A contrastive analysis of language, culture and meaning in the Yoruba and English languages : a modern approach and new perspective

Abstract

Some aspects of language use and cultural practices across the English and Yoruba languages are contrastively discussed. These include patterns and forms of greetings determined by spatio-temporal circumstances such as greetings and naming traditions, among other norms, to ascertain the aspects in which the two languages are alike and in which they differ. Illustrations are provided and differential descriptions offered through interlingual comparison. It was discovered that effective teaching and learning of a language will necessarily have to go beyond the boundary of symbols and language code to a fair knowledge of non-linguistic aspects of language. The paper concludes that learning a target language will be greatly enhanced and yield valuable results in terms of competence, proficiency, and most importantly, language pedagogy if the language and culture of the first and target languages are simultaneously studied.

Keywords

• Contrastive analysis
• English
• Yoruba
• Culture
• Language pedagogy