[A critical discourse analysis of selected poems from the Yoruba 'Ifa' corpus]

by

Acknowledgement

I would take this opportunity to thank my research supervisor, family and friends for their support and guidance without which this research would not have been possible.

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ABSTRACT

The debate on the philosophical nature of the beliefs in Ori and human destiny in traditional Yoruba thought has for sometimes now, been controversial. Several metaphysical interpretations have been given by various African philosophers on the nature and the meaning of ori and human destiny in traditional Yoruba thought. Some of these interpretations have been in tune with fatalism, predestinationism and hard-determinism in the 8 poems from the Wande Abimbola's 1975 translated version of the 'odu ifa' otherwise known as 'the 16 great poems of ifa'. Contrary to these philosophical accounts, the research establishes that the concepts of Ori and human destiny in traditional Yoruba thought fit very well into the frame work of soft-determinism. Through the critical discourse analysis, such a metaphysical interpretation, the paper argues, can help in taking care of the inconsistencies and antimonies associated with the earlier metaphysical interpretations of the Yoruba concept of Ori; providing a philosophical justification for punishment and moral responsibility in traditional and contemporary Yoruba society.

Table of Contents

ABSTRACTIV

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION6

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW10

Critical Discourse Analysis10

Yoruba Language18

Dialects of Yoruba20

Norman Fairclough20

Ruth Wodak21

CHAPTER 3: ANALYSIS THROUGH NORMAN FAIRCLOUGH'S MODEL23

Wande Abimbola's Work23

The Ozidi Saga28

Victor Turner's Work and Ndembu divination (Reflection of Wande)30

Constructing a Yoruba World-Sense34

CHAPTER 4: ANALYSIS BASED ON RUTH WODAK'S MODEL37

Tswapong wisdom divination41

CHAPTER 5: FINDINGS AND CONCLUSION45

Towards A Soft-Deterministic Understanding Of The Yoruba Concepts Of 'Ori' And Human Destiny46

REFERENCES50

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION

The Yoruba people of southwestern Nigeria, whom diasporic practitioners regard as the guardians of “traditional” orisa, were classified as an ethnic group by sociologists and anthropologists of the 20th century. Studies documenting the people, their origins, and their cultural practices often involved the use of intensive fieldwork in which researchers lived with informants and documented their life cycles, ritual practices, ceremonies, and death rituals. Over extended periods, scholars monitored the annual cycles of subjects to uncover constituent practices of group identity. Tracing the travels of African kinsmen and kinswomen was often secondary to the anthropological aim of charting the social reproduction of settlements. Such settlements were imagined as linked to precolonial, bounded cultures, repositories of the “original” and “traditional” practices of an ethnic community.

Over time, even as anthropology (influenced by human geography) began to place greater emphasis on documenting peopleonthemove, popular ethnographic approaches continued to privilege singlesited fieldwork. The Yoruba constitute one of the major ethnic groups of modern Nigeria and they effectively occupy the whole of Ogun, Ondo, Oyo, Ekiti, Lagos and a substantial part of Kwara State.

While the Yoruba are dispersed throughout the ...