Pragmatic Acts and Functions of Proverbs in Igbo Novels on Conflict

Abstract

This paper examines how proverbs drafted from body parts and animals aredeployed in literary discourse in a war/conflict context to perform specific actsand functions. Drawing insights from Mey ' s (2001) Pragmatic Acts, the paperargues that proverbs used in conflict context are ideological and performspecific pragmatic acts and functions. Using purposively sampled proverbs fromTony Ubesie ' stwo novels which focus on the Nigerian-Biafran war of 1967 €“1970: namely, JuoObinna and Isi Akwu Dara N ' ala, the findings show that theproverbs perform five pragmatic functions of advising, warning, inciting,criticizing and harmonizing for peace. While the animal-based proverbsperform directive acts of warning, criticizing and inciting violence, the bodyparts-related proverbs perform representational acts of advising andharmonizing for peace. All acts perform two-fold functions of escalating anddeescalating the tensed conflict situation. The study concludes that proverbsused in conflicts need to be carefully deployed to aid peaceful resolutions ofconflict