Schemes and Tropes in Borbor Mfantse Funeral Libation Texts

Abstract

The thesis seeks to examine the Borbor Mfantse Funeral Libation Text to ascertain how the content gains extra effectiveness through the utilisation of repetitive constructions and figurative expressions in communicating the intended message. In realising this objective, funeral libation texts were recorded from funeral celebrations from ten towns and villages in the Nkusukum Traditional Area of the Mfantseman Municipality. The texts were transcribed and translated into English and analysed. The study revealed that the Borbor Mfantse Funeral Libation text demonstrates a mix of repetitive constructions such as anaphora, anadiplosis, epistrophe, antis(rophe, parallelism and free repetition in imbuing the content with emotion and intensification; and figurative expressions such as euphemism, synecdoche, hyperbole, metaphor and metonymy which succeeded in ameliorating the effect of the loss on the bereaved family. Predominantly, metaphor, euphemism, parallelism, anaphora and epistrophe featured prominently in the texts. The creative use of Schemes and Tropes thus places the Borbor Mfantse Funeral Libation Texts in the realm of oral poetry.