Conversation Management in Discourse: A Critical Exploration of Discursive Practices in Adichie’s Half of Yellow Sun

This study examines discursive practices in Adichie Chimanda’s Half of Yellow Sun; a novel that accounts for the Biafran civil war in Nigeria. This novel points out the ethnically Igbo characters such as Odenigbo, Olanna, Kainene and Ugu who try to survive war environment created by Igbo tribe’s desire to secede. Using Fairclough’s Critical Discourse Analysis; an approach that views language as a social practice, the analysis of discursive practices by means of selected chunks reveals that behind the mechanism of discursive practices; that is the linguistic strategies used by the speaker, lays a covert objective. Language use therefore depends on the environment in which discourse is uttered. In this trend, language is no more a meta-language but a tool used to vehicle ideology, to express a domination or to reveal social practices. Thus, discursive practices encompass meaning by putting language in action. Therefore, they are subject to some conditions and they are also revelators of meaning speakers use to orient ideas.