Abstract
This paper discusses the intertextual relationship between the world of Akan Bragoro (puberty rites) song texts and the real world of Akans. The Akan Bragoro song texts are performed during Bragoro celebrations and the song texts define the Akan concept of sex and marriage within the parameters of traditional Akan philosophy. The paper uses qualitative research methods that are irrigated by ethnographic and stylistics approaches to text interpretation. The findings of the research indicate that texts of Akan Bragoro songs key all the meanings this traditional philosophy has to offer: sex is strictly a marital affair and marriage is for those who are prepared for it. The stylistics of the song texts also frame the epistemic of Akan love and that the basic condition of Akan conjugal love is a good character on the side of both the man and the woman. The paper further reveals that the Akan Bragoro song texts constitute the site where the precipitates of Akan marriage are provided and Bragoro initiates are introduced to the Akan way of life. These precipitates are rehearsed in performance year after year, making the Akan Bragoro an enduring cultural practice that guides the life of the Akans throughout all ages. Keywords: Performance, Bragoro song texts, Verbal art, Cognitive poetics, Tradition
Highlights
IntroductionLiterature as a branch of study had nothing to do with orality
In times past, literature as a branch of study had nothing to do with orality
Pioneers like de Saussure, Sanders Pierce and Levi-Strauss have done their best to look at the symbolic and the creative nature of language and thanks to intellectuals like Dell Hymes, John Gumpez and other linguists, it has become very apparent that culture is the supporting system for the symbolic and creative nature of language
Summary
Literature as a branch of study had nothing to do with orality. The reason was partly the substantive meaning of literature being a thing of writing and by extension reading, 1 It took a lot of intellectual investment to break down the walls that divided them thanks to the hard work of intellectuals who committed their energy to language as arbitrary, a system, vocalic, social, creative and as a convention and more importantly as a means of communication.. Pioneers like de Saussure, Sanders Pierce and Levi-Strauss have done their best to look at the symbolic and the creative nature of language and thanks to intellectuals like Dell Hymes, John Gumpez and other linguists, it has become very apparent that culture is the supporting system for the symbolic and creative nature of language. Direction in Sociolinguistics: Ethnography in Communication, (London: Bolt, Rinehart and Winston Inc, 1972)
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