Ableism in Yoruba Communicative Culture: A Critical Analysis of Proverbs

Abstract

Proverbs in Yoruba play an important communicative feature as they strongly propagate ideologies. One of such ideologies that the Yoruba proverbs have been observed to have reproduced is the ableist ideology. Hence, this study focuses on how Yoruba proverbs encode and reproduce ableist ideology in everyday discourse. Drawing data purposively from Owomoyela’s Yoruba Proverbs, this study uses the lens of Critical Discourse Analysis, Critical Disability and Conceptual Metaphor Theories to analyse data. The data showed that Yoruba proverbs reproduce ideologies by portraying the disabled as incapable, dependent, and deficient and as people that cannot achieve their goals. The paper shows how disability is portrayed in the Yoruba context and calls for a re-education of language users towards the plight of the disabled.