Sociolinguistic Study of Metaphor in Yoruba Proverbs and Postproverbials Among Selected Native Speakers

Abstract

This study attempts an analysis of metaphors in the context of Yoruba cultural proverbs. It discusses proverbs and postproverbials as a body of special speeches in which meanings are encrypted in figurative codes and deep structures by way of analogy and elevated comparisons. The objective is to demonstrate some intrinsic qualities of proverbs couched in a language that make them the ‘salt’ that sweetens conservation and preserves the message in the memory bank for meditation and corresponding response and action. The data for the study include proverbs and post proverbial metaphoric proverbs which were collected from oral interviews with native speakers and discussions with older Yoruba people in South west Nigeria. From the data analysed, this paper identifies that some categories of cultural metaphor that occur in Yoruba proverbs and underscore that the nature of metaphors in the proverb orients to Yoruba sociocultural and philosophical thought, and realizes that metaphors do not necessary have general meanings but contextual meanings and this is similar with the postproverbials. This present study establishes a common link between the elders and the youth in the same cultural environments by the social values upheld in them as demonstrated in the traditional proverbs and postproverbials under study. The findings inferred that postproverbials have little or no correlates to obscenity. It also suggests that deliberate introduction of proverbs and postproverbials versions of the proverbs should be included in the school curriculum