Semiotic analysis of Yoruba written poetry. Orin Ewuro by Atari Ajanaku

Master's Thesis from the year 2016 in the subject Literature - Africa, grade: 70%, University of Ibadan, course: Yorůbá literature, language: English, abstract: Signs, whether consciously or unconsciously used, have a semantics implication on the verbal art. Most especially in poetry, signs are used to pass information across to the reader since poetry economises words than other literary form. The signs use in poetry take different forms which may at time need an eclectic literary approach before the proper understanding of such usage. The proper understanding of the signs used in poetry increases the chance of attributing its proper meaning. This would definitely increase the affective application of literature messages in solving societal problems. The objective of this study is to find out the use of signs in Ŕtŕrí Ŕjŕnŕkú's Orin Ewúro.Doing this will explore some hidden information about the sings used. It will also suggest more probable meanings to these signs. This reseach is library based. The analysis is presented in a descriptive analytical approach. It is able to describe, explain and analyse signs in Orin Ewúro based on Yorůbá world view. The analysis draws evidences from oral and written Yorúba materials. The signs in the poems were analysed under eight adopted classifications. These are natural, socio-political, religous, educational, political, economic, literary aesthetic and non-literary aesthetic signs. These were discussed under five chapters. Chapter one is an introduction to the study. The secon`d chapter is the literature review and the theoretical background. In chapter three and four, signs in Orin Ewúro were analysed using Yorůba semiotic point of view. Chapter five contains the summary, the recommendation and the conclusion of the research work. At the end of the analysis, the research was able to conclude that the use of signs in poetry is multidimensional. It emphasises that signs could take either of natural, socio-cultural, political, economic, religious, educational, literary and non-literary aesthetics form. It was also able to affirm that there is a need for consideration of contextual factors of poetry before any proper analysis is done on Yorůbá poetry.