A SOCIO LINGUISTIC ANALYSIS OF PROVERBS IN ADIMORA- EZEIGBO’ S TRAFFICKED
ABSTRACT
Language is learned, shared, and it is an arbitrary system of vocal symbols through which human beings in the same speech community or sub-culture interact and hence communicate in terms of their common experience and expectations. Sociolinguistics is the study of any or all aspects of the society, including cultural norms, values, and beliefs. This research set out to carry out a sociolinguistic analysis of the proverbs in Adimora- Ezeigbo’s Trafficked. The sociolinguistic analysis of the selected proverb was carried out by using the Dell Hymes’ Ethnographic acronym model. The research found out that the settings, participants, ends, act sequence, key, instrumentality, norms, and genres allow for a comprehensive understanding of the data. It was also found out that in analyzing the proverbs, transfer of lexemes of other languages cannot be avoided due to non-availability of their translations in the English language. From these findings, the study submitted that sociolinguistics is a veritable tool in the analyzing and understanding of oral traditions to people of various cultures.
CHAPTER ONE
GENERAL INTRODUCTION
1.1 INTRODUCTION
Language is both an individual and a social possession. It is said to serve interactive and integrative functions. We would expect, therefore, that certain individuals would behave linguistically like other individuals; they might be said to speak the same language or the same dialect or the same variety. Language is what the members of a particular society speak. When two or more people communicate with each other in speech, we can call the system of communication a code. In most cases, that code will be something we may also want to call “a language”.Every culture codifies its values in its own language. Through systems of myths, anecdotes, stories, proverbs and others, values are defined and good-bad differentiations are specified. More formal systems are also evolved and are represented by ethical codes and religious institutions. Communication, including communication through language, can be classified into different modes. That aspect of communication in which comment on behaviour, that is to say, which modifies or makes some definitions of other behaviours, is called “meta-communication” and the aggregate of its forms “meta-systems”. Meta-systems are the carriers of values and as an individual in any culture develops, he learns sets of meta-systems. In this way, the culture passes along its values systems and continuity in the values of the culture is thereby maintained(Alger,1970,p.51).
