Animal-based metaphors in Igbo
Onyedikachi Chinyere, Orji Chimaobi Onwukwe, Edith Ngozi Onukawa
Abstract
The study examined animal-based metaphors in Igbo with a focus on their cultural and contextual meanings and interpretations. It adopted the pragmatic methodological approach involving interviews with 20 participants drawn from various Igbo culture areas to collect animal-based metaphors as well as their meanings and interpretations. Introspection also featured in data collection as the authors are native speakers of Igbo. The study revealed that animal-based metaphors are used to describe human personality, conduct or behavior. This is essentially by the process of associating some features or attributes of the animals with human conduct and personality. The study further identified that some metaphors could be used in dual metaphorical sense, i.e., derogatory/negative, and commendatory/ positive, and these depend on the cultural connotations as well as contextual meanings and interpretations of the referents. The study concludes that animalbased metaphors in the Igbo language and culture reflect and represent the description of a person, conduct or behavior, as well as beliefs and realities among the Igbo.
Key words
animal-based metaphor, metaphor, pragmatics, semantics, Igbo, culture
Métaphores basées sur les animaux en Igbo
Onyedikachi Chinyere, Orji Chimaobi Onwukwe, Edith Ngozi Onukawa
Résumé
L’étude a examiné les métaphores basées sur les animaux en Igbo en mettant l’accent sur leurs significations et interprétations culturelles et contextuelles. Il a adopté l’approche méthodologique pragmatique impliquant des entretiens avec 20 participants issus de diverses zones de culture Igbo pour collecter des métaphores basées sur les animaux ainsi que leurs significations et interprétations. L’introspection a également figuré dans la collecte de données car les auteurs sont des locuteurs natifs d’igbo. L’étude a révélé que des métaphores basées sur les animaux sont utilisées pour décrire la personnalité, la conduite ou le comportement humain. Cela se fait essentiellement par le processus d’association de certaines caractéristiques ou attributs des animaux avec la conduite et la personnalité humaines. L’étude a en outre identifié que certaines métaphores pouvaient être utilisées dans un double sens métaphorique, c’est-à-dire péjoratif/négatif et élogieux/positif, et celles-ci dépendent des connotations culturelles ainsi que des significations contextuelles et des interprétations des référents. L’étude conclut que les métaphores basées sur les animaux dans la langue et la culture Igbo reflètent et représentent la description d’une personne, d’une conduite ou d’un comportement, ainsi que des croyances et des réalités chez les Igbo.
Mots-clés
métaphore animalière, métaphore, pragmatique, semantique, Igbo, culture
pp. 3–29
doi: 10.37892/2686-8946-2023-4-2-3-29
Perfectivity and predicate-centered focus in narrative: Functions of “strong” forms in Koyraboro Senni
Kirill Prokhorov
Abstract
Koyraboro Senni (KS), a Malian language of Songhay family, has a system of TAM markers that distinguish two aspectual categories – the perfective and the imperfective and three series – the “weak” series used in neutral declarative clauses and clauses with a non-subject focus, the subject-focus series, and the “strong” series, which is used for predicate-centered focus. The paper studies the use of the strong in-focus forms in a corpus of narrative texts and shows that the strong perfectives in most cases are used to describe real events, while strong imperfectives are irrealis-oriented. Contrary to implications of our current knowledge of polyfunctionality of in-focus forms the strong imperfective is not used for present progressive and is relatively frequent in narrative texts. I also argue that while the perfective part of the system is better understood as the result of development of typical intrinsically-focused reading – the perfect, its imperfective part is better explained in line with Tatevosov’s (2005) proposal of direct development of the habitual to the prospective.
Key words
Songhay, predicate-centered focus, perfective, imperfective, narrative
pp. 30–67
doi: 10.37892/2686-8946-2023-4-2-30-67
Interpersonal symbolic communicative practices in the traditional Igbo society
Edith Ngozi Onukawa
Abstract
This study examines interpersonal symbolic communication in the traditional Igbo society, which entails culturally-learned, often nuanced, socially shared system of communication between individuals by the use of instruments as symbols, in which the relation between the symbol and the signified concept is arbitrary. Data for the study were drawn from oral interviews and participant observation as primary sources, while secondary sources were library materials and the internet. Findings indicate that there exists yet another form of non-verbal communication that is symbolic (involves symbols) and is exclusively interpersonal in “the various Igbo culture areas” (Onwuejeogwu 1975). The examples are sub classified based on what they communicate. The study concludes that interpersonal symbolic communicative practices could be used as tools in interesting and complex ways for the description and reproduction of varied sociocultural world of the Igbo.
Key words
personal, symbolic, communicative, practices, traditional Igbo society
pp. 68–88
doi: 10.37892/2686-8946-2023-4-2-68-88
Национальный язык как объект и предмет в современной латинографичной и арабографичной поэзии на суахили в Восточной Африке
А. Ю. Москвитина (Сиим)
Аннотация
В статье представлен обзор письменной традиции киарабу на языке суахили в арабской графике, издавна являвшейся важным компонентом мусуль- манской суахилийской цивилизации восточноафриканского побережья и примы- кающих к нему островов Индийского океана, в которую объединялся со Средних веков ряд портовых городов-султанатов, расположенных на большой протяженности от юга современного Сомали до севера Мозамбика. В колониальный период этот вид грамотности оказался постепенно вытесненным из культуры в связи с переходом на латиницу в рамках проекта стандартизации суахили и его перехода в статус официального языка в Британской Восточной Африке. Тем не менее, в новейшей истории известны случаи, когда поэты-традиционалисты в це- лях манифестации своей суахилийской идентичности продолжают записывать свои сочинения с помощью новых авторских модификаций киарабу.
Key words
Восточная Африка, суахили, киарабу, машаири
National language as an object of modern Kiswahili poetry in the Roman and Arabic scripts in East Africa
Anna Moskvitina (Siim)
Abstract
The article presents a survey of Kiarabu, a tradition of writing in Swahili using the Arabic script, as an integral component of the so-called East African Swahili civilization which since the Medieval Times had been constituted as a network of coastal and island sultanates extending from the South of Somali to the North of Mozambique along the coast of the Indian Ocean. In the colonial times this kind of indigenous literacy gradually came out of use being replaced with the Roman script-based literacy within the project of standardization and making the standard form of Kiswahili an official language in British East Africa. However, Kiarabu still remains an occasional practice and a means to manifest Swahili cultural identity in some areas, where poets-traditionalists write verses in it involving newly designed dialect-based modifications of the alphabet.
Key words
East Africa, Kiswahili, Kiarabu, mashairi
pp. 89–112
doi: 10.37892/2686-8946-2023-4-2-89-112