one is ABOUT THOSE BORN INTO THIS PLACE from YAR TIN, and the other one is BEING ROHINGYA from RO ANAMUL HASAN. In linguistic stylistics, language features are presented through kinds of deviations to achieve the foregrounding effect. The degree of language use in stylistics varies greatly, especially in poetry. Poets use their unique styles to distinguish themselves from others. In this study, the researchers attempt to analyze and compare these two poems based on stylistic methods. The following two research questions are posed: What linguistic features can be categorized in the two selected poems? Besides, how do these features function in these poems with the use of language? To answer the above questions, the researchers focus on the selected two poems and stylistically analyze them. Findings reveal four linguistic features appearing in both poems: parallelism, semantic deviation, lexical deviation and syntactic deviation. By adopting the same stylistic deviations, the effects of the selected poems are present differently due to the two poets’ unique language uses and writing styles. In a word, the choices of words and expressions are important because they will affect readers’ understanding of a poem.