A pragmatic analysis of Olunyole idioms

Abstract

A Pragmatic Analysis of Olunyole Idiom examines the functionality of Olunyole idioms in socio-cultural interactional contexts. The study investigates the relationship between the construction and interpretation of Olunyole idioms and the representation of the social reality as reflected in the native speakers’ (Abanyole) world view. The study employs the descriptive qualitative research design and builds on the functional approach to the study of language. The Olunyole idioms are collected from the initial sample of over 240 native speakers through language elicitation tests. The idioms collected are subjected to confirmation through ethnographic observation and questionnaires involving a further 30 native speakers. Interviews and focused discussions with a purposively selected sample of sixteen elderly native speaker informants provide further confirmation and linguistic insight into the functionality of the Olunyole idioms.framework in interrogating the role of language in social structure and organization within contextualised interactional conversations involving Olunyole idioms. The data of idiomatic expressions is analyzed into pragmatic domains that characterize the Abanyole perceptions of their world view as a speech community. It is concluded that the idioms project the people’s cultural beliefs and perpetuate the norms and values of the speakers in their mutual interactive use of language. The Olunyole idiomatic utterances regulate the people’s behaviour for harmonious co-existence. The composition and comprehension of the idioms is therefore context-dependent in realizing deliberate acts that control social interaction. The study contributes to the attempts to preserve and promote the African Languages. It is recommended that studies need to be carried out on the other systems of Olunyole idioms such as the syntactic structure. Furthermore, the investigation between idioms and other levels of indirect language could provide enriching insights in Language and Linguistics.