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Abstract

Abstract

In certain societies including the Ibibio of Akwa Ibom State, South-Eastern Nigeria, naming is a distinctive system of communicative practice which is used to express emotion and construct the personhood and identity of the name-bearer. This article examines emotion-referencing names among the Ibibio and adopts an ethnographic approach to investigate the motivations for the name choice, their socio-onomastic significance and the extent of influence they have over their bearers’ ‘selves’. We find that emotion names are bestowed through a range of motivations such as being a reflection of familial problems, death-prevention, religiously inspired and namesaking. We conclude that regardless of these motivations or whether the name has a positive or negative VALENCE, for the Ibibio, emotion-referencing names appear to have a subtle psychological impact upon the name-bearers self-perception. Naming among the Ibibio, therefore, is not only a form of cultural identity but a prominent site to reflect on and interpret emotions.

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2021-09-20
2023-06-08

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The functions of emotion-referencing names in Ibibio
International Journal of Language and Culture 8, 218 (2021); https://doi.org/10.1075/ijolc.19009.men
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  • Article Type: Research Article
Keyword(s): emotion; Ibibio; linguistic ideology; personal names; personality; psychology of identity; selfhood

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