Negotiating Tradition and Modernity: A Discourse-Historical Study of Okot P’Bitek’s Song of Lawino

Abstract

This study examines the negotiation of tradition and modernity in Okot p’Bitek’s Song of Lawino using Ruth Wodak’s Discourse-Historical Approach (DHA) within Critical Discourse Analysis. The poem, a significant postcolonial African literary text, reflects the ideological conflict between indigenous African cultural traditions and Western modernity shaped by colonial history. The research adopts a qualitative textual analysis focusing on discursive strategies such as nomination, predication, argumentation, intensification, metaphor, satire, and intertextual references to Acholi oral traditions. The analysis demonstrates how Lawino represents African cultural identity and resistance, while Ocol symbolizes Westernized modernity influenced by colonial education, religion, and social norms. Findings indicate that the poem does not simply reject modernity but critically negotiates it by highlighting cultural alienation, identity conflict, and the persistence of indigenous traditions. The study concludes that Song of Lawino functions as a discursive site where postcolonial identity, cultural resistance, and historical memory are constructed through language.