African Proverbs, Pragmatic Morality, and Ideology in Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart and Ola Rotimi's Kurunmi
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.32350/jcct.72.03Keywords:
Keywords: transitivity, theme, process, ideology, proverbs, metafunctionAbstract
Proverbs, central to African literature as stylistic and cultural tools, are increasingly underutilised in contemporary African societies due to their transformation through satire, irony, humour, and parody. This study investigates the experiential and textual metafunctions of proverbs in Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart and Ola Rotimi’s Kurunmi, employing Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) as the analytical framework. Forty proverbs were purposively selected (20 from each text) and analysed for transitivity patterns and Theme-Rheme structures, combining quantitative content analysis with a descriptive interpretive approach. Findings indicate that Things Fall Apart predominantly employs material and relational processes, foregrounding individual morality, social mobility, and justice. In contrast, Kurunmi favours relational and behavioural processes, highlighting collective resilience and communal accountability. Theme analysis reveals differing ideological orientations. While Things Fall Apart emphasises hierarchical morality, Kurunmi centres on agency and interdependence. The study demonstrates that proverbs function as vehicles for cultural transmission and continue to reinforce African epistemologies and worldviews.
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