Understanding African cultures through language: proverbs, keywords and cultural codes 3600-KM-JZZKA-OG

The classes are a workshop with elements of a lecture on the use of linguistic data as a source of information about culture. They are aimed at shaping participants' awareness of linguistic diversity and its impact on the cultural and social situation in the world, with particular emphasis on Africa. The aim of the workshop is to discuss the use of selected ethnolinguistic methods in linguistics and cultural studies on the material of African languages (with particular reference to the Hausa language in Nigeria). Some of the most important languages and ethnic groups of Africa will be listed. Basic information on the methodology of ethnolinguistics and paremiology as fields of linguistic research will be presented, e.g. selected methods of analyzing vocabulary and cultural texts (on the example of proverbs and fairy tales). Selected specialist terms in the field of cultural linguistics and paremiology will be explained. The role and meaning of African proverbs for individual ethnic groups and for the world's cultural heritage will be discussed. Their special value as data for ethnolinguistic analyzes focused on the study of cultural distance will be indicated. Participants will be asked to complete a series of tasks related to the linguistic, semantic and cultural analysis of proverbs and culture key words, such as: juxtaposing Polish and African proverbs (in different languages) according to their message (deep meaning), extracting culture key words from the content of proverbs, assigning proverbs to thematic and structural-model groups. Some cultural codes found in African proverbs will be explained and discussed. After completing the workshop, participants will be prepared to analyze proverbs and other cultural texts (e.g. fairy tales, legends) in terms of their structure, meaning and cultural codes contained in them, and will be able to see and generalize the differences and similarities between proverbs in African languages and proverbs in other languages.