A Cogni-Pragmatic View of Proverbs in Nkengasong’s Across the Mongolo: An Eco-cultural Decoding of Codes

Abstract

Exchanging messages is a human activity that involves an addresser and an addressee.  The addresser encodes their thoughts, most often, in codes and sends them to be decoded by the addressee.  For the addressee to decode the message, both of them must use codes in the appropriate social contexts. In decoding the message therefore, the addressee makes use of the contextual information and develops a cognitive framework of codes which will recall both the denotative and connotative meanings needed for interpretation. The study aims at showing some insights into the role of cognitive analysis and pragmatic views in language use. Proverbs are a very effective means of passing across messages.  The study concludes that there is a correlation between proverbs, the micro situational, the macro situational, eco-cultural elements which influence the interaction among interlocutors.