Language in Africa Volume 4, Number 2 (2023)

3.9 из 5, отдано 11 голосов

ANIMAL-BASED METAPHORS IN IGBO Abstract: The study examined animal-based metaphors in Igbo with a focus on their cultural and contextual meanings and interpretations. It adopted the pragmatic methodological approach involving interviews with 20 participants drawn from various Igbo culture areas to collect animal-based metaphors as well as their meanings and interpretations. Introspection also featured in data collection as the authors are native speakers of Igbo. The study revealed that animal-based metaphors are used to describe human personality, conduct or behavior. This is essentially by the process of associating some features or attributes of the animals with human conduct and personality. The study further identified that some metaphors could be used in dual metaphorical sense, i.e., derogatory/negative and commendatory/positive, and these depend on the cultural connotations as well as contextual meanings and interpretations of the referents. The study concludes that animal-based metaphors in the Igbo language and culture reflect and represent the description of a person, conduct or behavior, as well as beliefs and realities among the Igbo. ________________________________________ PERFECTIVITY AND PREDICATE-CENTERED FOCUS IN NARRATIVE: FUNCTIONS OF “STRONG FORMS IN KOYRABORO SENNI Abstract: Koyraboro Senni (KS), a Malian language of the Songhay family, has a system of TAM markers that distinguish two aspectual categories – the perfective and the imperfective – and three series: the “weak series used in neutral declarative clauses and clauses with a non-subject focus, the subject-focus series, and the “strong series, which is used for predicate-centered focus. The paper studies the use of the strong in-focus forms in a corpus of narrative texts and shows that the strong perfectives in most cases are used to describe real events, while strong imperfectives are irrealis-oriented. Contrary to implications of our current knowledge of polyfunctionality of in-focus forms, the strong imperfective is not used for the present progressive and is relatively frequent in narrative texts. I also argue that while the perfective part of the system is better understood as the result of the development of a typical intrinsically focused reading – the perfect – its imperfective part is better explained in line with Tatevosov’s (2005) proposal of direct development of the habitual to the prospective. ________________________________________ INTERPERSONAL SYMBOLIC COMMUNICATIVE PRACTICES IN THE TRADITIONAL IGBO SOCIETY Abstract: This study examines interpersonal symbolic communication in the traditional Igbo society, which entails a culturally learned, often nuanced, socially shared system of communication between individuals by the use of instruments as symbols, in which the relation between the symbol and the signified concept is arbitrary. Data for the study were drawn from oral interviews and participant observation as primary sources, while secondary sources were library materials and the internet. Findings indicate that there exists yet another form of non-verbal communication that is symbolic (involves symbols) and is exclusively interpersonal in “the various Igbo culture areas (Onwuejeogwu 1975). The examples are subclassified based on what they communicate. The study concludes that interpersonal symbolic communicative practices could be used as tools in interesting and complex ways for the description and reproduction of the varied sociocultural world of the Igbo.

НАЦИОНАЛЬНЫЙ ЯЗЫК КАК ТЕМА СОВРЕМЕННОЙ ЛАТИНОГРАФИЧНОЙ И АРАБОГРАФИЧНОЙ ПОЭЗИИ НА СУАХИЛИ В ВОСТОЧНОЙ АФРИКЕ Аннотация: В статье представлен обзор письменной традиции киарабу на языке суахили в арабской графике, издавна являвшейся важным компонентом мусульманской суахилийской цивилизации восточноафриканского побережья и примыкающих к нему островов Индийского океана, в которую объединялся со Средних веков ряд портовых городов-султанатов, расположенных на большой протяженности от юга современного Сомали до севера Мозамбика. В колониальный период этот вид грамотности оказался постепенно вытесненным из культуры в связи с переходом на латиницу в рамках проекта стандартизации суахили и его перехода в статус официального языка в Британской Восточной Африке. Тем не менее, в новейшей истории известны случаи, когда поэты-традиционалисты в целях манифестации своей суахилийской идентичности продолжают записывать свои сочинения с помощью новых авторских модификаций киарабу.

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