ABSTRACT
Language is learned, shared and it is an arbitrary system of vocal symbols through which human beings in the same speech community or sub-culture interact and hence communicate in terms of their common experience and expectations. Sociolinguistics is the study of any or all aspects of the society, including cultural norms, values, and beliefs. This research set out to carry out a sociolinguistic analysis of the proverbs used among Yoruba youths from linguistics perspective. The purpose is to create awareness on the significance of proverbs to the Yorubas and the entire human race. The sociolinguistic analysis of the selected proverbs was carried out by using Uwajeh’s perfomative translatology model. This work is therefore a sociolinguistic analysis of proverbs in Yoruba. The research found out that the, lexical translation, literal translation, free translation and figurative translation allow for a comprehensive understanding of the data. It was also found out that in analyzing the proverbs, full understanding of these proverbs lies at the last level (figurative level). From these findings, the study submitted that sociolinguistics is a veritable tool in the analyzing and understanding of proverbs to people of various cultures and also a core level of linguistic analysis. This work will therefore be divided into five chapters:
Chapter one being the introductory chapter, entails the background to the study, linguistic classification of the language, methodology, purpose of the study, statement of the problem, significance and justification of the study and organization the study. While chapter two presents the review of relevant literature, previous studies, and the concern of the present study. In chapter three, an exploitation to the theoretical framework is discussed. While in chapter four, we present and analyse the nature of the data as well as the findings and the last chapter presents the study’s summary, conclusion and recommendations. This is followed by the references and appendices section respectively.
