Narratological Exploration of Igbo Folkloric Discourse: A Critical Analysis of Linguistic and Cultural Encoding in Selected Igbo Tales.

Abstract:

That society is dynamic entails that no society is static; as days progress, new things come to replace old ones. With the coming of the Europeans in parts of African society, traditionalism gave way to the modernism. To an extent, dynamic of the society seems detrimental to the Igbo tradition as the modern civilization tends to extinct the Igbo tradition and culture. With our people developing more penchant for the western tradition, things keep falling apart in the contemporary Igbo society as the Igbo tradition and culture seem profusely neglected. This paper therefore, delves into the intricate cultural complexities of the Igbo people of southern Nigeria with the aim to explore the linguistic feature of folklore as it heralds understanding and preserving of the Igbo tales. With a lucid and comprehensive exploration of the Igbo folklore, the realistic facts of the Igbo identity is X-rayed. With the folkloric language parsed, the importance of folklore, with specific reference to folktale is vivified. The researchers believe that hence most aspects of folklore are basically performed, then Schechner’s Performance Theory is considered an apt theoretical framework for the analysis of the research.