European Journal of Scientific Research 
         ISSN 1450-216X / 1450-202X Vol. 153 No 3 July, 2019, pp. 259-268 
         http://www. europeanjournalofscientificresearch.com 
                                         
          Language and Knowledge Construction: A Pragmatic Study of 
                        Select Yoruba Proverbs in Nigeria 
                                         
                                         
                                   Idowu, Olubunmi 
                          Department of Languages and Literary Studies 
                       Babcock University, Ilishan Remo, Ogun State, Nigeria 
                              E-mail: idowuo@babcock.edu.ng 
                                  Tel: 0803-349-3989 
                                         
                                         
                                      Abstract 
          
                 Every  instance  of  language  use  aims  at  creating  meaning  and  invariably  new 
            knowledge  of  the  context  of  use  and  the  social  realities  within  which  we  operate  as 
            language users. This linguistic endeavour is germane to pragmatics, which is the study of 
            language in use within specific social contexts. In view of the fact that Proverbs are unique 
            linguistic  properties  that  are  usually  based  on  the  traditions  of  its  users,  this  paper 
            investigates select Yoruba proverbs pragmatically. Although several works have been done 
            on Yoruba proverbs that project and share their universal essence through the compilation 
            and  categorization  of  these  proverbs  (See  Akporobaro,  F.B.O.  and  Emovon,  J.A.1994, 
            Bamgbose1968, Yusuf 1995), this paper aims at bridging the gap of contextual analysis for 
            the dissemination of the unique cultural heritage and the understanding of key concepts and 
            issues  of  a  typical  Yoruba  speech  community  through  the  intellectual  and  pragmatic 
            imports  of  the  select  Yoruba  proverbs.  It  is  expected  that  this  study  will  enhance 
            knowledge  construction;  and  thus,  reflect  and  communicate  the  various  processes  and 
            techniques  that  the  language  users  utilize  to  construct,  interact  and  interpret  the  world 
            around  them  in  a  typical  Yoruba  speech  community.  Data  is  selected  randomly  but 
            purposively from text compilations and a Yoruba Television program on African Magic 
            Yoruba. The pragmatic analysis is based on The Systemic Functional Linguistic theory 
            which emphasizes the matching of linguistic form to function , in order to highlight the  
            importance of context to the interpretation and construction of knowledge for the younger 
            Yoruba  generations  who  are  gradually  becoming  alingual  and  acutural.  Apart  from 
            explicating the connectedness between the linguistic forms of the Yoruba proverbs and 
            their  functions  /multifunctionality,  this  pragmatic  investigation  will  enhance  the 
            communicative  competence  of  the  Proverbs  for  the  construction  of  meaning  and 
            knowledge. Finally, this study can be replicated in any other society based on the mutual 
            relationship that exists between the language and culture of a people. 
          
         Introduction 
         Language as a means of interaction is a tool for communicating information whereby language users 
         transfer and gain new knowledge. In the words of Noam Chomsky, “language is a product of human 
         intelligence, created anew in each individual by operations that lie far beyond the reach of will or 
         consciousness” (1975: 3-4). These operations that render the product of the human intelligence fresh 
         and innovative in every language user refer to the social practices and habits of communication. In 
         other words, every instance of communicating is an opportunity to introduce novel ideas and methods 
         of communicating any subject matter within any specific speech community. These new ideas and 
         methods of communicating constitute some form of knowledge creation or knowledge construction 
     Language and Knowledge Construction: A Pragmatic Study of Select  
     Yoruba Proverbs in Nigeria             260 
      
     which is studied in the realm of pragmatics; specifically as speech acts. Therefore, this paper is a 
     speech  act  investigation  of  selected  Yoruba  Proverbs  as  a  means  of  constructing  knowledge  in 
     language use. 
      
      
     The Concept of Knowledge Construction 
     Knowledge  is  a  concept  that  refers  to  the  understanding  that  a  person  has  through  experience, 
     education,  learning,  research,  investigation,  or  through  the  questioning  of  the  already  available 
     information.  Having  Knowledge  involves  having  the  understanding,  the  consciousness,  or  the 
     awareness of facts, information or descriptions about a person, place or phenomenon .This implies that 
     one’s  knowledge  is  what  the  person  knows  through  acquired  or  learnt  information.  Incidentally, 
     Learners work with their knowledge in a way that they link their new knowledge to their existing 
     knowledge base, rather than facts. 
        In view of the fact that learning is an active contextualized process of producing or constructing 
     knowledge, Knowledge Construction is based on the experiences of the learners and the understanding 
     of the environment in which they operate for the purpose of making appropriate decisions. Therefore, 
     Knowledge Construction is a collaborative process that focuses on producing new understanding or 
     knowledge which exceeds what anyone can achieve alone without the assistance of  others.    The 
     process relates to the extent to which teachers/parents aid the students /learners/children to understand, 
     investigate and determine how the implicit cultural assumptions, frames of reference, perspectives and 
     biases within a discipline influence the way in which Knowledge is constructed within it (Ambrose 
     et.al. 2010). Thus, the ideal standard for assessing or measuring knowledge must be based on true and 
     justified beliefs and assumptions and this is the motivation for the present work whose main aim is to 
     use select Yoruba Proverbs as a means of creating Knowledge about the values of the Yoruba cultural 
     heritage. 
      
      
     Literature Review 
     Apparently, Knowledge Construction is a common phenomenon that generally means the production 
     or creation, and the management of Knowledge for better decision making. It is a current model for 
     understanding how new knowledge and understandings are created through collaborative synthesis and 
     dialogue as opposed to individualistic pursuits of science. (Polanyi, 1975). Therefore, it should utilize 
     the paradigm (s) of the communities in which the knowledge builder is situated (NRC 2000). 
        This phenomenon  has served as the basis and concern of studies in several disciplines: in 
     Computer Science, especially in Software Engineering as well as in Educational Technology, it is 
     studied as  Knowledge Engineering to discover how Knowledge is created and managed by Computer 
     software; in Politics and  Law, the same concept is studied as the politics of knowledge and the law of 
     Knowledge respectively; while in the present work, it investigates how Knowledge is constructed 
     through  language  use,  specifically  using  Yoruba  Proverbs.  Incidentally,  studies  in  Knowledge 
     Construction  have  led  to  the  development  of  many  theories  for  better  practices  in  the  fields  of 
     Education, Nursing and several other scientific fields (Walker and Avant 2019; Hunt 2003; Ikujiro and 
     Takeuchi 1995).  In fact in business studies, Knowledge construction has been carried out to improve 
     business practices. As one of the few attempts at investigating knowledge from a linguistic perspective, 
     this work aims at utilizing a speech act understanding of Yoruba Proverbs to enhance the intellectual 
     capacities of Yoruba language users and their knowledge of relevant cultural values for the ultimate 
     development of their communities. This is important because some scholars define Knowledge as a 
     highly tacit phenomenon which implies that it is a means of reflecting the capacities of learners to act. 
     (Polanyi 1975). 
      
      261                               Idowu, Olubunmi 
       
         Due to the fact that students learn by connecting new knowledge with knowledge and concepts 
      they already know, thereby constructing new meanings (NR 2000). Knowledge Construction is an 
      active process that involves how learners personally construct knowledge from prior knowledge, and 
      gain new understanding from either his individual or social experience. (Kober 2015 and Hunt 2003). 
      Consequently, due to the fact that proverbs serve as the basis for having intelligent insights into the 
      social  and  political  organization  of  the  Yoruba  speech  community  which  in  turn  provide  an 
      understanding of the structure for their religious beliefs and practices, this study will help to create new 
      knowledge and understanding about the use of Yoruba Proverbs in order to build a better Yoruba 
      Speech community; a better Nigeria and Africa by extension. 
       
       
      Speech Acts as Pragmatic Tools 
      Pragmatics is concerned with how we produce and understand both the peculiar or everyday uses of 
      language. This implies that Pragmatics does not only investigate the literal meaning of our utterances, 
      but also how these utterances reveal, and help linguistic participants to understand the intentions and 
      strategies that are used to express the intentions. In language use, some general characteristics are 
      useful  in  helping  us  to  determine  the  situations  in  which  some  kind  of  utterances  are  made,  are 
      appropriate,  relevant,  or  meaningful    (Grundy  2008).  As  such,  there  is  an  important  connection 
      between what we say and the context in which it is appropriate or meaningful. Thus, the focus of 
      Pragmatics  is  on  the  systematic  study  of  this  important  connection  between  language  use  and  its 
      context of use, by employing some pragmatic features such as Deixis, Presupposition, Entailment, 
      Implicature, Speech acts, Inference, Cooperative Maxims, Hedges, Politeness, to mention a few.( Mey 
      2001and  Osisanwo  2008).  Through  these  tools,  Pragmatics  studies  the  methods  and  strategies  of 
      decoding and conveying the meaning of language use.  
         For the purpose of this study the pragmatic tool of speech acts are utilized to investigate the 
      selected  Yoruba  proverbs  in  order  to  determine  the  functionality  of  the  data  with  respect  to  the 
      locution, illocutionary force, and perlocutionary effects of using the select proverbs. The Speech act 
      approach to the study of pragmatics was initiated by a philosopher, J.L. Austin, who believes that for 
      every instance of language use, an action is being performed. To him, making an utterance is not just 
      expressing  an  idea  or  a  proposition,  but  also  performing  several  actions  ranging  from  warning, 
      promising,  threatening,  rejoicing,  or  questioning,  confirming,  or  denying  a  proposition  is  also 
      performed.  These  actions  can  be  performed  explicitly  or  implicitly  to  demonstrate  the  content 
      (message) and the forcefulness of language use because speech acts do not only determine the literal 
      meaning of language use, but also the actions they perform. Using the three aspects of, 
         Locution – what is said; 
         Illocution – what is done; and 
         Perlocution – what is the effect; 
       the speech act approach to the pragmatic study of select Yoruba proverbs in this paper, enables and 
      strengthens the ability of the proverbs to create (new or improved) knowledge  through the different 
      strategic  dimensions  of  language  .  Thus,  the  speech  act  analysis  of  the  select  proverbs  which  are 
      instances of languages use does not only expresses the message (content or literal meaning) of the 
      proverbs (locution), but also reflect the intentions for their use (illocution),  as well as the appropriate 
      consequence or response from the users of the proverbs (perlocution). In the process , the Yoruba 
      contextual relevance is determined through the illocutionary forces expressed by the proverbs and their 
      attending effects on users or learners of the proverbs. 
       
       
      Statement of Problem 
      Recently, there is the awareness of reduced reading cultures in Africa especially amongst the youths. 
      Many people watch electronic media such as the TV, the Instagram and all other social media on the 
      internet, at the expense of reading classics or other useful literary and non-literary texts that can help 
     Language and Knowledge Construction: A Pragmatic Study of Select  
     Yoruba Proverbs in Nigeria             262 
      
     them create new knowledge which are useful for improving the human intellect and take valuable 
     decisions geared towards community development. This problem is complicated by the observation of 
     Babalola (2001) that, 
           Educational  materials  from  overseas,  however  excellent  or  indispensable  are 
           becoming very scarce, partly due to exorbitant costs resulting from unfavourable 
           exchange rate. The sort of things that we can afford in our own locality should 
           therefore  be  used  to  assist  African  children  towards  intellectual  growth  and 
           prosperity (P.436). 
        In Babalola’s further discussion about the use of African folksongs as a means of educational 
     development apart from their more popular utilization for entertainment purposes, he expounded the 
     different  dimensions of using folksongs for intellectual development in the arts, literature, and for 
     social harmony. Thus, most teachers and scholars in the present generation are unfortunate because of 
     their lack of knowledge of the rich heritage of the African culture. Many people have lost interest in the 
     use proverbs, items of wit and humour which were popularly used for communicating in many African 
     communities,  and  provided  the  indigenous  materials  for  explicating  oral  traditions  and  modes  of 
     expression for most of the older generations. 
        For many African scholars, the loss of contact with the rich cultural heritage of sound moral 
     values and intelligent modes of expression that reflect respect for elders, fellow human beings and the 
     communities  within  which  they  operate  has  rendered  most  Yoruba  youths  and  even  some  adults 
     alingual and acultural, especially in view of the dominating role of English language in most west 
     African communities. The situation has become more complex due to the exodus of most Nigerians to 
     the western countries where their children learn the foreign languages and cultures at the expense of 
     their African heritage. Whereas, as noted by Babalola (2001), 
           the  works  of  African  scholars  such  as  Wole    Soyinka,  Chinua  Achebe,  J.P. 
           Clark- Bekederemo, Elechi Amadi, T. M. Aluko and Ola Rotimi have gained 
           global prominence and popularity due to the African cultural (artistic) heritage 
           that have been reflected in their works. (P.435).  
        For  instance,  Chinua  Achebe  is  admired  and  celebrated  for  the  structural  coherence  and 
     individual creativity and social harmony in his use of proverbs in many of his texts (Hobbs III 2001). 
     Therefore  there  is  a  need  to  undertake  the  present  study  as  a  means  constructing  and  improving 
     knowledge about the rich African cultural heritage in order to enhance the linguistic knowledge of the 
     Yoruba speech community in content and functionality. 
      
      
     Methodology 
     The data for this study is a random selection of Yoruba proverbs that are purposively selected to create 
     rich cultural knowledge about morals and linguistic creativity inherent in the selected Proverbs.  Using 
     the  pragmatic  tool  of  speech  acts.  Each  of  the  proverbs  that  constitute  the  data  for  this  study  is 
     examined to identify its locution, illocutionary force and perlocutionary effect. For relevant findings 
     and conclusions of this study, the Systemic Functional Grammatical theory is employed to elicit the 
     metaphorical implications of the cultural elements in the proverbs. This theory will complement the 
     pragmatic analysis in order to emphasize the relevance of the context of use of the proverbs. Thus, the 
     application of the knowledge constructed from the analysis can be readily applied to the contemporary 
     Yoruba speech community and the Nigerian or African society by extension.  
        Speech Act Analysis of Select Yoruba Proverbs 
        For the purpose of this study, 15 random but purposively selected Yoruba proverbs that are 
     relevant to different aspects of life in a Yoruba speech community are analysed. Each of them is 
     presented in Yoruba using italics, and then paraphrased into English before an explanation that is used