A Textual Analysis of Street Children’s Survival Strategies in Amma Darko’s Faceless

Abstract

Anchored on textual analysis and theoretical insights from (interactional) sociolinguistics, (positive) psychology and neuroscience, the current paper aims at analyzing the various strategies that the street children, named or nameless, etc. in Amma Darko’s Faceless (2003) draw on to ensure their survival on the streets. The study further demonstrates how this novel, beyond its representation of the social issue of street children, depicts the outstanding resourcefulness of many African children who have to cater and fend for themselves on the streets. The findings reveal that these children have used such survival strategies as imitating or behaving in an adult-like manner, bonding, learning and using a code, hustling, accepting and adapting to one’s reality and floating-out-of-one’s body to cope with life on the streets.