A CRITICAL INTERROGATION OF THE IDEOLOGICAL FUNCTIONS OF AFRICAN PROVERBS IN NIGHT DANCER

Abstract

The paper is a Critical Stylistic study of the ideological functions of African proverbs in Night Dancer by Chika Unigwe. The paper interrogates the ideological functions of African proverbs in the selected text with the aim of unravelling the ideologies they embed or portend. This is in order to advance earlier propositions that proverbs are an integral part of conversation among Africans with a particular focus among the Igbos, in South Eastern Nigeria. Proverbs are idioms whose meanings go beyond any literal interpretation. They are forms of deeper communication, as they construct reality in speech communities. The study adopted the Systemic Functional Grammar (SFG) as its theoretical method for analysing selected African proverbs in the text, with special emphasis on the performative functions of language where language is said to perform three meta-functions. These are: ideational; interpersonal and textual meta-functions. Thus, this study identified and classified African proverbs in accordance with their ideological functions, so as to ascertain whether or not the selected African proverbs are harmful, or should be inculcated, reinforced or rebutted. The study found out that languages are shaped in relation to the three functions or meta functions of language and these functions are all woven together and manifest in every act of language use. The paper concludes that African proverbs help to enrich the texts of African text producers by depicting ideologies, not just based on surface value, but through ideological undertones which must be unearthed with a robust linguistic analytical method.