Every language often reveals what the people who use it see, feel and
think; what they can talk about, and how they organize the world around
them. Idioms and Proverbs are linguistic elements that address the heart
of a discourse in any given context-truthfully and objectively. In
Africa, and especially in Nigerian cultures, Idioms and Proverbs are
considered as the reliable horses, which convey meanings to their
destinations or the hearts of listeners/readers. As such, their
interpretation requires more than linguistic processing; it also demands
the interplay of contexts from where they usually derive their
meanings. This work,A Linguistic Study of the Idioms and Proverbs in
Selected Literary Works of Aliyu Kamal, therefore, contends that the
meanings of Idioms and Proverbs, especially of Hausa origin, translated
into English and used in texts could be worked out within the contextual
theory of Firth (1957), which is both semantic and pragmatic in nature.
Some characteristic features of Hausa Idioms, found to be common to
that of the English Language, such as those of being collocational,
non-compositional, elaborate in meaning and unchanging feature, etc. are
highlighted in this study. Similarly, types of Proverbs which are
analytical/philosophical, rhetorical as well as didactic in nature have
been explored. From the point of view of the grammatical analysis
carried out in this study, Idioms and Proverbs have varied syntactic
structures ranging from phrases to simple sentences, complex sentences
and compound forms. This study demonstrates that Idioms and Proverbs
play significant roles in clarifying, exemplifying, underscoring and
influencing human communication. With the broad analysis of the sixty
Idioms and Proverbs at lexical, grammatical as well as the immediate and
wider contexts, this work attempts to further illustrate the vitality
of semantics in negotiating meaning especially in a second language
context. The findings from the study reveal that Idioms and Proverbs
serve as linguistic elements which would allow for the enhancement of
Linguistic Universals. This is because the study has established that
both the English and Hausa Idioms and Proverbs characteristically share
certain common features. The study concludes also that interpreting
Idioms and Proverbs demands background knowledge of the language from
which they have been drawn.