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Ruth Finnegan discusses oral literature and spoken language and its performative nature, adopting Austin's and Searle's model of performatives. The book argues that everyday language is the key to understanding African ethics and morals. This book is suitable for oral literature and African pragmatics studies and research at the universities. It has twelve interrelated chapters that are grouped under five main parts.
Chapter 1, "Introducing words," views spoken language as a form of action and an art. Finnegan considers Africa as the home of oral literature, and orality. Oral literature and ordinary language are the fundamental practices of discourse and a gateway to African philosophy. African oral traditions, verbal arts, words, images, and experiences are reflected in African conversations, ceremonies, verbal taboos, personal names, and so on. Performers, audiences, researchers, analysts, transcribers, translators, and publishers are all involved in oral literature. Studies of African oral literature have passed through colonial and postcolonial periods. In current research by African scholars and language experts in African universities, greater emphasis is placed on context and the appreciation of oral texts (see Agyekum 2005; Okpewho 1992; Palmer 1992:260-61; Finnegan 1992). The chapter considers how we can project past experiences into the future using earlier works on African oral literature, including Finnegan's.
Chapter 2 discusses "The reflective practice of speech and language: A West African example." Finnegan criticizes the assumption that nonliterate cultures are ignorant of the depths of linguistic expression, analysis, and the capacity for abstract thought. She cites how language was reflected in the life of the nonliterate Limbas in the 1950s and 1960s, who cherished their language as the most functional tool in all aspects of their life (p. 19). The Limbas used folktales as indirect ways to comment on sensitive aspects of their society. The term gbonkoli 'speaking' and its various derivations, including magbonkoli ma 'spoken words' and hugbonkoli 'forms of speech', was one of the key concepts of Limba philosophy and social life. Formal speaking, persuasive language, and responsible talk were needed in linguistic routines such as thanks, requests, greetings, apology, arbitration, and prayer to bring about social harmony (26). The quality of a Limba chief depends on his communicative competence in formal language usage (23).
Chapter 3 is...