Title Page
The Pragmatics of the Nkporo Proverb:
The Nkporo Example
University of Nigeria, Nsukka
School of Post Graduate Studies
Department of English and Literary Studies
A Dissertation
Written and Submitted in Partial Fulfillment for
the Requirements for the Award of a Master‟s
Degree in the Department of English and
Literary Studies
By
Egbuta, Chinyere O.
PG/MA/08/48854
May, 2011
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Title Page
The Pragmatics of the Igbo Proverb:
The Nkporo Example
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Certification Page
This is to certify that this dissertation is an
original work carried out by
Egbuta, Chinyere O.
PG/MA/08/48854
Under the supervision of
Supervisor‟s name
----------------------------
4
Signature
-----------------------------
Date
-----------------------------
Approval Page
This thesis written by Egbuta, Chinyere Otuu has
been approved
By
-----------------------------Supervisor
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-----------------------------External Supervisor
-----------------------------Head of Department
Dedication
To
My Late Grandmother, Nene Mose
Nogha r‟udo
And
My Beloved Five Brothers
6
We are part of all that we have met
Acknowledgements
I am most grateful for the support and encouragement I got from many people in
the course of research and production of this work. My deep gratitude goes to Mr.
Ezechi Onyerionwu for his sound academic input. To my colleagues: Mrs.
Chinnaya Ifi, Dr. Judith Mgbemena, Mrs. Rosecollette Ewurum and others, thanks
for your advice and encouragement.
I am also indebted to my uncle Chief U. U. Egwu, my parents Chief/Deaconess
Gabriel Otuu Egbuta for their moral support in the course of this study. I thank,
specially, Professor J. O. J. Nwachukwu-Agbada, whose works on paremiology
supplied so many materials for this work. I must also thank Mr. Ugwu Ogbaa and
Mr. Ude Ude Okwuru (Ndo) for their assistance in the course of my research.
To my supervisor, Professor Sam Onuigbo, I can never thank you enough. In spite
of your tight schedule, you still painstakingly read through my work, making
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corrections and giving directions, even without delay. I don‟t know how to thank
you for this favour! Remain blessed. To my lecturers- Professors Opata, D. U. and
Akwanya, A. N., Dr. Ezema, P., and Mr. Fidelis Okoro, I am blessed because you
trained me. Thanks a million!
I do really appreciate the help and encouragement got from friends, course mates,
roommates and well wishers, especially Miss Immaculata Onyealisi. Thank you
all.
Above all, to God Almighty! What could I have done without You? Your favour
located me; your love sustains me; your grace leads me on. I honour You.
Chinyere O. Egbuta
Department of English and Literary Studies
University of Nigeria, Nsukka.
Table of Contents
Title Page
i
Fly Sheet
ii
Certification Page
iii
Approval Page
iv
Dedication Page
v
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Acknowledgements
vi
Table of Contents
vii
Abstract
viii
Chapter One: Introduction
1.0.
Background
1
1.1.
Nkporo: A Socio-historical and Cultural Survey
1
1.1.1. System of Government in the Nkporo Traditional Society
2
1.2. The Concept of Pragmatics
5
1.2.1. Some Pragmatic Principles
8
1.2.2. Speech Acts
8
1.2.3. Implicature
10
1.2.4. Presuppositions
11
1.2.5. Reference
12
1.3. The Nature and Character of Proverbs
13
1.3.1. Difference between Proverbs and Idioms
14
1.3.2. The Igbo and the Proverb
16
1.4. Objectives of the Study
19
1.5. Statement of Problem
20
1.6. Relevance of Study
21
1.7. Scope of Study
21
1.8. Research Methodology
22
Chapter Two: Literature Review
9
2.0.
Introduction
24
2.1. Research in Direct Anthropological Paremiology
24
2.2. Paremiology/Analysis through Literary Texts
34
Chapter Three: Contexts of Performance of Nkporo Proverbs
40
Chapter Four: Stylistic Nuances and Realization of Images
67
Chapter Five: Summary and Conclusion
86
Works Cited
88
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Abstract
Proverbs form part of the linguistic repertoire of a people, just as language itself
embodies a people‟s culture. Pragmatics, on the other hand, is a theory which
investigates, in practical terms, what language does in the hands of its users. But
language use is far beyond just passing across information; it is most importantly
the ability to achieve a desired goal. This work, therefore, sets out to study the
Nkporo proverb and how the Nkporo people use proverbs to achieve
communicative profundity and make their language dense with meaning. It is at
this level of communication that the authenticity of an Nkporo indigene is
established.
This work also corroborates the fact that the English language is not able to
capture, adequately, the native sensibilities, as the proverbs, used for analysis in
this work, either lose or shed off certain semantic density when translated into
English. But that is not the major concern here.
Meanwhile, this work has been divided into five chapters. The first chapter
contains the introduction and explanation of certain terms relevant to this work.
Chapter two is the review of other works that have been carried out in this area
while chapter three is replete with practical analysis of contexts of performance of
Nkporo proverbs. Chapter four examines the stylistic nuances and realization of
image in Nkporo proverbs while the last chapter summarizes as well as concludes
the whole discourse. This is followed by the works cited.
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Chapter One
Introduction
1.0. Backgrounds
To properly situate this study, certain phenomena relevant to its direction need to
be given considerable explanation at this point. These include the socio-political
and geographical entity known as Nkporo, the subject of this study, and the
concept of the proverb. A proper examination of these phenomena is important
because the entire work is hinged on them.
1.1. Nkporo: A Socio-historical and Cultural Survey
The geographical area known as Nkporo occupies an area in the present day Ohafia
Local Government Area of Abia State of Nigeria. Upon the creation of Abia State
by the military government of General Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida in 1991,
Nkporo became the northernmost town in Abia State. It is bound in the north by
the Akaeze clan and the Oso Ẹdda village, in the South by Ẹbiriba, in the
Southwest by Ohafia and in the West by Item. According to Obasi Igwe in his
Nkporo: The History of an Igbo City-State from Antiquity to the Present, “Nkporo,
after Ohafia, was, according to the census figures, the most populated community
in the then Arochukwu/Ohafia Local Government Area” (4).
According to both oral and written sources, the Nkporo people migrated from parts
of the area that make up the present day Akwa Ibom State. More than 900 years
ago, the people we know today as Nkporo lived with another group of people who
later became the present day Efiks, in an area that can be identified as today‟s
Nkana/Ikot and Ikoro Ngon/ “Ikpe” zone in Akwa Ibom State. The people of
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Nkporo claim a three hundred years long movement from their original places of
abode in Ibibio land to the current place of settlement. This migration took them
through many other towns like Arochukwu, Ohafia and Ẹbiriba where they settled
for specified periods of time before their eventual arrival at the area now called
Nkporo.
At present, Nkporo is made up of eight villages – Etitiama, Amurie, Obuofia,
Elughu, Nde Nko, Okwoko, Agbaja and Ukwa.
1.1.1. System of Government in the Nkporo Traditional Society
Like many other Igbo traditional societies, leadership in Nkporo revolves around
the age grade system, which performs the legislative, executive and judicial
functions of government. In the case of Nkporo, the age grades are supported in
their leadership responsibilities by a system of village and sectional representation,
the elements of the civil society, such as the title and „lawful‟ secret societies,
special interest and grade groups like families, lineages and professionals.
This is of course not to say that the royal or chieftaincy institution has not existed.
But the monarchies remain more or less an indicator of a link with tradition or the
past. In conformity with the popular parlance about leadership system of the Igbo,
“Igbo enwe eze” (the Igbo has no king), the Nkporo society de-emphasizes
heredity monarchs while emphasizing hereditary statuses. According to J. O. J.
Nwachukwu-Agbada, “Political power in Igboland has never been exercised from
a central place, the Igbo being a stateless polity” (The Igbo Proverb, xix).
In spite of this, in the history of Nkporo, there is significant reverence for the
Ezeaja, whom according to Obasi Igwe
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was the fulcrum around which the Nkporo people had an organized
system of migration …, defended themselves against diverse,
malevolent forces such as hunger, disease, the Afachima Achi-led
Ibibios, and other enemies of wars, protected and cared for the everincreasing population of men, women, children and the elderly, the
sick, wounded and disabled … (261).
1.2. The Concept of Pragmatics
Pragmatics is one of the disciplines/methods of investigation of language which
emerged in recent times. Considered a later subject than Semantics, Semiotics,
Syntax, Phonology and Phonetics, Pragmatics developed in the late 1970s.
Pragmatics studies how people comprehend and produce a communicative act in a
concrete speech situation which is usually a conversation. According to Shaozhong
Liu, Pragmatics distinguishes two intents or meanings in each utterance. “One is
informative intent or the sentence meaning, and the other is the communicative
intent or the speaker meaning” (1). While the former generates meaning from the
utterance considering certain external situational and context-bound factors,
without reference to what Kempson calls “a performance account of the
interaction,” the later sees these as the fulcrum of meaning generation.
For Rudolf Carnap, Pragmatics is “the field of those investigations which take into
consideration … the action, state and environment of a man who speaks or hears [a
linguistic sign]” (qtd in Akmajian et al. 362). For Carnap, “action,” “state” and
“environment” are all external, extra linguistic factors without which complete
meaning of the utterance or speech is impossible. Carnap also raises the issue of
the hearer and the speaker sharing what Inyang M. Udofot calls “previous
knowledge” or “cultural background” (English Semantics 128). Perhaps, it is Jacob
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L. Mey who provides one of the shortest, but all encompassing definitions of
Pragmatics. For him, “Pragmatics studies the use of language in human
communication as determined by the conditions of society” (6). And by society,
Mey is not only looking at what he conceives as a “societal-context” which is
determined by society‟s institutions, but also a “social-context” which is primarily
created in interaction.
Shaozhong, in pointing out some of the aspects of language studied in Pragmatics,
talks about: (1) Deixis, meaning “pointing to” something; (2) Presupposition,
referring to the logical meaning of a sentence or meaning logically associated with
or entailed by a sentence; (3) Performative, implying that each utterance by a
speaker not only says something but does something; (4) Implicature, referring to
an indirect or implicit meaning of an utterance derived from context that is not
present from its conventional use (“What is Pragmatics” 1).
Many scholars have tried to arrive at a better understanding of the discipline of
Pragmatics by contrasting it with Semantics – a related discipline which also
investigates language meaning. This is, however, in spite of the fact that it is
generally agreed that Pragmatics is a part of Semantics, just like Semiotics. OzoMekuri Ndimele citing Stephen C. Levinson, is able to make the following
findings:
Pragmatics and Semantics are closely related in that they both share a
common article of trade. The common denominator between them is
the study of meanings of expressions. It has often been claimed that
Pragmatics deals with those aspects of meaning not covered by the
Semantic theory. In the Semantic theory, meanings are investigated
with respect to the relation of signs to their designate (i.e. objects or
15
entities to which the signs refer), while in the Pragmatic theory,
meanings are studied with respect to the relation of sign to their users
and interpreters … Whereas Semantics studies meaning devoid of
context, Pragmatics is concerned with context-dependent aspects of
meaning. (Semantics 117)
Inyang M. Udofot supports the views of Ndimele above when she stresses that
“Pragmatics and Semantics are therefore related but whereas Semantics studies
meaning as sense relations related to grammatical structure, Pragmatics studies
context-dependent aspects of meaning” (127). Thus, from Udofot‟s submissions
above, what basically distinguishes Semantics from Pragmatics is the demand
Pragmatics places on “extra” or “para” grammatical elements and factors in the
determination of utterance meaning. It is this idea of a dichotomy based on
external, non-grammatical factors that Palmer stands to highlight the difference
between “meaning” and “use”. Citing John Lyons, Palmer goes ahead to refer to
what he calls “the most useful distinction” between Semantics and Pragmatics
being;
In terms of SENTENCE MEANING, which is directly related to the
grammatical and lexical features of a sentence, and UTTERANCE
MEANING, which includes all „secondary‟ aspects of meaning,
especially those related to context. It is this distinction that allows one
to say one thing and mean another (8).
A.N. Akwanya, in establishing the place of Pragmatics in relation to Semantics and
the other levels of linguistic analysis, writes in his Language and Habits of
Thought:
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The study of language is conventionally zoned out to: (a) Syntax, the
determination of the rules for the combining of linguistic elements, (b)
Semantics, the determination of the rules of interpreting linguistic
structures, beginning at the word level and ending at the sentence
level, where linguistics traditionally sets its limits … and (c)
Pragmatics, the determination of the interactive context, the interrelationship between the user and his language, between the language
and the cultural environment, and between the persons among whom
the language is exchanged as message-bearing actions (3 – 4).
1.2.1. Some Pragmatic Principles
Like every other discipline, Pragmatics has certain defining principles, from
elementary knowledge to high level, theoretical and meta-theoretical speculations
(Mey, 67). These are the rules and codes guiding the study and practice of that
discipline, which recommend it as an authentic intellectual engagement. They
include:
1.2.2. Speech Acts
According to Ndimele; “Speech acts is used to refer to a theory which analyzes the
roles that utterances play in relation to the behaviour or attitudes of the speakers
and hearers in interpersonal communication” (21). Going ahead, Ndimele says of
speech act; “It is a communicative ability defined with respect to the intentions of
the speaker while talking, and the effects of his speech on the listener” (121).
Speech acts, therefore, hinges on communicative purpose of every utterance which
is also determined by the specific speech context: the whole idea about the speech
acts, capable of affecting our lives with both favourable and unfavourable
outcomes.
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For Akmajian et al., Speech acts are acts performed in uttering expressions.
According to them, citing John Langshaw Austin (1962) and John R. Searle (1969)
there are four aspects of speech acts: the utterance act, the illocutionary act, the
perlocutionary acts and the propositional acts. They provide a graphical
representation to explain their views:
Speech Acts
Utterance Act
Illocutionary Acts
Perlocutionary Acts Propositional Act
Showing
Promising
Intimidating
Whispering
Reporting
Murmuring
Asking
Persuading
Referring
Predicating
Deceiving
(Linguistics 395)
The above is in line with Ndimele‟s view about the major actions human beings
can perform with language. They include the representative, the directive, the
declarative, the expressive, the commissive, the performative and the ideational
(Semantics 16 – 17).
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1.2.3. Implicature
This takes place when a speaker means to communicate more than what he says.
This is associated with H. P. Grice who explores a special and interesting type of
communication which he calls Conversational Implicature, so called because
“what is implied (or as Grice prefers to say, implicated) is implicated by virtue of
the fact that the speaker and the hearer are co-operatively contributing to a
conversation” (qtd in Akmajian 399). Grice would go ahead to postulate the cooperative principle, which provides a guiding rule for a fruitful conversation and
which according to Akwanya, “comprises the tacit agreement holding between the
speaker and the hearer” (Semantics 124). This principle reads: “Make your
conversational contributions such as is required, at the stage it occurs, by the
accepted purpose or direction of the talk exchange in which you are engaged”
(Akmajian et.al. 399).
The co-operative principle also has its maxims which read:
(1)
QUANTITY
a.
Be informative:
Make your contribution as informative as is required (for the current
purposes of conversation).
Do not make your contribution more informative than required.
(2)
QUALITY
a.
Try to make your contribution one that is
true:
Do not say what you believe to be false.
Do not say that for which you lack adequate evidence.
(3)
RELEVANCE
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a.
Be relevant
(4)
MANNER
a.
Be Perspicuous:
Avoid obscurity of expression.
Avoid unnecessary ambiguity.
Be brief (avoid unnecessary prolixity)
Be orderly
(Semantics 125, Linguistics 399 – 400)
However, these maxims are not hard-and-fast; rather, their nature makes them
flexible enough to accommodate messages conveyed in conversation which
contradict the maxims themselves. This, in essence, means that the maxims do not
impose themselves on language as it carries out its role as a message-bearing
entity.
In his own view about conversational implicature, Mey talks about “something
which is implied in conversation, that is, something which is left implicit in actual
language use” (45). To imply, here, means to derive certain extra meaning from an
utterance, taking into due consideration the shared background knowledge of both
the speaker and hearer.
The question may, therefore, be asked about Pragmatics‟ interest in the concept of
implicature. Mey provides an answer for this when he says: “We seem to be
dealing here with a regularity that cannot be captured in a simple Syntactic or
Semantic „rule‟, but has to be accounted for in other ways” (46).
1.2.4. Presuppositions
To presuppose something is to assume something. It also means to take something
for granted. Presuppositions can then be described as a speaker‟s assumptions in
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the interactive context. The speaker, for instance, assumes that the hearer knows
about certain facts which are germane to the conversation and operates by that
assumption. For instance, if two friends meet and one of them asks the other the
question: “When is the corpse of the late president going to be buried?” He had
asked this question with the presupposition that his friend knows who the president
is, and also knows about his death.
1.2.5. Reference
The act of referring in Pragmatics can be said to mean “pointing
communicatively”. In the process of speech or utterance, speakers “point” to
objects and intend the audience to recognize the reference to those things. In
speaker referring, according to Akmajian et.al., “a speaker has some particular
thing in mind and utters something that will enable the hearer to also have that
thing in mind” (403). Akmajian et.al. identify three kinds of speaker referencing –
Literal Singular Reference, Non-literal Singular Reference and Indirect Singular
Reference.
Literal Singular Reference is denotational, in the sense that it refers to something
that the term denotes. For example, if one says “she can cook,” a particular female
is being referred to, as she denotes female. In Non-literal Singular Reference, the
reference is connotational. When somebody describes another thus: “He is a lion,”
the person referred to is not really a lion but shares certain attributes with it,
especially those of strength and aggression. In Indirect Singular Reference, the
speaker refers to one thing by first referring the hearer to another. For example,
when somebody says, “Here is a country we should visit in October,” he is
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referring the hearer directly to a point on a map, then indirectly referring to a
particular town.
1.3. The Nature and Character of Proverbs
Proverbs are statements which aim at philosophical proclamations through the use
of wit, allusion and imagery, which can be found in virtually all cultures of the
world. Proverbs are simple and concrete sayings that are well known and repeated
in speeches, whether public or interpersonal. Proverbs are often products of a
creative use of language, hinging on common sense, imaginative thinking and/or
the practical experience of humanity. According to Nwachukwu-Agbada, “the
proverb draws attention to an event outside of it, such that even a non-metaphorical
saying is an encapsulation of a course of action or an observation which is the
summary of the view of tradition” (“The Proverb” 194).
It is in this sense that the proverb is a significant speech act, whose impact in a
communicative event is comparable to that of a lexeme to an utterance. In another
context, Nwachukwu-Agbada tells us about the effects that are achieved when a
speaker uses a proverb correctly:
First, he assures his listener that he is sane and articulate. Second, he
shows that he knows what a proverb is and what its discourse
functions are. Third, he displays his awareness of the cultural recipes
associated with proverb usage and gives a signal to his own
expectation from his auditor. Fourth, he has advanced his discourse as
well as conferred artistic significance on what he has said. (The Igbo
Proverb 212)
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For Akmajian et.al., “Proverbs are traditional sayings having a fixed general
sentential form, alluding to a common truth or general wisdom, with some
(rudimentary) literary value used to guide action, explain a situation, or induce a
feeling or attitude” (385). Akmajian et.al.‟s definition, and all other definitions and
descriptions of proverbs, including those already proffered here highlight four
main features or attributes of the proverb. The first is that it invokes a
philosophical reflection over life and living. The second is that it has a literary or
artistic quality. The third is that its meaning, though relevant to the explanation of
a situation or a phenomenon, is not generated through a strict semantic or
grammatical analysis, but mainly through a context-bound examination. The fourth
is that proverbs are mainly communally owned, and provide a speech resource for
any member of the society who knows them, can use them and wants to use them.
But virtually all of the above deductions also pertain to other sayings, especially
those that derive from a people‟s oral traditions. Idioms, for instance, share almost
all the above attributes with proverbs. There are also witty sayings and wellerisms.
Thus, it will help to examine the difference between proverbs and those other
forms of sayings with related features.
1.3.1. Difference between Proverbs and Idioms
In the definition from Akmajian et.al. cited above, the proverb is said to have “a
fixed general sentential form.” This provides a major point of structural distinction
between proverbs and idioms. The following illustrate:
1. They are not all cooks that carry long knives.
2. All that glitters is not gold.
3. The Nigerian Senator threw in the towel.
4. When the chips are down, he will let the cat out of the bag.
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Examples (1) and (2) above are proverbs. They have fixed sentential forms in the
sense that in whichever context they are found, they maintain the same
structural/syntactic form. But in examples (3) and (4), the italicized expressions are
idioms. They do not make complete sense as sentential meaning and cannot stand
on their own as independent grammatical expressions. Secondly, the unhighlighted
parts of examples (3) and (4) are not fixed. They can be changed to other equally
appropriate forms which also sufficiently introduce the idiomatic expressions.
According to Veronica Vivanco:
Proverbs represent a complete piece of information, because they can
work as a sentence. They are meaningful by themselves and, in
consequence, can work independently, as it can be seen from all griefs
with bread are less … In contrast, idioms are not so syntacticallyindependent because they cannot always work as a full sentence, but
as part of it, as it can be seen from the expression as like as two peas
… (2)
Generally speaking, while a proverb is a saying that makes a truth or piece of
wisdom easier to remember, an idiom is a regularly used form of words. Proverbs
usually have a dual structure in which the first acts as context, establishing the
existing situation, and the latter finds a conclusion or advice. For example:
a. When in Rome,
do as the Romans.
Context
Advice
b. If men have learnt how to shoot, (context)
I will fly without perching. (consequence)
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But idioms do not have this structure. They always depend on another structure
that is not part of the idiomatic expression for the provision of a context and even
part of the consequence:
c. Ngozi, the careless school girl was murdered (context)
in cold blood. (part of consequence)
1.3.2. The Igbo and the Proverb
The Igbo nation, to which the Nkporo city-state belongs, cherishes proverbs as an
indicator of the socio-cultural and historical dignity and nobility of the Igbo
people. This is why there is high respect for anyone who demonstrates dexterity in
the use of proverbs. Chinua Achebe, the famous Igbo novelist, who has an
impressive inclination towards the artistic deployment of proverbs in his writings,
has described the proverb as “the palm oil with which the Igbo eat words”
(Lindfors 3). Nwachukwu-Agbada would elaborate the significance of Achebe‟s
statement above:
It is [for] this aesthetic principle of proverbs in Igbo culture, being
first and foremost speech ornaments, that the Igbo proverb has been
defined as any utterance which enjoys some traditional and social
currency, and which is meant to beautify discourse and advance a
user‟s viewpoint (“The Proverb” 194).
Apart from promoting and projecting certain philosophical concepts, such as
justice, equity, duality, kindness, truth, courage, respect, beauty, optimism,
generosity, oppression, prowess and pragmatism, proverbs, according to Nwoga,
serve the functions of illumination and correction among the Igbo (“Appraisal”
198).
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The proverb also serves historical purposes for the Igbo. In another examination of
the Igbo proverb entitled “Origin, Meaning and Value of Igbo Historical Proverbs”
Nwachukwu-Agbada is able to prove that “proverbs have contributed significantly
as authentic indicators of aspects of Igbo history” (190). Most Igbo proverbs
embody Igbo historico-cultural information, and carry out their immediate
functions by making subtle references to events and phenomena in Igbo history.
Nwachukwu-Agbada provides several illustrations to the Igbo proverb. Two
examples from him will suffice:
1. Uli fo otu, Ihiala abuo (If the Ulis remain one person, the Ihiala‟s are
ashamed).
The historical event according Nwachukwu-Agbada on which the above proverb
has been shaped is the Uli-Ihiala war of between 1893 and 1903. According to
Nwachukwu-Agbada, “the war began before the arrival of the British and ended
with their assistance on the side of the Ihiala people” (“Historical Proverbs” 192)
2. “Onye mere whe Onicha mere nwa bekee, e mee ya whe e mere
Onicha gburu nwa bekee.” (A person, who does what Onicha people
did to the white man, shall have done unto him what was done to the
Onicha who killed the white man).
The proverb refers to the murder of Dr. Stewart, a colonial officer in November,
1905, by the Onicha-Mbaise people, and the retaliatory onslaught of the colonial
administration between 1905 and 1918.
The proverb is, therefore, such an invaluable asset to the Igbo that it is considered
not just indispensable to communication in the language, but very vital to the
socio-cultural existence of the people. A good user of the Igbo proverb does not
26
use it amiss; he places it appropriately, considering context and intention. Although
Igbo proverbs are sometimes considered the exclusive preserve of the elderly, who
are custodians of the tradition, younger people can also use proverbs. The Igbo
respect proverbs and their use to such an extent that, as Nwachukwu-Agbada
points out, “although a good user of Igbo proverbs is not necessarily a pleasing
fellow, he commands attention from an audience even when they do not share
his/her politics” (The Igbo Proverb 213). The Igbo proverb may also be an
argumentative instrument, and can even win cases for the speaker if properly and
appropriately utilized and deployed. All these sum up to the reason why Egudu
tells us that, “in public utterances, the principal criterion for assessing one‟s
competence is the number of appropriate proverbs one employs; for the Igbo man,
the principal means for making points forcefully is the proverb” (qtd in
Nwachukwu-Agbada‟s “Obscene Proverbs” 41).
Furthermore, Igbo literary writers have acknowledged and appreciated, through
their art, the high esteem to which the Igbo hold the proverb. This is in addition to
the aesthetic and instructional value which the Igbo proverb invests in their
writings. Chief among these Igbo creative writers is Chinua Achebe, the famous
author of Things Fall Apart, Arrow of God and No Longer at Ease, who describes
proverbs as “dormant seeds lying in the dry-season earth, waiting for rain”
(“Foreword” viii).
With all that has been said, it is clear that the meaning of proverbs is culture-bound
and not really based on formal semantic interpretation or additive value of the raw
linguistic components of the proverbs. This explains the need for a pragmatic use
that demonstrates the creative, imaginative and even artistic depth which language
is capable of subjecting itself to. Due to the connotative and figurative background
27
of the proverb, the generation of meaning through them depends on „external‟ and
„environmental‟ factors which transcend the scope of pure Semantics. The Nkporo
proverb is a purely performance-oriented linguistic form. This means that meaning
generation is tied to the environment of use or what is to be examined in this work
as its pragmatics.
1.4. Objectives of the Study
This study is specifically designed to achieve a number of objectives:
1. To examine the extent to which the context and aesthetics of performance
(use) of the Nkporo proverb facilitates the determination of meaning.
2. To establish that the context of performance (use) of the Nkporo proverb
is directly linked to its function as a socially relevant engagement, and as
an artistic exercise with both instructional and aesthetic foundations.
An adjunct aim here is to prove that the Nkporo people have very high regard for
the creative capacities of language. Because of this, language and its ornamented
variety, especially manifesting in proverbs, idioms, wellerisms, witty remarks and
allusions, as underpinned in the illustrious oral heritage of the Nkporo people,
naturally abound in formal and informal discourse and conversations. As such, it
should not be considered a surprise in any way if this work ends up revealing the
socio-cultural and historical implications of the Nkporo city-state.
Proverbs are culture-bound linguistic elements; just like, in fact, the entirety of
language, which has the capability of revealing the cultural nuances of the society
that has produced them. It is, therefore, highly probable that the Nkporo proverb
will provide an exposé on the peculiarities of the Nkporo culture.
28
In achieving the above, the study shall now throw light on the Nkporo variety of
the Igbo language. Several of the proverbs that will form the analytical material for
this work may have a reach that is well beyond Nkporo land, but the exegesis of
dialect, most of the time, have proven to be the most noted instrument of
demonstration. The Nkporo proverb, therefore, finds its authentication in the
Nkporo language. This dialect-based analysis of the Igbo proverb is certainly
worthy of discussion.
1.5. Statement of Problem
We often talk about the Igbo proverb without actually and practically
acknowledging that it has variants whose character, structure, nature and functions
may spot significant differences from the general tradition of the Igbo proverb. We
have often attended to the Igbo proverb as a whole without recourse to the fact that
the proverbs that have emerged from sub-cultures of Igbo have more to them than
just their structure and functions. It is important to understand that proverbs are the
oil with which words are eaten but it is apparently more important to appreciate the
juicy components of these proverbs that provoke the appetite and hunger to eat the
words. That is what this study is designed to do.
1.6. Relevance of Study
A study of the pragmatics of Nkporo proverbs is relevant for indicating the
peculiarities of the Nkporo proverb, as distinguished from other parts of Igbo land.
It also provides significant insights into the socio-cultural, historical, religious
constitutions of Nkporo land as an Igbo city-state. This foregrounds the fact of the
29
exciting convergences and divergences of Igbo peoples, especially as reflected in
rich tradition of the proverb and other forms of orality. Lots of researches have
been undertaken on the nature, functions and structure of the Igbo proverb, but
nothing much has been done on Nkporo proverbs with special reference to their
performative and implicative functions.
When completed, this work will present Nkporo as an Igbo city-state with her own
idiosyncrasies as a linguistic community; foreground the communicative and
performative nature of the Igbo proverb of Nkporo extraction, and serve as an
exposé of the richness and wide repertoire of the Igbo culture and language in
general and those of Nkporo in particular. The study will also serve as a reference
document for further investigation into related research works.
1.7. Scope of the Study
This work is restricted to the Nkporo variety of the Igbo proverbs. Although there
could be occasional references to the general tradition of the Igbo proverb, mainly
by situating the Nkporo proverb within a wider, related context; the primary
analytical material will be formed by the Nkporo proverb rendered in the language
of the Nkporo people, but translated to the English language. Reference may also
be made, especially in the literature review, to proverb cultures outside Igboland
and even Nigeria. But this is just to ascertain similarities and contrasts between the
Nkporo proverb and proverbs from other cultures, on the one hand, and between
this study and others, on the other hand.
This study is also limited to the study of the Nkporo proverb as context-oriented
performance, and does not accommodate any strategy or methodology of
determination of proverb meaning that is outside Pragmatics.
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1.8. Research Methodology
Understandably, this kind of research engagement necessarily demands fieldwork
to achieve authenticity. This informs my conviction that it is only in the actual
communication event that the real contexts of performance of the proverb as an
artistic and functional linguistic act is realized and appreciated. The fieldwork,
which was directed by the need to accurately capture the Nkporo proverb in use,
took me to the eight villages that make up the Nkporo city-state. They include:
Amurie, Etitiama, Agbaja, Okwoko, Elughu, Obuofia, Ukwa and Nde Nko. My
target was contexts and scenarios of public speeches, including weddings, burials,
chieftaincy installations, launching of community projects, child dedications and
meetings, among others. I was also interested in private, inter-personal
conversations, especially those involving elders.
Initially, I had a tape recorder, but I soon realized it was not going to help much.
Apart from its inability to clearly record speeches in rowdy and crowded situations,
people became suspicious when they saw it. Somehow, the presence of the tape
recorder influenced the scenario, as performers either tried hard to impress or
became too conscious of the environment to deliver natural performance.
Therefore, I had to make do with my writing materials, which proved so valuable.
But before embarking on a fieldwork, a serious researcher should have consulted
with other literature in the line of his or her investigation. This would not only
reveal the extent and nature of research already carried out on the subject, but will
also equip the researcher with a knowledge of what to look out for as a research
problem. That was exactly what I did. Before I set out on field research, I was able
to consult a good number of books and essays about the proverb and Pragmatics.
This not only enabled me to make up my mind on the importance of the fieldwork,
31
but also educated me on which kinds of sayings were actually proverbs and which
ones were not. I was also informed on the way and manner of effective field
research.
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Chapter two
Literature Review
2.0. Introduction
In this chapter, the subject of analysis is the nature of the proverb as a contextbased example of language use. The major objective is to evaluate how other
scholars have approached the pragmatics of proverbs from the ambience of various
cultures, in order to chart a direction for the present study. A close and critical
reading of most of these researches reiterate and reinforce the notion that proverbs
are most of the time inextricably woven around their contexts of performance, and
can hardly be studied without due allegiance to the pragmatic variables which
provide the circumstances of use. This means that even essays without a clear-cut
„pragmatic‟ direction as specified in their topic statements still reveal considerable
reliance on the fundamentals of the context of performance.
For this reason, we have decided to also include works whose topic statements do
not specify a direct engagement with Pragmatics. These essays could profess in
their topic statements an involvement with the social, historical, cultural and other
inclinations of proverbs. But, even in these orientations, context of performance is
an undisputed consideration. For ease of arrangement, we have divided the
researches we are reviewing here into two broad categories: (1) Those that are
direct products of anthropological investigations and (2) those that are based on
literary texts for their paremiology. In the first category, there is strong evidence
that the researchers have collected their proverbs for analysis themselves. Here,
there is also an authentic proof that the researchers have taken into consideration
the circumstances of performance in their aesthetic and instructional/functional
33
underpinnings. In the second category, the researchers have merely analyzed
proverbs already collected and utilized by creative writers. But the fact of the
„unoriginal‟ paremiology does not limit the credibility of their research effort,
especially as far as the investigation of the role of context of performance is
concerned.
2.1. Researches in Direct Anthropological Paremiology
These researches, as we have said in the preceding section are hinged on the fact
that the researchers collected the proverbs for analysis themselves. They do not
rely on other texts as sources of their proverbs but realize these proverbs as firsthand text.
In his important essay entitled “The Pragmatics of Proverb Performance in New
Mexican Spanish,” (1985), the American anthropologist Charles L. Briggs tells us
that “research on the social context of proverb performance has demonstrated the
importance of contextual information in discerning the meaning of proverbs”
(794). Briggs sets out to examine the pragmatic variables that inform the
performance of proverbs by Spanish speakers in northern New Mexico with a view
to establishing “that the proverb „text‟ is accompanied by seven other features that
mark proverb performance” (794). According to Briggs, “reference to all eight
features is thus requisite to providing an adequate definition of the genre and to
grasping the meaning of individual performances” (749). He analyzes the eight
features of proverb performance thus:
Feature 1: Tying Phase
- This is a device that links one or more of the preceding utterances in the
conversation with what is to follow. Eg. That‟s what I tell you, that‟s why he
says that „horsebeans are cooked everywhere.”
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Feature 2 : Identity of Owner
- This feature assumes that some speakers control a greater range of proverbs
than others. It could be said that they, as performers, with a wide range in
their kitty, they can be associated with a particular proverb (799).
Feature 3: Quotation-framing Verb
- The proverb text is invariably introduced by the quotation framing verbs decir
„to say‟ or plasticar „to speak‟ or „to converse‟. According to Briggs, “the
communicative effect of the use of these two features [features 2&3] is to
transfer to basis of the legitimacy of the succeeding utterance from the
personal authority of the speaker to the collective authority of „the elders of
bygone days‟. (800)
Feature 4: Proverb Text
- This is the element that is usually isolated for collection and analysis. For
Briggs, “the text also contributes to the ability of the audience to identify
utterance as constituting tokens of the proverb genre.” (800)
Feature 5: Special Association
- According to Briggs, „the proverb text is often followed by a statement of
provenance or specific association of the proverb, if one is known of the
speaker.” (805). He refers us to the horse beans proverb we cited in feature
one, which was associated with the neighbouring community of Truchas,
because Truchas is known as particularly well-suited for cultivating horse
beans.
Feature 6: General Meaning or Hypothetical Situation
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- Briggs tells us that “the general meaning of a proverb is frequently made
explicit in the course of pedagogically oriented performances. This often
consists of an explication of the logical implications of the proverb” (801.
Proverbs can also be accorded several hypothetical meaning apart from their
general meanings. For instance, Briggs says that for some people, “the horse
beans are cooked everywhere” can mean any of the following and more:
1. If you try hard enough, you can accomplish almost anything.
2. Everyone has his faults and we should look first at our own.
Feature 7: Relevance to Context
- New Mexican Spanish proverbs performance according to Briggs, “contains
an explicit statement of the manner in which the general meaning of the
proverb applies to the present situation. (802)
Feature 8: Validation of Performance
- Briggs tells us here that “proverb performances conclude with an assertion for
the validation of the proverb by the performer. The most commonly used
phrase is es verde, es ciarto „it‟s true, it‟s certainly true‟: tiene que ser
conforme „it must surely be this way‟ is also common” (802).
Apart from proposing these eight features of performance for the pragmatic
analysis of proverbs, Briggs makes several other note-worthy statements about the
contextual considerations of proverb use in the Mexican society. He highlights two
primary contexts of proverb performances in their society: (1) a situation where
“two or more elders may use a number of proverbs in rapid succession in
conversation”, an act and art which requires a high degree of competence, “since
all of the participants are expected to be conversant with the linguistic, cultural,
and often biographical information needed to interpret the proverbs (795).
36
He talks about another primary context, which is the more common situation where
“one or more older speakers, and younger interlocutor(s) are involved; where the
overriding purpose is pedagogical” (795). Unlike in the former context, here, “the
proverb text is generally elaborated, and the relevance of the proverb to the topic of
discourse is usually made explicit” (795). Briggs would further investigate the
roles of presupposition and contextualization, key pragmatic concepts in the
appreciation of the New Mexican Spanish proverbs. About presupposition, Briggs
tells us that “speakers base their performances on assessments of the
sociolinguistic competence of their audience.” According to him, this entails
“judging the degree to which one‟s interlocutors are knowledgeable about “the talk
of the elders of bygone days‟, a wealth of biographical and genealogical
information on current residents, the ethnogeography of Cordova [the search
setting and environments, the participants‟ linguistic and sociolinguistic
competence and their experience in interpreting proverb” (805).
On contextualization in the performance of New Mexican Spanish Proverbs,
Briggs is of the view that “indeed, the verbal and non-verbal cues provided by the
audience during Mexicano proverb performances provide the speaker with
information crucial to the success of the performance” (805).
J. O. J. Nwachukwu-Agbada, one of African leading paremiologists has done for
the Igbo proverb what Charles I. Briggs has done for the New Mexican Spanish
Proverb in terms of the investigation of pragmatic values that undergird the
proverb performances. In his seminal book on the Igbo proverb entitled The Igbo
Proverb: A Study of its Context, Performance and Functions (2002), NwachukwuAgbada among other accomplishments, establishes beyond doubt that the Igbo
proverb is not only a performance-oriented linguistic art and act, but also one in
which contextual variables overwhelmingly inform its aesthetic and instructional
37
functions. Writing about context and performance in the communication of proverb
meaning, Nwachukwu-Agbada identifies as a major weakness of what he calls the
structural definitions of the proverb as put forward by G. B. Milner and Allan
Dundes, “their failure to account for context or even performance” (The Igbo
Proverb 32). Nwachukwu-Agbada would go on to unequivocally uphold the
imperative and indispensability of context of/and performance in the appreciation
of proverbs from any culture of the world:
… it must be seen to be inadequate, the structuralist explanation of the
proverb which argues that for a proverb to be cross-culturally
relevant, it must shed its traditional-cum-linguistic background, forgo
its cultural nuances, so it would assume universality … such a
proverb, we dare say, would have lost much in terms of meaning and
communication potentials … a proverb text is much more than its
wording in any language, whatever the fidelity with which this is
done. (31)
Nwachukwu-Agbada‟s insistence in the sacrosance of the context of performance
is shared by the likes of Raymond Firth, who instructively stresses that “the
essential thing about a proverb is its meaning – and by this is to be understood not
merely a bald and literal translation into accustomed tongue, nor even a free
version of what the words are intended to convey” (134). Firth goes on to state:
“The meaning of a proverb is made clear only when placed side by side with the
translation [it gives] full account of the accompanying social situation – the reason
for its use, its effect and its significance in speech” (134). It is this idea of social
situation that accompanies the performance of proverbs, therefore facilitating the
comprehensive realization of meaning that Peter Sitel has in mind when he
distinguishes between “an investigator who observes proverb usage in a natural
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conversational setting and an investigator whose data are collections of texts.”
About the role of performance context in the Igbo proverb, Nwachukwu-Agbada
says:
We observe that proverb use in Igbo speech contexts is governed by
cultural rules which effective Igbo speakers manage to keep to. This is
particularly so in conversation and speech-making. Invariably,
knowledge of cultural rules presupposes that two or more
interlocutors are culturally informed with regard to communication
recipes as they affect proverb application. As our observation of real
life Igbo contexts reveals, users of Igbo proverbs strive to cast their
verbal acts in ornate frames meant to portray their intimacy with, and
loyalty to the culture as well as to affect a smooth transition in the
movement of the discourse (The Igbo Proverb 211)
For Nwachukwu-Agbada, therefore, the user of the Igbo proverb must be
conscious of the cultural, historical, religious, political and other contexts of use.
He must be faithful to those norms and nuances, pattern and principles, ethos and
ethics which the society communally shares. For Nwachukwu-Agbada also, the
manner and mode of presentation is crucial to an assessment of a speaker‟s
competence in the use of proverbs. Manner and mode in this respect, draw, not just
from the textual aesthetics of the proverbs themselves, but, more importantly, from
the contextual aesthetics of the performance. This is why he tells us that:
In the Igbo context, what is said is not as important as that hidden in
ude, in grunts, in unverbalized system of sounds replete with meaning.
When a proverb is used in its appropriate context(s) communication is
not only achieved, there result complex planes of meaning, shades of
39
tones and undertones as well as auditory delight (The Igbo Proverb
44)
In several other articles, Nwachukwu-Agbada elaborates on the pragmatic
foregrounds of the proverb as a historically, socially, religiously and otherwise
relevant linguistic act and art. Of particular strategic importance is the essay
“Origin, Meaning and Value of Igbo Historical Proverbs” (1990). In this essay,
Nwachukwu-Agbada‟s overriding objective is to analyze the historical significance
of Igbo proverbs. But the undertone of pragmatics in this essay is equally as
overwhelming. This position is made clearer when we consider the role of
presupposition in the performance of historical proverbs. The proverb performer
presupposes that the audience shares the same socio-historical knowledge with
him, such that he will not need to explain the historical phenomena which which
have informed the conception and composition of the particular historical proverb.
Nwachukwu-Agbada sees historical proverbs as “authentic indicators of aspects of
Igbo history already reduced to conventional historical documentation, and by
extension calls attention to their further use in the search of more historical
information about the Igbo part” (“Origin” 190). Such Igbo proverbs in which the
performer “presupposes” that the audience shares some knowledge about his
society‟s past with him according Nwachukwu-Agbada, include;
3. “Uli fo out, Ihiala abuo” (If the Ulis remain one, the Ihialas are
ashamed). The presupposition here is that the audience knows about
the Uli-Ihiala war which raged between 1893 and 1903.
2. “Ozu nwa bekee: e bulie ya elu, „no, no, no‟; a buda ya n‟ala „no, no,
no.‟” (Whiteman‟s body: you carry it up „no, no, no‟; you take it down
„no, no, no,‟).
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The presupposition here is that the audience shares the knowledge about the period
in which the colonial administrator preferred to be conveyed in his many trips
round Igboland in a hammock. According to Nwachukwu-Agbada, “on such
journeys he [the white man] was scarcely satisfied with any particular positioning
whether or not his bearers were comfortable doing so” (“Origin” 193).
Another paper worth attention in this chapter is Adebayo Lawal, Bade Ajayi and
Wunmi Raji‟s impressive research on the Yoruba proverb, entitled “A Pragmatic
Study of Selected Pairs of Yoruba Proverbs” (1996). According to the trio of
Lawal, Ajayi and Raji, “due to the polymorphous nature of the context and
competence needed to be reactivated in interpreting them [proverbs] they also
provide insight into some of the greatest pragmatic constraints in language use”
(635). This prefatory statement contains the motivation for their research interest
and objective, which is “to identify the illocutionary acts performed through the
use of twelve Yoruba proverbs” and to “analyze the types of pragmatic context and
competence which listeners have to invoke and deploy respectively to interpret
them appropriately, and to also resolve the overt contradiction in each of the six
selected pairs in particular and of the language as a whole” (635).
Lawal, Ajayi and Raji utilize as a conceptual framework for their research, the
pragmatic theories of speech acts, presuppositions and implicatures. Furthermore,
they subscribe to what they call “Lawal‟s model of the aspects of a pragmatic
theory,” which assumes that there are five hierarchical contexts of an utterance –
the context of language (in terms of the phonological, lexical and syntactic
components and the structure of the sentence); the situational context (which refers
to the topic of discourse and the factor of the physical event including concrete
objects, persons and locations); the psychological context (which largely derives
from the preceding context of situation and refers to the background of the mood,
41
attitudes, personal beliefs and the state of mind of the language user); the social
context (which is concerned with interpersonal relations among the interlocutors);
and the „sociological‟ (which describes the socio-cultural and historical settings)
(643). In their concluding remarks, Lawal, Ajayi and Raji make the following
resonating statement about the pragmatic potentials of the Yoruba proverb:
Essentially, therefore, the Yoruba proverb, perhaps, like proverbs in
other languages, represent a veritable tool for affecting and effecting
desirable action and for projecting a particular cosmology. In
understanding the intended illocutionary functions of Yoruba
proverbs, the language user employs certain competencies (linguistic,
structural, social, psychological, sociological and cosmological) to
identify, map and match the corresponding contexts of use with
meaning (656).
Although Obododinma Oha‟s own position on the Igbo proverb is a semantic one –
“The Semantics of Female Devaluation in Igbo Proverbs” (2002) – there is a
glowing acknowledgement by the researcher that proverb performances in
Igboland is a context-based exercise, which therefore, falls more accurately on the
purview of pragmatics. Oha therefore says about his methodology in this research
enterprise:
In pursuing the objective of the study, data comprising fifty proverbs
relating to womanhood were collected from both rural and urban
discourse contexts … since proverb usage and interpretation are
context-sensitive …, the collection was restricted to situations in
which the proverbs were actually used by Igbo speakers. In all, thirty
contexts of verbal interaction … were used as sources of data (4).
Oha goes on to highlight the features of the contextual approach to proverb
collection, interpretation and analysis. These features, according to Oha, include:
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(1) the sexes of users and the audiences, (2) the subject matter, (3) the tenors of
discourse to be observed and recorded to assist the analysis (4).
2.2. Paremiology/Analysis through Literary Texts
Because literature is widely acknowledged to be the mirror of the society, it
becomes imperative that all aspects of societal existence including linguistic
nuances and patterns are reflected in literature. Literature is fundamentally about
human beings; human beings who use language. The language of these human
beings must also reveal something about their cultural backgrounds, those that
have given rise to the literature. In the case of African literature, proverbs and
other wise sayings form part of the linguistic repertoire which the writer draws
from and which the authors, as fictional creators, give to their characters. Even in
the present day, proverbs are a major aspect of African oral tradition from which
modern writers of the written tradition have drawn intensively and extensively.
We find it rather heartwarming that in spite of the limitations of collecting and
analyzing proverbs from textual (not real life) settings of performance, pragmatic
studies have been carried out on these proverbs that have been sourced from
literary materials. It is, however, a tribute to the context-confined nature of
proverbs that in whatever mode it is found, reference must be made to its context
of performance in order to arrive at their meanings.
In his investigation of the use of proverbs in an essay, on Ahmed Yerima‟s drama,
entitled “A Pragmatic Reading of Proverbs in Yerima‟s Drama” (2007), Akin
Odebunmi utilizes the performance-oriented structure of drama to sketch out the
context-bound assessment of Yerima‟s proverbs. The dramatic structure helps
Odebunmi realize the utility of Yerima‟s proverbs in situations that are similar to
43
real life. Odebunmi cites the following examples from Yerima‟s Dry Leaves on
Ukan Trees.
Ulolo: My fault?
Do you blame me
Was I not born to be his forebear?
Am I not destined to die minutes
After him?
Am I not to accompany him to the great
Beyond?
Okeke: Yes, but where does it say that you must
Lick his bottom which you already scrub and
Pamper every day?
Does a man carry the porcupine …?
Ulolo: Okay Okeke, I agree.
Thus, by providing the dramatic context, the proverbial question, “Does a man
carry the porcupine?” makes more sense and is understood by the audience. In his
concluding remarks, Odebunmi has the following to say about the pragmatic
consciousness in Yerima‟s deployment of proverbs in his dramaturgy:
… Yerima‟s use of proverbs shows sensitivity to contexts of
interaction. Apart from the relevance of the proverbs to discourse
subjects, there are also the characteristic reformulations of proverbial
propositions by the users to unveil the meanings of the proverbs … it
… affords readers access to the interpretations of the proverbs without
having necessarily to be members of the culture or to possess prior
knowledge of them. In addition, Yerima consistently exploits the
perlocutionary potentials of the proverb, which further elucidate
44
users‟ intentions and reinforce readers‟ understanding of the text
(215).
Mahfouz A. Adedimeji‟s “The Semantics and Pragmatics of Nigerian Proverbs in
Chinua Achebe‟s Things Fall Apart and Ola Rotimi‟s The Gods Are Not to Blame”
undertakes a study of two of Africa‟s most orality-conscious creative writers. Part
of Adedimeji‟s assignment in this essay is to examine the extent to which Achebe
and Rotimi realize context-based meanings in their use of proverbs. One of the
theories that Adedimeji utilizes in his analysis of the proverbs is the contextual
theory, “a pragmatic theory of meaning which focuses on what the linguistic form
is used for, rather than what it means” (3). Citing Firth, who is a proponent of this
theory, Adedimeji insists that the most vital fact about language is its social
function and that “a word/sentence will be meaningful only if it is used
appropriately in some actual contexts” (3). In his analysis, Adedimeji is able to
ferret out the denotative, connotative, collocative and stylistic realizations of the
meanings of the proverbs that have been used in Things Fall Apart and The Gods
Are Not to Blame. We cite his example (11):
A child‟s finger is not scalded by a piece of hot yam which its mother
puts into his palm (Things Fall Apart 47).
Theory: Contextual
Types: Denotative/Collocative
Analysis: Given the contextual/pragmatic knowledge of a mother‟s
love for her child, especially in Nigerian cultures, it is implied that
whatever she does, even if such superficially appears harmful, will be
of benefit to the child. This is because it is presupposed that nobody
loves a child better than his/her mother (8).
Ola Rotimi‟s use of proverbs in The Gods Are Not to Blame is the subject of Akin
Odebunmi‟s “Pragmatic Functions of Crisis-Motivated Proverbs in Ola Rotimi‟s
45
The Gods Are Not to Blame” (2008). In this essay, Odebunmi sets out to
investigate the functions of crisis-motivated proverbs in Rotimi‟s famous play,
with a view to identifying such social and political types of proverbs which fulfill
the roles of counseling, cautioning, challenging, persuading, prioritizing,
encouraging, threatening and admitting. For Odebunmi, “there are psychological
acts which exploit contextual features such as reference, metaphor, inference,
shared situation, knowledge and relevance” (73).
J. O. J. Nwachukwu-Agbada‟s “Proverbs in Prison: The Technique and Strategy of
Proverb Use in Achebe‟s Novel” (1997) makes some significant points about the
contextual circumstances of proverbs, which appear not in their original real life
speech situations, but in literary texts, or in Nwachukwu-Agbada‟s words, “as
captives of another text” (248). In this paper, Nwachukwu-Agbada is guided by the
research questions “in what contexts do these proverbs appear, how do they
function in the particular piece of literature and which way do they offer new
insights into the creative process of an author?” In attempting to answer these
questions, Nwachukwu-Agbada stresses:
Answers to these questions require a consideration of the artistic
activity of de-situating proverb texts from their original social context
and their re-situation in the written medium. Abrahams and Babcock
believe that a de-situated proverb need not lose its significance since
another kind of contexting ensures its life and utility. Although they
agree that proverbs “achieve their primary ontological status through
their use in actual face-to-face situation” they are equally aware that it
is possible to detach proverbs from their interactional situation and
still observe them “carry some of the meaning of these norms if not
46
always their power to persuade and move … (“Proverbs in Prison”
250).
Citing Abrahams and Babcock further, Nwachukwu-Agbada is of the view that
while it is true that written texts “break most ties of discourse to ostentive
reference (that is, reference to the situation common to those engaged in an
interaction) proverbs carry a typical, if not a specific, ostensive, reference onto the
page” (qtd in Nwachukwu-Agbada 250). Nwachukwu-Agbada‟s argument that a
textual, literary proverb has the capability of creating and domesticating its own
performance circumstances and context within the text that it appears, not only
holds water, but validates the exercise and enterprise of creative writers who have
a favourable disposition towards proverbs.
In this chapter, we have reviewed some related research works which place
emphasis –remote or immediate– in the investigation of the proverb as a contextdependent linguistic art and act. Although these researches cut across different
cultures where proverbs are highly esteemed as an aspect of the creative use of
language, we have not presented any such research on the Nkporo proverb. We,
therefore, take it for granted that the Nkporo proverb has not received this kind of
scholarly attention in the past, if not in instance of general assessments as part of
the Igbo proverb.
We have also examined the different methods of analysis and presentation utilized
by the researchers and researches profiled here. Because this particular research on
the Nkporo proverb seeks to realize the proverb as a repository of the history,
socio-political and cultural ethos of the Nkporo people, we have placed a high
premium on performance aesthetics and circumstances and have decided to adopt a
format that best projects and conveys our objective.
47
The proverb in any given culture is a context-bound linguistic form. It has
therefore generated scholarly attention as such, also from various parts of the
world. Thus, to say that the proverb is a pragmatic-oriented speech pattern is to say
nothing new; but what presents the substantial intellectual challenge is the
methodology of investigation of the proverb in a particular culture and the capacity
to prove beyond dispute that the proverb means more than just a textual outline. In
this review, we have seen the paremiology and analytical methods employed by the
researchers, and we have chosen the one that suits our line of intellectual argument
best.
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Chapter Three
Contexts of Performance of Nkporo Proverbs
In the preceding chapters, we have established the fact that proverbs are contextbased speech events whose meaning cannot be fully realized without investigating
the circumstances under which their performance takes place. Thus, when we say
we have set out to examine the „pragmatics‟ of Nkporo proverbs, what we mean is
that we have proposed to take into researching consideration, all the variables of
meaning, especially the extra-textual ones. We may have to repeat here, an
impression we have foregrounded on the previous chapters, that proverbs, in every
culture, are so dependent on the context of use for their meaning, that they are
almost „lifeless‟ when rendered as bare textual phenomenon.
We also acknowledge that the analysis that is to follow here does not capture the
entirety of proverb use as a performative event, since we are also constrained by
our chosen medium of presentation to resort to the written word. J. O. J.
Nwachukwu-Agbada, perhaps, properly articulates this limitation of ours, as he
comments on his observations about a similar research endeavour by him:
I cannot claim to have been able to capture all their facets: the
atmosphere (physical and psychological), the mood of participants,
their vocal modulations, mental impressions, spacio-temporal factors,
etc. (The Igbo Proverb, 40)
It is pertinent to also reiterate here that the method of analysis that we have
adopted for this analysis is derived from the model patronized by NwachukwuAgbada in his book The Igbo Proverb: A Study of its Context, Performance and
Functions (2002). We adopt this model because it places emphasis on proverbs not
only as a communicative event but as performative phenomenon. This model
49
achieves the context-bound meaning objectives of proverb use through its
exhaustive framing and conveyance of real life instances of proverb performances.
Designed mainly as dramatic scenes, every context of proverb use is conveyed to
involve real life people (which the researcher has met in performative action) and
account for the meaning of proverbs against the background of such factors as the
nature of communication (whether it is an occasion for advice, altercation,
demonstration of gratitude, declining of an offer, apology, urging caution,
demanding a person‟s due, exchange of pleasantries, etcetera). The other variables
to be taken into contextual consideration include: the constitution of discourse
participants, (the age of the different interlocutors, their sex, their educational
background, their status in society, the different religious, socio-political and
cultural orientations) etcetera; and the temporal and special settings (when and
where) of the performance.
In choosing what we have decided to label „Nwachukwu-Agbada‟s dramatic
model,‟ we do not mean to suggest that the other models that are patronized by
other researchers in investigating the pragmatics of proverbs do not make
provisions for the context-associated variables we have listed above. Virtually all
of them, especially the ones we have seen and have access to, are in tune with the
theoretical prescriptions of the discipline of pragmatics. For instance, in adopting
the „features of proverbs performances‟ model in his study/essay entitled “The
Pragmatics of Proverbs Performance in Mexican Spanish,” Charles L. Briggs
discusses all of (1) Tying Phase (2) Identity of owner (3) Quotation-framing verb
(4) proverb text (5) special association (6) General meaning and/or hypothetical
situation (7) Relevance of context and (8) validation as sub-heads. Several of the
features outlined and discussed here bear significant undertones of pragmatic
principles.
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Similarly, in his adoption of what he calls “Theory of Pragmatic Acts” in the
study/essay entitled “Pragmatic Functions of Crisis-Motivated Proverbs in Ola
Rotimi‟s The Gods Are Not to Blame” (2008), Akin Odebunmi throws light on the
performance of “pragmeme” in which is located speech acts, indirect speech acts,
conversational (dialogue) acts, psychological acts (emotions), prosody (intonation,
stress, etcetera), physical acts (body moves [including gestures] and physiognomy
(facial expressions). In “A Pragmatic Study of Selected Pairs of Yoruba Proverbs,”
Adebayo Lawal, Bade Ajayi and Wunmi Raji adopt what they call the “Lawal‟s
model of the aspecis of a pragmatic theory” in which the situation context of
language use is one of the five hierarchical contexts of an utterance. Others
include, “the context of language itself, in terms of the psychological context, the
social context and the „sociological,‟ which describes the socio-cultural and
historical settings” (643).
However, irrespective of the fact that all of these theoretical models of analysis
place due emphasis on context of proverb performance, and of course the
pragmatic imperatives of meaning realization in proverb use, our „NwachukwuAgbada‟s dramatic model‟ has a certain edge over them. First, this model cashes in
on the fact that drama or dramatic enactments and renditions is the closest art form
to life, in that it presents human beings in action. According to Allwell Abalogu
Onukaogu and Ezechi Onyerionwu, „while other forms of literature are essentially
designed to convey their messages in words, drama is designed to present its
statements in a combination of action and words‟ (38).
By placing proverbs in a dramatic event, the Nwachukwu-Agbada‟s dramatic
model identifies proverbs as authentic human linguistic codes and patterns.
Secondly, our model fits proverbs in the environment where they can interact with
other (kinds of) utterances, which help in the realization of their (especially,
51
context-related) meanings. Thirdly, this model creates an ambience for the
interplay of virtually all the pragmatic principles – implicature, speech acts,
reference, presupposition, to mention but a few. Fourthly, and perhaps, most
fundamentally, the model is simple in explanation and elucidation; and also
exhaustive and comprehensive.
In what follows, we present ten contexts of the use of Nkporo proverbs and their
analysis along the line of the variables and elements which influence their
performances and their meanings.
Context 1
Nature of Communication – Challenge
Discourse Participants – A young palm cutter and an older man who claims to have
been a master of the art of palm-cutting in his younger days. They are aged
about 22 and 60 respectively.
Setting: Etitiama-Nkporo (a bar).
The discourse participants met in a bar close to the village square and are in a
light-hearted mood. The older man lapses into nostalgia and begins to boast of his
exploits in his active days as a palm cutter. The younger man, apparently sensing
an indirect indictment of his generation and himself in particular (since he is the
only young person engaged in the profession in the bar), rises in defense of his
generation.
Elder:
I remember those days when we conquered the trees; from Etitiama to
Elughu, to Okwoko and Ukwa; to Agbaja and Amurie and from Ndi
Nko to Obuofia, I was known all over. Real palm tree cutting ended
52
with our generation. The young generation has made a mess of the
profession …
Young Man: Don‟t begin to feel good; the forge that produced the cutlass and the
machete is the same that produced the hand/kitchen knife.
Elder:
That is not entirely true in this situation. I can tell you in all
confidence that if the rat that bites me, flings its tail at you, you will
die. That was when we had real forests and we ventured into all of
them. Do we have forests now? Forget it my young friend, the forest
in which the chicken‟s feet is pierced by thorns will be impenetrable
by man.
Analysis
One thing that catches the interest of the researcher in the above exchange (and in
others too) is the fact that it appears that in the Nkporo culture, the use of proverbs
in conversations has little to do with age of the conversationists. Whereas in some
cultures, there appears to be an unwritten law that young people or children should
not use proverbs in their dialogues with elders, in Nkporo, an infant who is old
enough to talk can use proverbs while discussing with older people including their
parents. Probably to foreground this „restriction‟ of young people from using
proverbs, is the Igbo meta-proverb, “Nwata tuo ilu nna ya turu ya kwuo ugwo nna
ya ji” (if a child says the proverbs that his father says, let him also pay the debts
that his father owes). But in the above dramatic context, where the young palm
wine cutter is, in fact, the first to cite proverbs, the elder does not take offence in
any way, apparently understanding the young man‟s cultural liberty of expression,
even through the use of proverbs. The first proverb of the conversation is
(1) Íbe a kpùrù mpam bù ibé a kpùrù mma ékwu.
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The same forge that produced the cutlass produced the kitchen knife.
The young palm cutter uses the above proverb to cut short the boasting elder by
reminding him that they are both products of the same palm cutting culture; that
there should not be any difference based on superiority between them. His
implicature is that like the kitchen knife is to the cutlass, he may be smaller or
younger than the elder, but that does not infer inferiority. He presupposes that
the elder/veteran palm-cutter knows/understands the meaning of the proverb
and the imagery that has gone into its constitution and production. Not to be
outdone, the elderly man responds with two equally appropriate proverbs, to
advance his point that he is indeed superior:
(2) Òké tara m ẹru lo ghi odùdù gi anwua.
If the rat that bites me flings you with its tail, you will die.
(3) Òfia ógwu màrà òkúkò àrághi epie ya epie.
The forest in which the chicken‟s foot is pierced by thorns is impenetrable.
The elder reiterates his poise of not only superiority but also invincibility with the
use of two relevant proverbs. The first proverb (2) above implicates that the
difficulties and challenges which he (the elder) encountered in the course of his
palm cutting enterprises in his heyday, and which he withstood gallantly would
certainly pulverize the young man if such comes his way. In proverb (3), the elder
reiterates his claims to superiority with a declaration that the younger man can
hardly achieved what he (the elder) could achieve in his own days. Drawing on the
popular imagery that thorn can hardly attack the chicken‟s feet (probably because
of its slim and hard nature) he underscores that he and indeed his generation were
better palm cutters, who saw it all in their period of practice.
54
Context 2
Nature of Communication
– Readiness, self knowledge
Discourse Participants
– Two village women in their middle ages.
Setting
– Etitiama-Nkporo, The Apostolic Church
The women are about the same age and are both members of the Christian women
fellowship. After church service one begins to apply powder on her face, because
she consistently complained of having an oily/sweaty face.
1st Woman: Why is it that you always carry your powder with you every where
you go? Are you an old woman who carries about her snuff boxes?
2nd Woman: My sister, the yellow yam says it understands its plight/nature, that‟s
why she carries her own oil in her body.
1st Woman: It is true, my sister; I remember you have such an oily face.
Analysis
The above is a simple interchange between friends, but proverb use in Nkporo does
not wait for the very important and significant discussions. This is the beauty of the
proverb among the Nkporo. It has been so built into people‟s life that it comes into
conversation naturally. The proverb use in this occasion fits well into the context.
(4) Òkù siri iyo màrà lèghè ònwó yo di yo kpárá manu kpai ònwó ya ẹhú.
The yellow yam says it understands its plight/nature, that‟s why it carries its
own palm oil.
In Nkporo, okù is a kind of yam that is yellowish in colour, which may not require
the compliment of palm oil (like other yams) before it is eaten. In Nkporo
55
mythology, okù is usually a reference point of readiness and self knowledge. It is
from this mythological relevance that the second woman draws to drive home her
point that since she knows she has an oily face, a situation that frequently makes
her facial appearance unpleasant, she has to have the antidote/solution with her
every where she goes. That the 1st woman immediately sees reasons with her
friend is an indicator that the proverb has fulfilled its purpose as a speech act.
Context 3
Nature of Communication – To foreground utility value
Discourse Participants
– Two young school boys
Setting
– Elughu Village; in the house of one of the boys.
One of the boys has come to meet the other so that they can walk to school
together. On his arrival, the first boy discovers that the other is yet to be ready for
school.
First boy: What is it that you do early in the morning that you are always not ready
for school when I come around?
Second boy: My friend, do not mind me, the hunter does not say all that he sees in
a forest. Well, I‟m almost ready; we will soon be on our way … the person
who is carried on the back on a journey does not know/feel the pains of
distance.
First boy: Meaning?
Second boy: Do you know I have gone to sell my palm kernel at Ndi Nko village
this morning?
First boy: Do you mean you are still into this palm kernel business?
56
Second boy: May God forgive you for asking that question. If the hen abandons its
noise, how will it raise its chicks? And if the native doctor dispenses
of his white chalk, with what will he see the spirits?
Analysis
This particular episode shares the question and answer scheme of the previous one.
However, the eye-catching thing here should be that even young school boys can
use proverbs with such dexterity. A study of this episode would reveal that it is the
second boy, who probably has the single-handed responsibility to see himself
through school that cites all the proverbs. He says a total of four proverbs within
one discourse event, which is really remarkable for someone of his age.
(5) Jinta áràghi àkpáigbu ife o fùrù ófia.
The hunter does not say everything he sees in the forest.
(6) Ónyé á kwò àzu ámaghi úzò di ẹnyá.
Somebody who is carried on the back on a journey does not feel the pains of
distance.
(7) Òkukò kapù kwoo kwoo, ò ji ghini azù umù ya?
If the hen does not make its kwoo kwoo noise, with what will it raise its
chicks?
(8) Jibia kapù ikpai nzu ẹnya, ndaa ife ò ji afú nde manwú?
If the native doctor abandons his white chalk/or does not apply his white
chalk to his eyes, with what will he see the spirits?
The second boy‟s first proverb (5) implies that he is not encouraged for one reason
or the other to open up to his friend and schoolmate why he is not always ready for
school whenever the former comes around. He probably does not want to attract
any undue sympathy to himself for his plight, nor does he want to wallow in self
57
pity. Perhaps he changes his mind on the above stance, and decides to actually
open up to his friend. His next proverb (6) appears a little bit harsh, but it
nonetheless signals this intention to say something he has probably never said
before to his friend. Proverb (6) implies that since the first boy is dependent on his
parents who are still very much alive, and have the means to see him through
school, he may not understand and appreciate the hardship of the second boy who,
independently, fends for himself. Sensing an insult, the first boy retorts „meaning?‟
after this proverb. This is when in response, the second boy tells him that he has
gone to sell palm kernel already in a neighbouring Nkporo village. Obviously
surprised, the first boy remembers that his friend was a palm kernel merchant, but
shows signs of not having given thought to the fact that his friend is still in the
business. The second boy then reminds him that he could possibly not leave the
trade from which proceeds he is able to keep himself in school. He does this most
effectively with proverbs (7) and (8) which very much have the same thematic
direction. Which means, like the hen which could never leave its peculiar noise
formula and the native doctor for whom his white chalk is indispensable, palm
kernel merchandizing is absolutely sacrosanct for the second boy. There is no
doubt whatsoever that the first boy now understands his friend‟s predicament in
absolute terms.
Context 4
Nature of Communication
– To express gratitude
Discourse Participants
– A young man and an elderly woman
Setting
– The home of the elderly woman in Etitiama
village Nkporo.
58
The young man lives in the city, far away from Nkporo and has come home to
celebrate Christmas. The elderly woman happens to have been a very close friend
of the young man‟s mother who died about twelve years earlier. After the death of
the young man‟s mother, as the researcher later finds out, the elderly woman
helped in certain significant ways in the upbringing of the boy. On this occasion of
his visit home, the boy brings an assortment of gifts to the elderly woman.
Youngman: You know since I lost my mother, you have really been very good to
me. Please do accept this token as a demonstration of my gratitude for all
you have done for me.
Elderly woman: You are really a good man. May the almighty God continue to
bless you and prosper your ways. If it is other young men of these days who
live in the city, they would have forgotten people like us exist. They would
have „outgrown‟ the village and its old people …
Youngman: Mama, if I did that, it would be unfair. The okro plant does not
outgrow its planter. And moreover, the chicken does not forget the person
that sheltered her during the rainy season.
Analysis
The young man in the above episode, who now lives in the city far away from
Nkporo, which is the site of dominance of the Nkporo proverb, does not show any
sign of having lost the culturo-linguistic identity of his people with its nuances
couched in proverbs and other witty sayings. Thus, these come into play in his
demonstration of gratitude for what the elderly woman has done for him.
Significantly, it is the young man who cites the proverbs on this occasion.
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(9) Okwùrù áràghi ètúogha ónyé kúrú ya ni.
The okro plant does not outgrow its planter.
(10)
Òkúkò áràghi èchéfu onye féré ya ódù ra ùdú mini.
The chicken does not forget the person that prunned it during the rainy
season.
Proverb (9) above does not necessarily show gratitude, it rather shows respect. As
both of young man and elderly woman acknowledge, respect must come before
gratitude. The young man draws from the imagery of the okro plant which, even
when it grows very tall, can be bent downwards to any level during the harvest
period, to assure the elderly woman that although he is now a full grown man,
living in the city with financial independence, that comes with this status, he still
has respect and reverence for not just his native land and its culture, but also for its
people and especially the elders, who are, by and large, the custodians of that
culture. Furthermore, with the proverb of the chicken, which does not forget the
person who provides it with shelter during the rainy season, he drives home the
point of his gratitude for the elderly woman who has helped to raise him, upon the
demise of his own mother.
Context 5
Nature of Communication
– To cement an agreement
Discourse Participants
– Members of the Igwebuike age grade.
Setting
– Village square, Etitiama.
60
The members of the age grade are having their annual end-of-the-year meeting,
and they agreed on a number of projects to carry out in the new year, after heated
deliberations lasting for several hours. The chairman of the age grade in his closing
remarks tries to reinforce the kernel of their conclusions:
Chairman: I thank you all for your patience, your understanding and most
important of all, on your active participation in the discussion on
important issues that we have treated here … I believe we are not
children, that we shall do as we have agreed. Let saying become
doing. The authentication of discussion is sanctioned by the nod of
the head. And we must all cooperate to make all of these work …
Secretary: (cutting in) … because joint urination produces foam. Let
everybody play his own role because if the food in the bowl is shared
amicably, the bowl will not be ashamed.
Analysis
This is the first proverb performance that has its context as a formal group event.
Here, the proverbs that we capture are those that are used in the concluding periods
of the age grade meeting. Therefore, these proverbs naturally have an inclination of
sanctioning and endorsing the conclusions and the decisions of the group. We have
four proverbs here, two coming from the chairman and another two coming from
the secretary.
(11) Ta kpam kpam buru mem mem.
Let saying become doing.
(12) Ara eji isi ekwòrò uka a kpara akpa.
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The authentication of a discussion is sanctioned by the nod of the
head.
(13) Anyukota mamiri onu yo ogboo ùfufù.
Joint urination produces foam.
(14) A kpaa akpa biri utara, ifere anaghi eme oba.
If collective food is amicably shared, the bowl will not feel ashamed.
One observation from the above performance is that while the chairman‟s two
proverbs tilt more towards the imperative of agreement, the secretary‟s two
proverbs incline towards the indispensability of cooperation in any joint venture. In
the first proverb above (11), „kpam kpam‟ and „mem mem‟ even when translated,
at the ordinary linguistic level, means „saying and doing‟, respectively. The
chairman reminds the house through the agency of this proverb, that there may be a
tendency towards laxity in the execution of their decisions. In the second proverb
(12), the chairman reiterates the sacrosance of execution, as a validation of
agreement. Part of the implicature of this pair of proverbs used by the chairman is
that everyone should join hands to realize the projection of the group, irrespective
of how lofty they may be. But this implicature is more properly realized in the
secretary‟s own pair of proverbs. Using the apparently „obscene‟ proverb of joint
urination and the amicable sharing of food from the bowl, he is able to foreground
the place of unity, togetherness and cooperation in the group‟s endeavour to
implement their decisions. Thus, he moves a step higher in the discourse of
agreement to also foreground the importance of the collective efforts.
Context 6
Nature of Communication
– Minding one‟s own business.
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Discourse Participants
– A little girl, in fact, a relative of the researcher,
who is about twelve years old, and her mother,
who is about forty.
Setting
– Etitiama; in the backyard of the family house of
the discourse participants.
The young girl has noticed that there is a particular family in the neighbourhood
that her parents do not relate with in a very cordial manner. She and her siblings
also have not been encouraged to have anything to do with that family. She
summons boldness and asks her mother about it.
Young girl: Mother, why do we not go to Udeh‟s house and why don‟t they come
to our own house?
Mother: Do you want to go there?
Young girl: I just want to ask.
Mother: [Thinks a while] Well, hushed voices coming from the shrine of the
masquerades is for one spirit not to step on the other‟s frond.
Young girl: I don‟t understand, mother …
Mother: You won‟t understand. Now go back to your chore.
Young girl: Did we have a fight?
Mother: [Now impatient and feeling disturbed] Leave me alone, this girl. Doesn‟t a
transaction that a child does not know about exist?
Analysis
63
From the above exchange between the mother and her daughter, it is apparent that
the young girl‟s observations are right. It is also obvious that the mother does not
want to give in to her daughter‟s curiosities. This is why she lapses into proverbs,
this time not to make things clearer for the girl, but rather to achieve a subtle
ambiguity.
(15) Huu huu huu e nko bùnwa zoburu m omụ, zoburu m omụ.
Huu huu huu, coming from the shrine of the masquerades reminds one
spirit that it should not step on the palm frond of the other.
(16) Afia nwanta amaghi o raghi azụkwa?
Doesn‟t a transaction that a child does not know exist?
The young girl may not have understood the first proverb, but the audience
certainly does, in relation to the context of performance. There is actually tension
between both families and the young girl must have been suspecting this for a long
time. In spite of the fact that the mother sets out to confuse the child, her proverbs
are quite apt. The two families are like the two spirits whose paths should not
cross, and who take extra care to make sure that this does not even happen. We are
not very sure that even an adult would not have wanted to know more, in spite of
understanding the contextualization of this proverb, but the persistence of the
young girl also draws a proverbial retort that now bears the mother‟s impatience
with the girl and even irritation at having been asked to explain issues meant for
the consumption of adults to a mere twelve-years-old. Proverb (16) captures the
last point in its entirety, implying that the child has every opportunity of knowing
about the conflict when she is older.
Context 7
Nature of Communication
– Expression of ill fate/ill luck.
64
Discourse Participants
– A young man and a couple of his friends.
Setting
– The young man‟s house in Obuofia Nkporo.
The young man‟s wife has just suffered a stillbirth, her second in two years. As
expected, he is very sad at this development. His friends came to console him.
First friend: Okoro, it is enough. If you go on this way, you will appear to be
questioning the wisdom of the almighty God, who gave and has taken.
Second friend: Death does not know how to kill. What has a child making its entry
into the world done to him now that he has struck? Sorry Okoro, my
brother.
Young man: [in tears] But there are certain questions I wanted to ask God. Why is
it that it is the day I go hunting that the antelopes learn to climb trees? This
does not happen in my family. Even Kelechi, our last born has two children
already. Why is it that okro does not grow for the cook.
Analysis
Nkporo proverbs capture the totality of the speech activities of the Nkporo people,
pleasant and unpleasant. Thus, even when a user of Nkporo proverbs is not at his
or her creative best, when perhaps his or her faculties have been clouded by
emotions of unpalatability, proverbs still issue from him or her. The above
performance context is a good example. Here, both the person(s) consoling and the
person being consoled deploy proverbs that are appropriate to the context to pass
their messages across.
(17) Onwụ amaghi egbu.
Death does not know how to kill.
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In his consolatory capacity, the second friend establishes the fact, using proverb
(17) that death is merciless; does not have a conscience. But a further implicature
of this proverb should be that nobody is above death; that one qualifies as a
candidate of death by virtue of not just being born into the world, but merely being
conceived. For the second friend, death is so wicked and insensitive that it mows
everything it targets down, without sympathy. But the bereaved young man has his
own pair of equally appropriate proverbs with which he expresses his emotions.
(18) Orabụkwahù izù m gaa nta ta mgbada ra amùsa inyu elu?
Why is it that it is the day I go hunting that the antelopes learn
to climb trees.
(19) Okwùrù araghi amiri ote ofo.
Okro does not grow for the cook.
In the Igbo worldview, the antelope is not known as a climbing animal; it is only
known for its speed. Thus, for an antelope to climb up the tree when a particular
hunter goes to hunt signifies badluck. The bereaved young man contextualizes this
proverb, implying that he is that ill-fated hunter, since others could have children,
but his die at birth. The second proverb foregrounds the irony of life where things
do not take a particular order, particularly the order prescribed for it by natural
sequence and reason. The young man is definitely aghast that he appears to be the
only one encountering such ill-fate in his family, where even younger people have
successfully had children. Thus, it means that one does not have things easy for
him or herself just because he or she is superior to the other person in one way or
the other. The okro, therefore, does not grow for the cook.
Context 8
Nature of Communication
– Explanation for action.
66
Discourse Participants
– Two friends.
Setting
– Elughu Nkporo, at the Afo market.
One of the friends has suddenly relocated from Aba where he has lived for a
considerable number of years, to the village. Many of the villagers are surprised at
this action especially as the young man appeared to be doing particularly well in
his business until his sudden relocation. He explains the reasons for his action one
more time to yet another person.
Youngman: Those boys dealt with me.
His friend: The kidnappers?
Youngman: I don‟t know if to call them kidnappers or thieves. After all they took
from me in their previous two visits; they sent me a threat letter, notifying
me of their intention to strike again. My brother, if you wake up in the
morning only to be pursued by a cock, please run for you dear life, since
you are not sure if it grew teeth in the night.
His friend: Don‟t you think it is somebody that knows you very well that is behind
all of this? The days are evil and laughter is not cordiality.
Youngman: My brother, nobody knows from where water has entered the
ugboghoro stalk …
His friend: You mean your business does not exist any longer.
Youngman: What do you expect me to do? If one sees that which is greater than
the farm he sells the barn.
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Analysis
Like the young man in context 7, this particular young man has also suffered some
ill-fate. Although the performance situation here is not as charged as in context 7,
appropriate proverbs are employed to explain the issues at hand. The young man
who has beaten a hasty retreat to the village over threats of armed bandits‟ attack
cites a well known proverb to explain his new status as a village resident.
(20) Iteghu ụra ùtutù, okuko chug hi oso, sopù maka imaghi ma o labara
ulùo puo eze.
If you wake up in the morning and the cock starts pursuing
you, run because you don‟t know whether it grew teeth in the night.
As everybody knows, the cock does not have teeth and it rarely pursues/attacks
humans, being essentially prey to the latter. But when a prey turns out to become a
predator, its erstwhile predator should avoid it. The above proverb and its
significance anticipate another Nkporo proverb (that is not in the context).
(21) O ra ulùo onye amumù bu ibe ara no atù eka eleghe emebirùrù ulùo
onye ike.
It is at the compound of the coward that we stay to point at the ruins
of the brave man.
Both proverbs (20) and (21) emphasize the fact that bravery or strength is not best
demonstrated through careless stubbornness and brazen display of brawn. Thus,
the young man‟s retreat to his village upon threats to his life is validated. His
friend‟s suspicion that those masterminding the misfortune of the young man may
be people who are very close to him is expressed through an appropriate proverb:
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(22) Ochi abụghi ùtụo.
Laughter is not cordiality.
Thus, the young man may not have thought in this direction, but he should
acknowledge that it could be a possibility; after all, certain individuals have been
known to have been unexpectedly involved in the misfortune that people close to
them suffer. Not to be drawn into apportioning of blames, the young man‟s next
proverb indicates that he has resigned to fate, since he could not say or think about
anything with a convincing degree of certainty.
(23) Onweghi onye mara ibe mini sa banyi opi ụgboghoro.
Nobody knows from where water has entered the ugboghoro stalk.
The ụgboghoro is an edible plant whose leaves are used to make a kind of soup
considered to be a local delicacy. But the stalk of the ụgbogho appears to contain
an unusual quantity of water, which makes it a curiosity of mythological
proportions as to how the water got there in the first place. This situation,
therefore, provides a proverbial ambience for the expression of curiosity. The
young man here certainly does not know and cannot tell how he has become the
subject of criminal attacks. Finally, in response to whether his business in the city
has packed up, the young man impresses on his friend the fact that one should
secure his life before thinking about how to engage in any life activity.
(24) Afu ife ka ubi e ree oba.
One sells off the barn when he sees something greater than the farm.
In Igboland, ubi (farmland) and oba (yam barn) are considered to be the most
important material acquisitions a man can have, especially in the traditional
societies. Virtually nothing can be considered more important than they are. Thus,
anything that threatens such status of importance is, for the Igbo, to be considered
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significant and serious. While for the young man in the above context, his business
which is his source of livelihood is his „ubi‟ and his „oba‟, his life and security are
more fundamental, and they qualify to be that thing that is greater than ubi. This
proverb, can however, be used in another context. For instance, when one
abandons a trade, job or vocation for a more lucrative or promising one.
Context 9
Nature of Communication
– To condemn greed and altercation.
Discourse Participants
– Two women; a buyer and a seller.
Setting
– Eke Market; Etitiama Nkporo.
The buyer wants to buy dried fish and has engaged in extensive haggling with the
seller. The woman who is the customer wants a certain quantity of fish for a price
the seller considers outrageously too cheap. The seller suddenly lets go of her
emotions and the hitherto peaceful transaction turns into a bitter exchange.
Seller: Woman, drop my fish if you don‟t want to buy. I did not pick it from the
foot paths; I bought them with money. .. and I did not steal it.
Buyer: [also irritated] What is my business with how you got it? All I know is that
I want to buy fish. You can steal it for all I care. It is your business. The
horn of the he-goat cannot kill it…
Seller: [Raising voice] You are a very greed person. He who looks for big things
meets a cow‟s chin.
Buyer: I can see how foolish you are, if that is how you attend to your customers…
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Seller: Customer, my foot … you are not a good customer. It is the head that hits
the iron basket that makes it to shake … if a person asks me ebu, I will ask
him ẹñụ.
Analysis
This context can be considered in the sense that it presents the performative
significance of proverbs in altercation. Both the buyer and the seller, most
interestingly arm themselves with requisite proverbs in heated disagreement. It is
also worthy of note that the buyer‟s initial deployment of proverbs in the already
tensed communication event fires its embers.
(25) Mpi mkpi pùrù araghi akpợgbu ya.
The horn of the he-goat cannot kill it.
The buyer uses this proverb to remind the seller that it is she who made up her
mind to sell fish; therefore she should not complain about when customers offer
what she (the seller) considers as ridiculous prices; that she should be prepared,
just like the he-goat is prepared to do with its horns, to take anything that comes
with it. Not to be outdone, the seller retorts with her own proverb, to undermine
her conviction that the buyer is not the ideal customer, but a greedy opportunist.
(26) Ocho ife ukwu ra-afụ agba efi.
He who looks for big things meets a cow‟s chin.
The seller apparently refers to the fact that the buyer will soon regret her greed in
wanting to have a large quantity of fish for a relatively small/cheap price. Her
presupposition is that the buyer does not just understand this proverb, but also
appreciate and acknowledge the fact that a cow‟s chin may look big in size but
almost valueless. But when the seller is reminded that she should not quarrel with
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her customer, by the buyer, she has equally appropriate proverbs to defend her
standpoint.
(27) Isi bitùrù mkpo, mkpo tuo egege.
It is the head that heats the iron basket that makes it to shake.
(28) Onye ju m ebù, ma aju ya enu.
If anyone asks me ebu, I will ask him enu.
In proverb (27), the seller accordingly defends her stance of quarreling with her
customer by stressing that it is the customer in question who first offends her. Iron
baskets are usually hung in the kitchen, but sometimes, especially in darkness, one
can mistakenly excite them by touching, may be accidently with her head. If
proverb (27) is a polite way of saying that one has been provoked into a quarrel,
(28) is not, as the seller makes it clear, in an uncompromising manner, that she is
ready to respond accordingly to any kind of insult meted out to her by anybody,
including her customers.
Context 10
Nature of Communication
– Advice.
Discourse Participants
– Two good friends.
Setting
– The sitting room of one of the friends at Elughu,
Nkporo.
The two young men are graduates. They, in fact, attended the same university. One
is a banker and the other is a business man. The business man casually broaches
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the issue of his intention to join politics to his friend, but the later seems to have
serious reservations about politics, especially as practised in Nigeria.
Business man: I am telling you the whole truth, politics is the most lucrative
business in Nigeria today. Imagine how much I will be making as a
councilor, let alone as a member of the House of Assembly. My brother, I
think my mind is made up.
Banker: It‟s not as smooth and easy as you make it all out to be …
Business man: I know the people I am dealing with many times better than you –
in terms of education, enlightenment, enterprise – who are in politics. They
are all millionaires today. Ordinary councilors!
Banker: You are not them. If a rat joins the lizard to get drenched in the rain, how
will it dry its body? Don‟t just follow those people. The bird that dances on
the pathway has a drummer playing for it in the bush …
Analysis
The two proverbs utilized in this exchange sum up the banker‟s opinion about his
friend‟s proposal to join the burgeoning political class in Nigeria, and what he
considers as the unacceptable character in Nigerian politics.
(29) Oke soro ngwùrù maa mini, ngwùrù kohu, oke o na-akohu ko?
If the rat gets drenched in the rain with the lizard, will it get dried as
the lizard would, soon after.
(30) Nwa nnùnù no egbata uzo ete iri, ife kùghara ya nkwa nohu rime ofia.
The bird that dances in the pathway has a drummer in the bush.
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In the first proverb above, the banker warns his business-man friend not to meddle
in politics because others are doing it; considering the criminality and diabolism
that have been associated with Nigerian politics. Just as the rat which hairy body
would prevent it from drying easily, this business man may not be disposed to get
„dirty‟ which is probably the rule of the game of politics in Nigeria. The second
proverb reinforces the first by reminding the business man who intends to join
politics that there are things he does not have, and may not be disposed to have,
that those already in politics are banking on, to keep them going. The proverb
seems to make a pointed reference to the godfather syndrome which is prevalent in
Nigerian politics.
The Nkporo proverb is indeed a context-bound linguistic and communicative
phenomenon which thrives on performance to fully realize its functionality. The
context of situation, which takes into consideration the pragmatic principles of
implicature, presupposition and speech acts, in the evaluation of how proverbs
function, makes sure that the proverb transcends the status of a lifeless textual
entity to that which is a part of the human action; which fulfills its potentials in
action.
The Nwachukwu-Agbada dramatic model which we have chosen for this analysis
may not do comprehensive justice to the conversational realization of these
proverbs, but it has impressed the fact that proverbs are the linguistic devices of
living people in a living society. It is also worthy of note that through this model,
we have established that in Nkporo, age is not a barrier in the use of proverbs,
neither is gender or educational status. We have also foregrounded that proverb can
take place anywhere there is, at least, someone to talk and another to listen.
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Chapter Four
Stylistic Nuances and Realization of Image
Proverbs, apart from being strong features of communication, are artistic devices,
whose conception, creation and utility indicate a kind of imaginative alertness that
can match the enterprise of the most inspired plastic verbal artists. To many art
scholars and critics, proverbs are sub-genre of oral literature, whose artistic
properties and characteristics are not in any kind of doubt. E. Nolue Emenanjo, for
instance, citing Dan Ben-Amos, categorizes proverbs (alongside wellerism, tongue
twisters, and riddles) as a “gnomic-formulaic or minor, fixed phrase form”
(“Generic Determination” 41). Proverbs are, therefore, an important aspect of the
literary and artistic heritage of the authentic African traditional culture. Thus, like
the narrative forms to which folktales, anecdotes and jokes belong; the poetic form
to which poems, chants, and epics belong; and the dramatic form to which all kinds
of ritual, festival and masquerade performances belong, the proverb occupies a
very distinct slot in the artistic universe of the African, especially as a highly
regarded linguistic form. Thus, as a communicative event, the proverb places
emphasis on the ability of the user of the proverb to creatively manipulate the
resources of language.
While foregrounding the creativity and imaginative depth which go into the
production of proverbs, Nwachukwu-Agbada laments that the artistic and stylistic
strength of this veritable art form have been down-played in favour of the thematic
assessments. This tendency, according to Nwachukwu-Agbada, has contributed to
“the static notion of the proverb as a prosaic form rather than poetry” (Igbo
Proverb 35). The statement above does not imply a relegation of the creative
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impetus in the narrative medium, but takes into consideration Samuel Taylor‟s
description of good prose as „words in the best order and good poetry as the best
words in the best order‟ (qtd in Onukaogu and Onyerionwu 36); and Paul Valery‟s
assertion that „prose is walking and poetry is dancing‟ (qtd in Onukaogu and
Onyerionwu 36). The poetic element which surely resides in the proverb is the
major reason why it could be seen as an artistic and imaginative construct.
One has to also reflect on the fact that because of the level of creativity and artistry
identifiable with the proverb, modern art forms have often incorporated the
proverb in order to achieve greater aesthetic effect, and even communicative
profundity. One of these art forms which has significantly benefited from the
proverb‟s artistic composition and disposition is literature. Many Nigerian creative
writers have patronized the proverb for its stylistic contribution to their writings.
One of these is Chinua Achebe, the legendary novelist who is famed for the
transmutation of the Igbo proverb into undisputed elements of narration. Achebe‟s
debt to the proverb, especially the Igbo proverb is finely articulated in Bernth
Lindfor‟s essay, entitled “The Palm Oil with Which Achebe‟s words Are Eaten.”
According to Lindfors
It is my contention that Achebe, a skillful analyst, achieves an
appropriate language for each of his novels largely through the use of
proverbs. Indeed, Achebe‟s proverbs can serve as keys in the
understanding of his novels because he uses them not merely to add
touches of local colour but to sound and reiterate themes, to sharpen
characterization, to clarify conflict and to focus on the values of the
society he is portraying. (6)
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In an interview with Kalu Ogbaa, Achebe confirmed his debt to the proverb as
“both a functional means of communication and also a very elegant and artistic
performance itself. I think that proverbs are both utilitarian and little vignettes of
art” (Ogbaa 5). There is also a long list of Nigerian writers, old and new who have
deployed the artistic characteristics of the proverb to give aesthetic and otherwise
balance to their art. These include John Munonye, Chukwuemeka Ike, Flora
Nwapa, Wole Soyinka, Ola Rotimi, among others. Even writers of the new
generation have followed suit. Allwell Abalogu Onukaogu and Ezechi Onyerionwu
identify in their study of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie‟s prose, the famous new
writer‟s use of proverbs to enhance her structural and stylistic intention (Adichie
320). This is why in the construction of Nigerian/African literature, the proverb
occupies a very conspicuous slot (Nnolim Issues 95, Dada “The Tradition” 28)
The Stylistic Impact of the Nkporo Dialect Factor
Any assessment of the Nkporo proverb based on style and aesthetic constitution
should necessarily begin from the uniqueness of the Nkporo dialect which is
different from other dialects spoken by the Nigerian Igbo. For the Nkporo people,
even the proverbs they share with other Igbo peoples, assume a certain aesthetic
distinction when they are said in the Nkporo tongue. The reason for this goes well
beyond the understandable imperative of cultural/ethnic nationalism; and may have
to do with what is perceived as the poetic grandeur of the Nkporo tongue which
gives the proverb a peculiar coloration. Thus, any „performer‟ of the Nkporo
proverb who does not render his performance in the Nkporo tongue can never be
regarded as skillful, even if he or she achieves a measure of cultural and historical
validity. Even in this case, there is a fundamental flaw since language is a
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significant aspect of culture. To illustrate our point, we present certain proverbs
that cannot be said to be original to Nkporo (but has been significantly
domesticated through the effective medium of the Nkporo language) side-by-side
their more central Igbo realizations.
Nkporo
Central Igbo
1. A ra eme eburu ozu onye oduo,
A na-eme e buru ozu onye ozo, o di
yo di eleghe e bu ogbirigbe nku.
ka e bu osisi.
[Another person‟s corpse only
seems like a log of wood]
2. Oke soro ngwuru maa mini,
Oke soro ngwere maa mmiri, ngwere
ngwuru kohu, oke o na-akohu ko?
koo, oke o ga-ako?
[If the rat chooses to get drenched in the
rain like the lizard, if the lizard dries up,
will the rat also dry up?]
Nwa nnunu na-agba egwu n‟etiti uzo,
3. Nwa nnunu no egbata uzo rete iri,
Ife koghara ya nkwa nohu rime ofia. ihe na-akuru ya egwu no n‟ime ohia.
[The bird that dances in the pathway
has a drummer in the bush]
A critical study of the above examples indicates that the uniqueness of the Nkporo
proverb lies in the use of the Nkporo dialect, whose nuances, flavour and fervour
spice up the aesthetic appeal of the sayings, especially for the Nkporo. Even for the
non-Nkporo, the „strangeness‟ of the Nkporo tongue, the possibility that Igbo can
78
also be spoken this way; the sheer variety of it all; the fact of familiar proverbs
being realized in a relatively „unfamiliar‟ dialect, can be sources of achievement of
aesthetic satisfaction.
Background of Orality
A considerable degree of the aesthetic and stylistic accomplishments we associate
with proverbs have their roots in the fact that these proverbs are almost always
product of the African traditional/folk universe. Although the likes of
Nwachukwu-Agbada
(“The
African
Proverb”
1)
and
other
respected
paremiologists believe that proverbs are still being coined and produced in the
present and will continue in the future with an incorporation of elements of the
reality of African modernity, the majority of proverbs still in use today have
existed for several centuries. Thus, they have a background that benefited from
African/Nigerian/Igbo fables, myth, legends, folktales, witticism, ritual and
masquerade performances. The Nkporo proverb is not any different. It not only
benefits from Nkporo lore, but from the folk universe of the Igbo, as will be
illustrated with the following proverbs.
4. Ma anapughi nwanta ohu uta,
if an arrow is not taken from the child,
O na-agba agu.
he could shoot a tiger.
5. Huu huu huu e nko bunwa
Hushy voices from the shrine of the
Zoburu m omu, zoburu m omu.
masquerade is for one not to step on
the other‟s frond.
6. I chupu nkita ira nsi, o ghi
If you chase the dog away from
na-ara ya?
excreta, are you going to eat it?
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7. Jibia kapu ikpai nzu enya, ndaa
If the native doctor abandons his
ife o ji afu nde manwu?
white chalk/does not apply his white
chalk to his eyes, with what will he
see the spirits?
8. Okpa jie agu, mgbada a biara
When the tiger becomes lame, the
ya ogu.
antelope challenges it to a fight.
9. Magbaghi nwa mgba bu uña, ma
I could not engage myself in wrestling
o bukwara ogu bu onwu.
which is play, let alone fight which is
death.
10.Leghi nwa ukpo ahaghi hu agha,
No matter how small the ukpo
O kwahu nna nwo ogo izu eke
masquerade is, it is the owner of the
ukpo.
town on the Eke ukpo day.
All of the proverbs listed above are valid corroborations of the fact that African/
Nigerian/Igbo/Nkporo lore is an undisputable foundational element for the Nkporo
proverb. For instance, almost all the examples above have a folktale background.
Example (4) for instance, reminds one of the folktale where a hunter on the trail of
a leopard kills his son instead. Example (6) also has the background of many
animal kingdom stories featuring the dog. Just as we can implicate from example
(7), (8) and (9) respectively, the native doctor, the leopard/tiger and traditional
wrestling
are
consistent
motifs
in
the
African/Nigerian/Igbo/Nkporo
folktale/folklore. Example (5) and (10) also reiterate the mythological/historical
significance of the ukpo masquerade and the Eke ukpo day to the Nkporo people.
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Structure and Sound Effect
According to Nwachukwu-Agbada, “most Igbo proverbs are not lengthier than a
typical Igbo sentence.” The implication of this, Nwachukwu-Agbada says, is that
“it is possible to consider them as grammatical units, having simple and complex
structures” (The Igbo Proverb 137). Thus, the simple-sentence proverb has only a
single clause structure of the subject (S) or subject-phrase (SP), a verb (V) or verbphrase (VP) and an object (O) or compliment (C). This is particularly typical of the
Nkporo proverb. The following examples illustrate:
11.Oke raso ifere ranwu r‟ime okoghoro
SP
VP
[The shy rat dies in the hole.]
12. Okwuru araghi amiri ote ofo.
S
V
O
[The okro does not grow for the cook]
Many Nkporo proverbs are also structured in complex sentences, making use of the
subordinating conjunction to join a main clause and a subordinate clause. Many of
these sentences have two verbs while others have more than two verbs.
13.Ma a napughi nwanta ohu uta, o na-agba agu.
V1
V2
[If the arrow is not taken from the child, he will shoot a leopard.]
14.Okuko kapu kwoo kwoo, o ji ghini azu umu ya.
V1
V2
[If the chicken stops its noise, how will it raise its chicks]
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In example 14 above, the subordinating conjunction „if‟ is not visible (but implied)
in the Nkporo realization. The same is applicable to example 15 below:
15. Oke tara m eru lo ghi odudu, ga anwua.
V1
V2
V3
[If the rat that bit me, flings you with its tail, you will die.]
Another important feature of the Nkporo proverb is the use of statement
introducers of different kinds. Let us consider the following examples:
16.A ra-eme e buru ozu onye oduo yo odi eleghe e bu ogbirigbe nku.
[It happens that] another person‟s corpse appears like a log of wood.
17.A ra-eme arira chezie onwe yo ghahu atuma.
[It happens that] if the arira fish conducts itself well, it will turn to the
atuma fish.
18.A ra-eme I fu nne omogho ufie okpa ga-ario ya ufie.
[It happens that] it is when you see the red powder on a nursing mother‟s leg
that you will ask her for some.
19.A ra-eme eka ka nwanta ura atu, yo gworo ya fiwo isi.
[It happens that] the hand that is convenient is the one the child places on its
head.
20.Nkporo siri ime onwa asaa araghi eji oku ele ya.
The Nkporo people say that to notice a seven month-old pregnancy does not
require light.
21.Oku siri iyo mara leghe onwo yo di yo iyo kpara manu kpai onwo yo ehu.
The yellow yam says it understands its plight that‟s why it carries oil on its
body.
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22.Nkita siri ife mere yo ji eso onye efo ukwu bu ma o nyughi anyu yo gboo
agbo.
The dog says that why it follows a large-bellied man is that if he does not
shit, he will vomit.
The above proverbs seem to be reported. In usage, they appear not to be the direct
statements of the proverb performer but his or her citation of other people or
things. However, this is more accurately true about examples 20, 21, 22, which are
quotations from other sources. The introducer in examples 16, 17, 18, 19 (a raeme, it happens) seems to be a product of the performer‟s own observation of his
society. It is note-worthy that some of the direct „owners‟ of the proverbial
statements are not human beings but animals and things like dog, yam, etcetera.
The fabulous nature of the actions given to entities can also provoke aesthetic
appeal.
Lexical Behaviour
It is also important to examine the behaviour of the lexical items in Nkporo
proverbs. One of the key concepts of lexical behaviour in proverb appreciation is
what Ayo Bamgbose calls „lexical contrasts‟ (“lexical matching” 83) which is used
to characterize the tendency of negotiation in which lexical items in different
clauses forming the proverbial statement stand in opposition to the other. Beyond
strengthening the meaning of the proverb, this inclination brings in an aesthetic
impact.
23.Magbaghi nwa mgba bu uña, ma o buru ogu bu onwu.
I could not engage myself in wrestling which is play, let alone war which is
death.
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In the above example, mgba (wrestling) and uña (play) are contrasted with ogu
(war) and onwu (death). In spite of the fact that wrestling and fight involve
participation in physical combat, one is pleasant exercise/sports, while the other is
a product of bitter aggression. Sometimes, the contrast is based on quality.
24.A ra-eme arira chezie onwe ya yo ghohu atuma.
If the arira fish conducts itself well, it will turn to the atuma fish.
The Nkporo people consider the atuma fish much more precious than the arira
fish. The idea of the proverb is that something inferior can become superior if
greater consideration is given to preservation.
Phonological Repetition
Phonological repetition is one of the features that designate the poetic status of the
Nkporo proverb. It not only highlights rhythmic beauty of Nkporo dialect, but
demonstrates that meaning can be made out of beautifully combined sounds. To
realize phonological repetition, the Nkporo proverb makes subtle use of
alliteration, assonance and ideo-phonic manipulations. Let us illustrate with the
following examples.
25.Ta kpam kpam buru mem mem.
Let what is agreed on be what is done.
26.O ewu nwuru anwu si e mee yo mbuom.
The dead goat only submits itself to dissection.
27.Ukpara okpoko gburu, o nchi chiri ya.
The grasshopper that is killed by a train is deaf.
28.Huu huu huu e nko bunwa zoburu m omu zoburu m omu.
Hushed voices from the masquerade shrine, is for one not to step on the
other‟s frond.
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29.Onye ju m ebu, ma aju ya eñu.
If anyone asks me ebu, I will ask him eñu.
Most of the examples above contain illustrations of alliteration, assonance and
ideo-phonic manipulations. Alliteration according to Robert Di Yanni, is “the
repetition of consonant sounds, especially at the beginning of words” (1999). In
example 25, there is a repetition of kp and m sounds, just like there is the repetition
of kp and chi sounds in example 24, h sound in 28 and j sound in 29. Di Yanni also
describes assonance as “the repetition of similar vowel sounds in a sentence or a
line of poetry” (1999). In example 25 above, there is a repetition and sequencing of
the a and e sounds; there is the repetition of u in 26, 28 and 29. In describing the
use of ideophones in Igbo proverbs, Nwachukwu-Agbada talks about a term which
“describes an idea, object or action with the intent to create imagery and emotion”
(Igbo Proverb 157). According to Nwachukwu-Agbada, ideophones can also be
called „mimic noun,‟ „intensive noun,‟ „descriptive,‟ „undeclinable verbal
participle‟. The Nkporo proverb demonstrates quite substantial ideophonic
possibilities, as we can see from examples 25 and 28 above. Ideophones are,
however, not onomatopoeic, in that “onomatopoeic terms could register images but
their words and phrases lack independent lexical meanings and are neither
descriptive nor emotive.” (Igbo Proverb 158). Kpam kpam in example 25 is
descriptive of the activity of discussion, conversation and even agreement. It is
taken from the verb kpaa, which means to discuss, to converse and to agree. Mem
mem on the other hand, describes the act of doing, which is taken from the verb
mee. In example 28, while huu huu huu is onomatopoeic because it is neither
descriptive nor emotive, zoburu m zoburu m is ideophonic because it describes the
act of aggressive matching and stampeding which is the sense in which it has been
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used in the proverb, having been taken from the verb zogbuo (match to death;
stampede to death).
Imagery Creation in the Nkporo Proverb
Because the proverb is an art form which tasks the creative consciousness of the
person, community or tribe that produces it, it is necessarily an aftermath and a
function of an inspired manipulation of imagery. Just like every other artist, the
literary creator, the coiner of the proverb transmutes the transactions of images and
mental pictures into an artistic/aesthetic piece which does not only have beauty but
also have social relevance. Speaking about imagery, Abrams talks about a literary
feature “used to signify all the objects and qualities of sense perception referred to
in a poem or other works of literature, whether by literal description, by allusion or
in the vehicles (the secondary references) of its similes and metaphors” (129). The
proverbs not only provoke images, but also direct them to significant utilities.
Elements of Imagery in Proverbs
Especially in African/Nigerian/Igbo proverbs, there are certain consistent signposts
which serve as elements of imagery. These include folklore, the animal kingdom,
native wisdom and witticism, didacticism and direct observation.
Folklore
We have in an earlier section of this chapter established that proverbs are the
subgenre of oral literature. We can only reiterate here the fact that many proverbial
statements have their origins, in terms of features and content, in the
African/Nigerian/Igbo mythological/historical universe where they benefit from
the impressive heritage made available to them by these mainly traditional
societies. We can also add here that proverb imagery gives due consideration to the
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idea of the „folk,‟ where proverbs are coined, produced and performed with the
consciousness of those things that are communally shared.
The Animal Kingdom
As in virtually all aspects of African orality and folklore, the animal kingdom plays
a huge role in the articulation of imagery for proverbs. The almost dominant status
of animals of all kinds in proverb imagery is understandable given the generic
background of proverbs as oral literature. Speaking about the place of the animal
kingdom in Igbo proverb coinage, Ene asserts
In general, proverbs are coined around some poor animal. I think it
was in an attempt by our ancestors to be politically correct that many
of the proverbs were attributed to anu uno (domestic animals) and anu
ofia (wild animals) both big and small, beautiful and ugly, and
powerful and meek; agu (tiger), agwo (snake), egbe (kite), ene
(antelope), ewu (goat), mbe (tortoise), nchi (grasscutter), nkita (dog),
odum (lion), okuko (fowl), osa (squirrel), ugo (eagle), udele (vulture),
usu (bat), etc. (1)
The Nkporo proverb gives significant room to all kinds of animal imagery,
exploring and exploiting their fantasy and the fabulousness which they engender to
its own aesthetic benefit. Let us consider the following examples:
30.Okpajie agu, mgbada abiara ya ogu.
When the tiger becomes lame, the antelope challenges it to a fight.
31.Ukpara okpoko gburu, nchi chiri ya.
The grasshopper that is killed by a train is deaf.
32.Mpi mkpi puru araghi akpogbu ya.
The horn of the he-goat cannot kill it.
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33.Okuko araghi echefu onye fere ya udu ra udu mini.
The chicken does not forget who pruned it during the rainy season.
34.Aturu muru ebule gba eka nwa.
A sheep that gives birth to a ram is childless.
Although animals are principal proverbial characters, the proverbial message is
directed to humans in the human community. The Nkporo proverb transmutes the
basic well-known features, characters and behaviours, (including imaginary ones)
to speak to realistic human situations.
Native Wisdom and Witticism
Proverbs are generally acknowledged as wise sayings which must be a product of
the intelligent mind and a vibrant, thought-provoking imagination. They are
undoubtedly the products of deep thinking and reflection, which combine with the
creative impetus to transform ordinary, everyday phenomena to significant artistic
pieces. This native wisdom and witticism, which can also be considered to be the
hallmark of the African/Nigerian/Igbo/Nkporo traditional society, is usually
communally owned. This is part of the reason why proverbs are hardly explained,
since proverbs necessarily direct us to the imaginative pool which we all share.
35.
Nchi ra-anu ife abughi ogbu ute.
The ear that hears is not as wide as a large mat.
36.
Ofia ogwu mara okuko, a raghi epie ya epie.
The forest in which the chicken‟s foot is pierced is unpenetrable by man.
37.
Mma nwo isi adighi nko, nke di nko enweghi isi.
The knife with good handle is blunt, while the sharp one has a bad handle.
38.
Akpaa akpa biri utara, ifere araghi eme oba.
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If the food in the calabash is shared amicably, the calabash will not be
ashamed.
All of the above proverbs, like many others, are parcels of wisdom in which
familiar/common images are put to extraordinary, unusual use. In example 35
above, we are reminded that the size of the ear does not determine its ability to
perform the function of hearing. In 36, the famed character of the chicken‟s foot
which makes it impossible to be pierced by thorns is brought into focus to connote
the need to learn from the mistakes of others. In 37, a message about the
elusiveness of perfection is woven around the knife and in 38, the positive
significance of agreement, and acting in accord is driven home. What happens here
is that these images are given force by the power of the intellect, even when
communally owned.
Didacticism
According to Abrams, “the adjective, „didactic,‟ which means „intended to give
instruction,‟ is applied to works of literature that are designed to expound a branch
of knowledge, or else to embody, in imaginative or fictional form, a moral,
religious, or philosophical doctrine or theme” (A Glossary 65). Many proverbs
feature didactic elements which play telling roles in the imaginative conception.
The Nkporo proverb is not an exception.
39.
A raghi eji ife a ra-eji agba e nchi agba enya.
You don‟t use what is meant for the ear for the eye.
40.
Ocho ife ukwu ra-afu agba efi.
He who looks for mighty things/ feats meets a cow‟s chin.
41.
Ta chi obubuo sa okwa onu.
Let the dawn be announced by the bush fowl.
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The didactic force obviously gives strength and direction to the imaginative
construction of these proverbs. The manipulation of the images has been
influenced by the imperative to teach a moral lesson. The images evoked may be
common-place, but they have been skillfully arranged to reflect society‟s accepted
norms in terms of advice and instruction. The moral instruction achieved in
example 39 is carefulness, while example 40 advises an attitude of restraint in the
pursuit of especially material things. Example 41 condemns flippancy.
Direct Observation
Many proverbs are imaginative reconstructions of what appears to be normal
everyday experiences into philosophical truths. Here too, the images are ordinary,
but what they have been used to achieve indicates an inspired handling. We present
below the Nkporo examples.
42.
Mini nwanta kwosara onwo ya, araghi atu ya oyi.
The water a child sprinkles on itself does not make it cold.
43.
O bughi ibe mini buuru ife bu ibe a ra-achosa ya.
You don‟t pick something exactly where the river carried it.
44.
A yukota mamiri onu yo gboo ufufu.
Collective urination produces foam.
In all the above examples, common everyday experiences and activities have been
transformed into imaginative pieces worth a second look. In 42, the experience is
that of bathing, in 43, it is that of a flowing body of river necessarily carrying an
object placed on it away, and in 44, it is the necessary effervescence of urine. In
these proverbs, it appears like the coiner(s) has/have spent considerable time
watching and observing the scenarios/situations before constructing conclusive
remarks out of them. It should, however, be stated that observation stimulates the
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imagination into action, because it is what is seen and stored as mental pictures that
form the raw materials of the imagination.
Figure of Speech
Because proverbs are functions of the transaction of images in the imagination,
they understandably lend themselves to assessment as what cannot be expressed or
described in literal or denotative terms. As such, proverbs find proper and suitable
description in metaphoric/figurative and connotative terms. Maduka and Eyoh, in
talking about the importance of figurative language to the poet [which the
coiner/user of the proverb is, in some senses], say:
Figurative language offers them a rich mine for quarrying out
strategies for depicting their thoughts, feelings and attributes with
precision and a touch of immediacy. Specifically, a figure of speech
is a verbal strategy for saying a thing in terms of something else or
saying something and meaning another. (34)
Nwachukwu-Agbada in his own description of figures of speech, talks about a
“writer‟s tool to create figures and images” (A Handbook 36). In many important
senses, figurative language can be said to be the soul of proverbs. The Nkporo
proverb is no different.
45. A ra eme e buru ozu onye oduo yo do eleghe e bu ogbirigbe nku. (simile)
Another person‟s corpse only seems like a log of wood.
46. Ta kpam kpam buru mem mem. (metaphor)
Let saying be doing.
47. Magbaghi nwa mgba bu una, ma obukwara ogu bu onwu. (metaphor)
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I could not engage myself in wrestling which is joke, let alone war, which is
death.
48. Oku siri iyo mara leghe onwo yo di yo, I yo kpara manu kpai onwe yo ehu.
(personification)
The yellow yam says it understands its nature that‟s why it carries oil in its
body.
49. Ngwuru siri iyo sa elu oji daa, ma madu etuoyi ghi yo, iyo etuyi onwo yo.
(personification)
50. Nkoko guru enyim ukwu, gwuo nke nta, kama ite ofo ndi inyom ie ya.
(irony)
After successfully swimming the high and low seas, the crab only gets
drowned in the woman‟s soup pot.
51. Mma nwo isi adighi nko, nke di nko enweghi isi. (irony)
The knife with a good handle is blunt, while the sharp one has a bad handle.
52. Nchi ra-anu ife abughi ogbu ute. (hypebole)
The ear that hears is not as wide as a large mat.
53. Afia nwanta amaghi, o raghi azukwa? (rhetorical question)
Must a child know about every transaction?
54. Ichupu nkita ira nsi, o ghi na-ara ya? (rhetorical question)
If you chase the dog away from the excreta, will you eat it?
Example 45 above is a direct comparison between things, the corpse of another
person and wood. It is, therefore, an example of simile. 46 is a metaphor because it
successfully achieves an indirect comparison of two entities or ideas. It strives for
a relationship between agreement/discussion and execution. 47 is also a metaphor,
as wrestling is compared to fighting from an indirect point of view.
Personification, according to Di Yanni, “is the endowment of inanimate objects or
abstract concepts with animate or living qualities” (2002). Examples 48 and 49
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meet Di Yanni‟s prescription because the oku yam and the lizard have given the
feature which they do not have under normal circumstances. Examples 50 and 51
are well realized ironies. In 50, it is not expected that the crab will succumb to the
woman‟s soup pot, which is very insignificant compared to other masses of water
in which it has thrived. But this is what happens, as the proverb reminds us to
always expect the unexpected. In 51, the ironical message is nothing and no one is
ever complete, and totally free of flaws and inadequacies. Example 52 is a
hyperbole, a figure of speech which in Nwachukwu-Agbada‟s words, is an
extravagant exaggeration of fact, often deployed for serious or comic effect” (A
Handbook, 42). By presenting the possibility of a human ear that is as wide as a
mat, example 52 deploys a subtle exaggeration to drive home the point that the
largest and widest ears are not necessarily the most functional in terms of hearing.
Rhetorical questions are figures of speech stated in interrogative format but do not
require answers. Examples 53 and 54 are instances of Nkporo proverbs that appear
in the form of questions, but hardly require answers.
Proverbs may appear narrative in some senses, but they are undoubtedly more
poetic than anything else. What we have done in this chapter is to embark on a
modest investigation of the stylistic and aesthetic backgrounds of proverbs as
imaginative constructs. The Nkporo proverb, as we have seen, apart from
highlighting the full aesthetic impact of the unique rhythmic nuances of the
Nkporo proverb, meets the stylistic requirements of the proverb anywhere in
Nigeria, Africa and the world. We have been able to prove in this chapter that the
Nkporo proverb, despite its glowing socio-cultural and historical relevance, has an
enchanting entertainment quality.
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Chapter Five
Summary and Conclusion
Proverbs are a rich and linguistic heritage for any people. The Nkporo of the
northern parts of Abia State, Nigeria, are not any different. Proverbs, in fact, for
them, is a way of life. Any conversation, argument or deliberation that is not
garnished with sufficient dose of proverbs lacks the persuasive aesthetic force and
the peculiar tint that recommends the uniqueness of Nkporo language.
This study, being an important investigation of the performance dynamics of
Nkporo proverbs has sought to grant insight into, not just the creativity that goes
into the coining of the Nkporo proverb, but also the circumstances in which these
wise sayings manifest as both linguistic and dramatic events. This essay, therefore,
establishes that field research brings any researcher close to the real potentials of
the proverbs as effective speech forms, more than perhaps, literary paremiology
which studies proverbs as they are used as linguistic ornaments in literary texts. It
is with a view to realizing the comprehensive pragmatic abilities of the Nkporo
proverb that we have utilized what we have called the „Nwachukwu-Agbada
dramatic model‟ which enables us to construct a discourse/dramatic setting for the
various proverbs with a view to total meaning realization.
We also have investigated the Nkporo proverb in this work as well-constructed and
inspired artistic pieces, whose constitutions approximate the enterprise of the most
accomplished creator of art. The Nkporo proverb does not just acquire its unique
aesthetic composition from the nuances of the Nkporo language, but also from its
profound imagery which comes mostly from the oral tradition and the witty
transmutation of basic existential variables. The beauty which the Nkporo proverb
evokes can also be traced to the impressive syntax and morphology which create
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beauty as much as they evoke meaning. As we have established in this work, the
Nkporo proverbs owes a considerable aspect of its aesthetic appeal to the emphasis
on combinations of sounds to strike particular phonological patterns. NwachukwuAgbada calls this tendency “phonological repetition”, which manifests as
alliteration, assonance, tonal counterpoint, tonal rhymes, ideophones, and etcetera.
This study, among other definitive statements made about African orality and oral
forms, drives home the fact that the oral tradition still presents an almost
inexhaustible array of artistic and scholarly research potentials. This is more so in
this modern era where many media of information dissemination and storage have
tended to drown many fine points of the traditional oral genres. Studies like this
one, particularly those that have been carried out through field research, present the
opportunity to bring these forms to the status of contemporary relevance. Even
though we would argue that these oral forms, proverbs in this case, lose their
original flavour and linguistic authenticity in transcription, the fact that an attempt
has been made to at least record these forms and provide invaluable research
resource for future studies is commendable.
This work also contributes its own quota to the development of studies on the Igbo
proverb in general. In this vein, there is a foregrounding of the fact that though the
Igbo proverb can be said to represent the rich heritage of Igbo verbal arts to the
fullest, considering its dialectical variants, it also registers the true extent of the
rich character of the Igbo proverb. Thus, part of the accomplishment of this attempt
is its suggestion that proverbs, in the various Igbo dialects are also veritable
researching subjects.
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