Context and Co-text in Bernard Ogini’s Hamlet for Pidgin (Oga Pikin)

This article examines a phenomenon that may trigger a resurgence in the pleasure of reading or watching performances of Shakespeare’s plays in Nigeria: adaptation and translation into Naija (previously Nigerian Pidgin). Specifically, it examines how the Naija translation Hamlet for Pidgin (Oga Pikin) is prototypical for such a revival. The study adopts a comparative approach and explicates how anaphoric reformulation (AR), cataphoric reformulation (CR) and exophoric reformulation (ER) condition the translation’s peculiar lexico-semantic choices in terms of borrowing, reduplicatives, calquing and the like. These forms enter a networked relationship within the co-text and context to bring about a contemporary equivalent to Hamlet. Readers and audiences extract meaning through clues such as collocation, background knowledge and other linking strategies provided consciously or unconsciously by the author/translator. The article concludes that this translation is also significant for its shift away from the cathartic effect of Shakespearean tragedy and towards a comic mode that has greater popular appeal.