A Pragmatic Analysis of Kimeru Proverbs as Speech Acts

Abstract

Socio-cultural aspects of language have attracted the attention of many scholars for a long time. One area of language study that directly touches on people’s beliefs and philosophy is the study of proverbs which express general truth or wisdom in people’s everyday life. Proverbs are metaphorical descriptions of an act or event applied as a general truth. In the Meru society, proverbs are a powerful instrument of transmitting ideas, knowledge and values from generation to generation. However, these proverbs have been largely studied from a literary point of view but this study has attempted to give them a linguistic examination. The objective of the study is to examine the pragma-linguistic as well as the pragma-behavioural aspect of Kimeru proverbs against the backdrop of the Speech Act theory as first advanced by John Austin and later by John Searle. Using a descriptive qualitative study design, a purposive sample of thirty assorted Kimeru proverbs were collected from five Meru elders. The proverbs were confirmed from secondary sources as well as the researcher’s native language competence. The main instrument of data collection was structured interviews, audio recording and discussion. Results indicate that Kimeru proverbs are pragmatically couched to educate the general public on Meru society’s age-old values and also to entertain. The results of this study are expected to benefit scholars in sociolinguistics, cultural studies and the general public.