Issues in Intercultural Communication ISSN: 1941-7195 Volume 4, Number 1 © Nova Science Publishers, Inc. THE PRAGMATICS OF YORÙBÁ PROVERBS IN AHMED YERIMA ’S IGATIBI, AJAGUNMALE AND MOJAGBE Taiwo Oluwaseun Ehineni Department of Linguistics, Indiana University, IN, USA ABSTRACT This paper examines the pragmatics of Yorùbá proverbs in Ahmed Yerima’s plays, Igatibi, Ajagunmale, and Mojagbe. The paper is motivated by the ingenuous deployment of Yorùbá proverbs to facilitate effective communication and interaction in the plays. The proverbs are analyzed using the theory of pragmatic acts (Mey, 2001) and the theory of proverb praxis (Yankah, 1989). The study reveals that proverbs are used in the selected plays for different pragmatic purposes including supporting, warning/cautioning, questioning/querying, reassuring, defending, and accusing, which exploit contextual features such as relevance, reference, metaphor, inference, shared situation knowledge, shared cultural knowledge, and voice. The paper submits that the context of culture and situation help to inform the true meaning of Yorùbá proverbs when used in interactions. Keywords: pragmatics, Yoruba proverbs, contextual features, Ahmed Yerima INTRODUCTION Proverbs play significant roles in conversational and communicative contexts and have become part of the linguistic resources deployed in most African literary texts for the achievement of effective discourse tasks. Indeed, several studies have examined the use of proverbs in African literary texts. African proverbs have been relevantly explored from different scholarly viewpoints. Some of such studies include Bamgbose (1969), Yankah, (1989a), Obeng (1996), Adeeko (1998), Raji-Oyelade (1999), Odebunmi (2007), and Emike (2012), among others. These studies have discussed proverbs from Akan, Afenmai, and Yorùbá discourse perspectives. Essentially, these studies foreground the significant uses, functions, and form of African proverbs in discourses, texts, and contexts. Obeng (1996) explores proverbs as a mitigating and politeness strategy in Akan discourse. He opines that proverbs serve as ‘mitigators’ and