EMOTIVE EXPRESSIONS IN THE IGBO LANGUAGE

Abstract

Emotions are physical and mental states brought about by neurophysiological changes and are variously associated with thoughts, feelings, behavioural responses, and varying degrees of pleasure or displeasure. This paper investigates surprise and shock expressions in Igbo. All languages possess emotive interjections, that is, interjections that express cognitively based feelings. Research on emotion has shown that there is relatively little research on interjections compared with the extensive studies on facial expressions and lexical categories of emotion (Wierzbicka, 1999:276). The study randomly selected 15 native speakers (L1) of Igbo from the Faculty of Arts, Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka, and employed the observation method for data collection. It adopts the tone-marking convention of Green and Igwe (1963), in which high tones are left unmarked, while low tones and downstep tones are marked with the grave accent (̀) and the macron (̄), respectively. The data were analysed qualitatively using a descriptive approach. The findings reveal that shock expressions such as heì, eì, haàà, kaị̀, ewōō, hị́àà, and èwo exist in the Igbo language, with hewùù and ìhe identified as additional expressions. Likewise, surprise expressions such as ị̀gbà, òkòkòbiòkò, òòoyà, egbè, ayàà, ọ́wụ̄yā, and úpèè were identified as additional expressions beyond those previously documented, reflecting language growth and innovation. Furthermore, surprise expressions are used predominantly to convey positive experiences, whereas shock expressions are used mainly to express negative experiences. The paper concludes that although these forms are exclamatory words, they are pragmatically interpreted as exclamatory expressions that convey surprise or shock.