They Do Not Eat a Wife’s Beauty: The Ethnopragmatics of Bette Proverbial Personal Names

Abstract

Names and naming practices convey various nuances of meaning in the Bette sociocultural setting. Against this significant backdrop, this study examines proverbial names as figurative and overt communicative strategies among the Bette people of northern Cross River State in south-eastern Nigeria. The qualitative data were elicited through semi-structured interviews and informal interactions from purposively selected twenty name-givers and ten name-bearers of Bette proverbial names. Data were analysed using the ethnopragmatic theory, an approach to language study that sees culture as playing a central explanatory role in meaning-making. Besides functioning as discursive strategies through which people’s worldview is embedded, proverbial names serve as sociocultural sites through which interpersonal relationships are performatively constructed and maintained. This study enriches our understanding of how the Bette people use proverbial names as tools of social control to perform gender, strengthen communal bonds, enhance peaceful coexistence, and enact Indigenous worldview among themselves.