Among
the Igbo people of South Eastern Nigeria, the art of conversation is
regarded very highly and proverbs are seen as "abubo e ji eri okwu" that
is (condiments to speech) or literally defined as "the palm oil and
salt with which words are eaten". Igbo proverbs have aesthetic appeals
which have revealed that apart from being the store house of the
people‟s wisdom, they appeal to their various senses. The study sets out
to examine the common themes and aesthetic devices of Igbo proverbs in
order to ascertain the extent to which they affect understanding,
meaning and function in communication. As proverbs add sense to
discourse, the study portrays that an understanding and effective
interpretation of Igbo proverbs depend largely on the knowledge of the
different themes in which they are couched and the utilization of the
aesthetic devices embedded in them. The study is built on Traditional
grammar and Functional grammar. Using Traditional grammar, the study
examines the common themes of the proverbs. The theoretical framework
for the study is based on the systemic functional linguistic (SFL).
Approach to language study proposed by Halliday and Hassan (1985), Butt,
Fahey, Spinks, Yallop (1999) and also Halliday and Maitthiessen (2004).
The SFL theory is used to analyse the context of culture, context of
situation and metafunctional components of the text. These consist of
the variables of field, tenor and mode of discourse. These three
parameters of context of situation affect our language choices because
they reflect the three main uses of language identified by Halliday and
Maitthiessen (2004) as the three metafunctions of language - ideational,
interpersonal and textual, but the analysis focuses on the first two.
The study analysed 40 Igbo proverbs randomly selected from the 200 Igbo
proverbs obtained through audio recording and observation of live
performances during formal and informal occasions involving Igbo people.
Books on Igbo proverbs and interviews with four elderly Igbo men, two
elderly women and four youths helped a great deal. The study found that
Igbo proverbs are a repository of several aspects of the culture,
orature and linguistic habits of the Igbo people. Another finding of the
study is that the appreciation of the full functionality of a proverb
is a property of the context of use, and the theme of the proverb
influences this. The study concludes that the knowledge of the different
contextual features facilitate the negotiation of the meaning of Igbo
proverbs.