Cultural conceptualisations in Nigerian Pidgin English proverbs

Datos Bibliográficos

ID2294096
AutoresMarcus Callies (0000-0002-7069-5819, Faculty of Linguistics and Literary Studies, English‐Speaking Cultures University of Bremen Bremen Germany, autor de correspondencia)
Año2024
Volumen43
Número3
Páginas471-490
Fecha de publicación2024-09-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaWorld Englishes (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0883-2919 • E-ISSN: 1467-971X
EditorialWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1111/weng.12660
OpenAlexW4396722770
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas4
Referencias citadas30

This article explores Nigerian Pidgin English proverbs as a source of cultural conceptualisations that reflect traditional wisdom as well as the modern urban setting of West Africa. A total of 173 proverbs sourced from the BBC News Pidgin's Instagram service were analysed for recurrent lexical keywords and themes (e.g. those relating to food, eating and drinking, and animals) that can be interpreted as source domain lexical material that points to the knowledge of nature, common animals, objects and social situations. The findings suggest that Nigerian Pidgin English proverbs contain a rich inventory of variety- and culture-specific lexis that encodes cultural knowledge and practice, for example knowledge of the local flora and fauna, food items, but also objects of material culture such as clothing, as well as references to social culture

Clothing · Creole language · Lexis · Linguistics · Pidgin · Sociology · Variety (cybernetics · Computer Science · Gender Studies in Language · History · Language, Metaphor, and Cognition · Philosophy · Swearing, Euphemism, Multilingualism