Abstract
Anyone interested in more details on the theoretical tenets upon which the discussion in this chapter is grounded can consult five of my books on the subject.1 The chapter entails a pragmatic2 analysis of Toyin Falola’s oríkì (praise poem/attributive epithet) Isola within a linguistic framework.3 By delineating the pragmatic features of the poem, its philosophical symbolic4 meanings are teased out. This is important because, as Pamela J. Olubunmi Smith states,
Oríkì is a popular poetic form of Yoruba naming/name-praising. It might range from a mother’s simple morning salutation/praise-appellation to her child to lengthy, ceremonial, professional chanter/drummer vocatives of elaborate proportions, extolling the noble deeds of rulers, òrìsà, spiritual beings, or even inanimate objects. One of the characteristic features of oríkì is its use of appellations to conjure up the genealogy and notable family background of the one whose praise is being sung, chanted, or drummed. The intent is to rouse sentiments of “head-swelling,” pride, and psychological satisfaction in the one being celebrated. Features of the vocative are repetition (in the case of oríkì, the repetition of praise-names using the celebrant’s given and acquired names and titles) and dramatic language capable of evoking familial deeds and personal achievements and attributes. The language of oríkì is evocative, exclamatory, laudatory, and hyperbolic. Its idiom is elevated; its mode performance-oriented, with or without drum or dance accompaniment. Its oral performance is just as important as its aural effect. In fact, the essence of the former derives from the efficacy of the latter.5
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Notes
Abdul Karim Bangura, Political Presuppositions and Implicatures of the Most Popular African-American Hymns (Commack, NY: Nova Science Publishers, 1996);
Abdul Karim Bangura, The Presuppositions and Implicatures of the Founding Fathers (Larchmont, NY: Cummings and Hathaway, 1997);
Abdul Karim Bangura, Sojourner-Douglass College’s Philosophy in Action: An African-Centered Creed (San Jose, CA: Writers Club Press, 2002);
Abdul Karim Bangura, The American University Alma Mater and Fight Song (San Jose, CA: Writers Club Press, 2002);
and Abdul Karim Bangura, and Michael O. Thomas, Bowie State University Alma Mater: Historical Context and Linguistic Presuppositions (Washington, DC: The African Institution Publications, 1998).
Linguistic pragmatics has been generally defined by Stephen Levinson as “the study of language usage” (Pragrnatics, 5)—an approach that is attributable to language philosopher Charles Morris, who sought to outline the general shape of a science of signs, or Semiotics. In its essence, pragmatics is the study of meaning from the point of view of language users, especially of the choices they make, the constraints they encounter in using language in social interactions, and the effects their uses of language have on other participants in an act of communication. The study of pragmatics can be divided into two major categories: (1) applied pragmatics deals with verbal interactions in such domains as medical interviews, language teaching, judicial sessions, etc., where problems of communication are vital; (2) general pragmatics deals with the principles governing the communicative uses of language, especially as encountered in conversations. The enormous field of pragmaticists is beyond the scope of the treatment of a relatively short text (i.e., the oríkì Isola). As such, this chapter considers only the main topics in the Anglo-American linguistic tradition that build directly, for the most part, on philosophical approaches to language of both logic and ordinary language varieties. These topics include speech acts, deixis, presupposition, and implicature. The alternative approach, the continental tradition, is broader and includes much that is subsumed under the rubric of sociolinguistics—a discipline that investigates the relationship between language and society. See Morris A, Foundations of the Theory of Signs (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1938).
According to Charles Elder and Roger Cobb, “A symbol is any object used by human beings to index meanings that are not inherent in, nor discernible from, the object itself.” The Political Uses of Symbols (NewYork: Longman, 1983), 28.
Pamela J. O. Smith, “The Oral/Aural: Sound & Meaning in Yoruba Poetic Prose Translation—Akinwumi Isola and the Fagunwa Tradition” Metamorphoses 10, no. 1 (spring 2002), 187.
Pamela J. O. Smith, “Making Words Sing and Dance: Sense, Style and Sound in Yoruba Prose Translation.” Meta: Translators’ Journal 46, no. 4 (2001): 745.
Thomas R. Hofmann, Realms of Meaning (London: Longman, 1993), 61.
Interested readers can find greater details in Abdul Karim Bangura, The American University Alma Mater and Fight Song (San Jose, CA: Writers Club Press, 2002);
Bangura, The Presuppositions and Implicatures of the Founding Fathers (Larchmont, New York: Cummings and Hathaway, 1997);
Bangura, Political Presuppositions and Implicatures of the Most Popular African-American Hymns (Commack, NY: Nova Science, 1996);
Abdul Karim Bangura and Michael O. Thomas, Bowie State University Alma Mater: Historical Context and Linguistic Presuppositions (Washington, DC: African Institution, 1998);
Levinson, Pragmatics; and Gerald Gazdar, Pragmatics: Implicature, Presupposition and Logical Form (NewYork: Academic Press, 1979).
Paul Kiparsky and Carol Kiparsky, “Fact,” in Semantics, ed. D. D. Steinberg and L. A. Jakobovits (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1971), 345–6.
Herbert Paul Grice, “Presupposition and Conversational Implicature,” in Radical Pragmatics, ed. P. Cole (New York: Academic Press, 1981);
Grice, “Further Notes on Logic and Conversation,” in Syntax and Semantics, vol. 9, Pragmatics, ed. P. Cole (New York: Academic Press, 1978);
and Grice, “Utterer’s Meaning, Sentence-meaning, and Word-meaning.” Foundations of Language 4 (1968): 1–18;
Levinson (Pragmatics, 100n), however, noted that there was considerable speculation within philosophy about the utility of pragmatic implication, and some proto-Gricean ideas appear in Roger J. Fogelin, Evidence and Meaning (NewYork: Humanities Press, 1967).
John L. Austin, How to Do Things with Words (New York: Oxford University Press, 1962).
John R. Searle, Speech Acts: An Essay in the Philosophy of Language (NewYork: Cambridge University Press, 1969).
Ian Robinson, The New Grammarians’ Funeral: A Critique of Noam Chomsky’s Linguistics (NewYork: Cambridge University Press, 1978).
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© 2015 Abdul Karim Bangura
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Bangura, A.K. (2015). Pragmatic Linguistic Analysis of Isola. In: Toyin Falola and African Epistemologies. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137492708_9
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