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16A Critical Discourse appraisal of ideological expressions among the members of the Edo (Bini) Guilds
Research Article
William Ighasere Aigbedo1, Herbert Igboanusi2
Abstract
The study examines how language, peculiar to members of the guilds in Edo, is used to express their cultural ideology. This is expected to provide the necessary insight and comprehension of the nature of the guilds' socio-cultural activities resulting in the distinct ideology expressed by them. Data were purposively collected through the in-depth interview of key informants (individuals with knowledge of the activities of the guilds examined) and direct observation of the interaction between the members of the different guilds. The collected data were subjected to discursive analysis. The language used by the guilds in interaction among members is a marker of the guilds' ideological orientation as this serves to bring members together while at the same time separates those that are not members of the respective guilds. The choice of language use by these groups therefore is determined by the ideological orientation of the guilds which seeks to maintain the relevance and supremacy of the group in the larger Edo (Bini) society.
Received:
30 January 2022 Reviewed: 13 June 2022 Accepted: 30 June 2022 Published: 12 July 2022
Keywords
language ideology; the Edo language; guild system; critical discourse
UDC:
1 Department of Linguistics Studies, Faculty of Arts, University of Benin, PMB 1154, Ugbowo Campus, 81 42 Benin City, Nigeria
2 Department of Linguistics & African Languages, Faculty of Arts, University of Ibadan, PMB 200005, Ibadan, Nigeria
Corresponding author:
William Ighasere Aigbedo (Mr.), ighasere.aigbedo@uniben.edu
For citation:
Aigbedo, William Ighasere, and Herbert Igboanusi. 2022. 'A Critical Discourse appraisal of ideological expressions among the members of the Edo (Bini) Guilds." Language. Text. Society 9 (1). https://ltsj.online/2022-09-1-aigbedo-igboanusi.
Language. Text. Society
Vol. 9 No. 1, 2022 ISSN 2687-0487
Introduction
The term ideology is often used in conjunction with that of identity in the literature. The two concepts of ideology and identity represent an interesting area of extensive research in the social sciences and cultural studies, particularly since the late 1980s, where there has hardly been an academic book or article published in the aforementioned fields without some reference to the terms. This is the case as illustrated in a publication by the sociologist Brubaker (2004) who identified five main uses of the concept in various academic disciplines. In the study of race, ethnicity and nationalism, for instance, identity is most often used to emphasize either objective or subjective 'sameness' among a collectivity, whereby this feeling 'is expected to manifest itself in solidarity, in shared dispositions or consciousness, or in collective action' (2004, 34). In psychology as well as in nationalism studies, the term is commonly understood as 'a core aspect of (individual or collective) self-hood or as a fundamental condition of social being', which 'is invoked to point to something allegedly deep, basic, abiding, or foundational' (Brubaker 2004, 34).
The study of ideology falls within the tenets of power and supremacy in sociolinguistics and represents the major theme of ethnolinguistic investigations (Tajfel 1974, 1978). It has been treated as the socio-psychological theory of social processes (Capozza and Brown 2000).The present paper in line with the position above, investigates the Edo guild system with reference to the socio-cultural concept of ideology. The study seeks to examine the discourse patterns of the guilds in the Edo society in the course of intergroup relation with a view to discerning the ideological structure of the Edo people and the process of identity construction by any group. The paper also seeks to portray the link between ideology and identity in the course of language use and the effects of the former on the latter in providing a new dimension to group and intergroup discourses and social relations in communication.
Edo is the name of the language spoken by the people under the present study with historical connection to other languages now called 'Edoid'. This language was classified by Greenberg (1963) as a member of the 'Kwa' branch of the 'Niger-Congo' phylum and by Elugbe (1989) as a member of the 'Central-Edoid' group of languages. This classification by Greenberg (1963) above was modified later by Williamson and Blench (2000) as the West-Benue-Congo under the South-Volta-Congo (Proto-Benue-Kwa) phylum.
Approaches to Ideological Expressions
The concept of language ideology has its origin in the North American Linguistic Anthropology as a framework within which to explore the "mediating links between social forms and forms of talk" (Johnson and Milani 2010, 4). This concept has gained a wider audience in linguistic investigation and a few of these are examined here.
Haviland (2003, 765) treats language ideology as 'the structural and conceptual diversity of languages and understood as codes, which are elaborately structured devices for representing different physical, social and cultural realities and hence potential vehicles for expressing and reproducing conceptual differences among group of speakers'. He treats the different views of language as held by different authors within the mind-brain orientation as instances of language ideologies. This will then imply that language ideologies or ideas with which participants and observers frame their understanding of linguistic varieties, and map those understanding unto people, events and activities that are significant to them.
Hunjo (2010) examines Soyinka's discursive foregrounding of resistance ideologies in his non-fictional texts to raise consciousness for genuine decolonisation of Nigeria's democracy. It examined Soyinka's deployment of metaphor, intertextuality, lexicalization, passivization and transitivity to
account for his handling of the discourse. He argues that the knowledge of how political processes are represented with linguistic features such as lexicalization, passivization, metaphor and intertextuality in texts describe ideologies contextualized for exactly this purpose.
Johnson and Milani (2010, 4) are of the opinion that language ideology is 'a mental schemata, or framework of social cognition and how these cognitive patterns end up in people's mind as a collective phenomenon. They went on to show how linguistic phenomena are invested with meanings and values through the reproduction, production and contestation of conventional indexical ties (Woolard 1998) between the following:
i) perceived or presumed features, genres styles or varieties of language, and
ii) broader cultural representations of their purported speakers in terms of nationality, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, aesthetics, morality and others (Johnson and Milani 2010, 4).
In the conceptualization of ideology among political actors in the Nigerian election scene, Osisanwo (2011) investigates the ways the cover stories in two Nigerian news magazines, Tell and The News, linguistically and visually, express the ideological pursuits of social actors in the 2003 and 2007 general elections in Nigeria. He adopts Fairclough and van Dijk's models of critical discourse analysis, complemented by Halliday's systemic functional grammar, Leuwen's representation of social actors, and Kress and Leuwen's representation and interaction theory on reading images as theoretical framework.
He found out that the discourse of the stories indicated an attempt to shape the perspective of readers in election: that both magazines examined used linguistic tools to represent their ideological affiliations, that is, election in Nigeria is a dirty game and politicians are insincere. He therefore concludes that the knowledge of how both magazines use linguistic patterns and visuals to represent social actors aid the discovery of ideologies. The magazines' representation of electoral issues, realised through linguistic processes and visual strategies, plays a fundamental role in the propagation and perpetuation of implicit and dominant ideologies.
Ideology of language is not about language alone, rather it is about the ties of language to identity, to aesthetics, to morality and epistemology. Based on this, language ideology not only involves linguistic forms but also the idea of a person and a social group, and such fundamental social institutions as religious rituals, child socialization, gender relations, the nation-state, schooling and law. This is partly in line with the scope of the present study as our own conception of the guild ideology is one of religious rituals as a social group with direct link to the centre of the socio-cultural existence of the Edo people (palace societies).
In the realm of the expression of ideologized gender distinction in Nigerian literatures, Ezeife (2014) investigates the gender issues, contextual beliefs and lexical indices that characterize gender ideologies in selected Nigerian novels in order to determine the ideological contents expressed through vocabulary choices. She identifies nine gender issues in all the texts which were: family, divorce, legal system, marriage, relationships, career, age, widowhood and female trafficking. She equally identified two classes of ideologies in all the text: patriarchal and feminist.
She concludes that Nigerian novelists deploy gender issues with situated lexemes in portraying patriarchal and feminist ideologies. Therefore, understanding gender ideologies in Nigerian novels requires background knowledge of the lexical resources which novelists draw upon in their discourse.
The issue of linguistic differentiation has also been treated as the core of language ideologies and practices of speakers (Hollington 2016). Language ideologies comprise all sorts of ideas, practices and beliefs about a language, linguistic practices and speech forms and in turn it relates to attitudes of speakers, identity, aesthetics and epistemology (Schieffelin et. al. 1998). It can therefore be viewed and treated as the intersection of the different social factors that create distinction in a language and a society.
According to Hollington (2016), "ideology is one of the main motivators of distinctiveness, identity and language change". It has a great influence on linguistics and social practices and represent a driving force of language manipulation. He came up with this position in his examination of Ethiopian youth language practices and ideology where he noted the issue of linguistic differentiation and style as the practices adopted by the youth in creating their own code of communication 'Yarada K'wank'wa'. This is as a result of the ideology of association or solidarity and dissociation (differentiation). He posits that "consciousness plays an important role in many linguistic practices which is amply demonstrated by the creations of Yarada K'wank'wa speakers" (2016, 139).
Language ideology has also been seen as social practices, which are embedded in one's social world by some scholars. For instance, Bourdieu (1991, 89) argues that "not only are linguistic features never clearly separated from the speakers' whole set of properties (bodily lexis, physiognomy cosmetics, clothing) but phonological (or lexical, or any other) features are never clearly separated from other levels of language."
This position was re-echoed by Irvine (2001), who claims that ideology can also be related to a style while the linguistic practices associated with it may be called stylect (Hurst 2008). Style is also distinctive and may constitute an aspect of language variation. Linguistic distinctiveness, arising from linguistic differentiation, derives, to some degree, from local ideologies of language and the principle of distinctiveness that links language differences with social meanings.
In the context of post-colonial judicial adjudications of the juvenile welfare court system in Nigeria, Bolade (2017) examines the discourse features of the juvenile welfare court in Ibadan in the light of the contextual situation, interactional structure and participant roles. This was done with a view to establishing the bipartite nature of adjudicatory proceedings in the post-colonial Nigeria context. The researcher observed in her findings that the juvenile court was characterized by conflict and culture where the former were resolved by the latter. She concludes that the juvenile welfare court in Ibadan, despite its restrictive formal conventions, adjudicates by cultural values.
The overriding implication of these different views of ideology is that it is a property of language bestowed by the social setting where such a language is used. It is a socio-mental phenomenon linked to the use of language in any human society and exists as a sort of code, morals, values and regulation governing language use and which every member of such a society is expected to be conversant with. It is therefore the opinion of this study that ideology is a feature of language bestowed by the cultural precepts of the society by which individual's linguistic orientations are transformed to conform to certain norms of language use.
Theoretical orientation
We adopt for the purpose of analysis, the socio-cognitive model of Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA). The proponents of the socio-cognitive approach to discourse analysis are van Dijk (2009) and Chilton (2005). The socio-cognitive approach was initially conceived as an analytic tool for group social identities but will be modified in the present study to accommodate the ideological dimension we are evaluating with the aid of CDA. This method of socio-cognitive representation (henceforth SCR) combines with Fairclough's (2003, 2005) socio-cultural representation to produce the following analytic parameter to be employed in this study.
Van Dijk is one of the leading figures and pioneers of study and research in domain of CDA. Most of his critical works are concerned with prejudice and racism in discourse. In his early works, he has considered the problem of how Netherlander and Californian Caucasians talk about ethnic minorities, and what role these conversations play in the reproduction of ideology. In fact, analysis of the topics that people talk about represents the things that exist in their minds. In van Dijk's viewpoint, those
things are mental and personal tenets about ethnic events. He believes that the major premise in talking about others includes positive self-representation and negative other-representation.
In doing CDA, van Dijk offers some practical principles and guidelines and asserts that he has no special school or approach. This paper will in the course of presenting the different texts of the guilds discourse, critically evaluate the discourses of the guilds in order to illuminate the ideological components of their activities in the Edo society. As one of the models of CDA, different socio-cultural expressions (discourses that are socially grounded and culturally regulated) will be sampled and the different linguistic strategies employed discussed.
Methodology
Data for this study were collected through in-depth interviews and observation. As a result of the fact that the identified population for the study was too large given the scope of the present study and time frame, a selected representation of the target population was adopted. The sample which is a representation of the totality of the research population (3,000 members of the different guilds) reflects the characteristics of the whole in this regard. Due to the aforementioned constraint, and in order to meet our research objectives, a total of thirty-five (35) persons were purposively selected as the sample population. Of this number, five were purposively selected based on their positions in the guilds for an in-depth interview (two each from Igun Eronmwo and Ematon and one from Ogbelaka), the reason for this being that these guilds possess two hierarchy of leadership, the supervisor (a Chief in this case) and a political leader, an Odionwere 'oldest man' in that order. As for Igun Eronmwo and Igun Ematon/Ugboha, the two categories of leadership were consulted while for Igun Ogbelaka, the supervisor also happens to be the political leader and as such, one person was interviewed giving rise to the unbalanced figure of five mentioned above. In addition to this, ten members each from the three guilds were observed in their workshop doing their casting, smelting and (for ogbelaka) meetings and songs recitation with their respective leaders in attendance. Collected data were subjected to a descriptive analysis. Van Dijk's socio-cognitive representation model of Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) was adopted for our investigation. This theory was adopted in such a way that the ideological issues in the study could be properly evaluated.
Results and Discussion
Linguistic Strategies for Ideological Expressions in the Guilds
As mentioned in the introductory section of this chapter, the focus of this aspect of our investigation is the different expressions and linguistic devices portraying the ideological orientation of the guilds in the Edo society. In this section therefore, such focus will be on such elements of socio-cognitive representation like Relational Modality, Honorifics, Indexicality and Order of Discourse.
Relational Modality
This is one of the modalities for discourse analysis as advocated by Fairclough (2005) and it involves the dissection of interaction along different socio-cultural lines based on the relationship between interactants. The exploration of ideological expression serves as the backdrop to the composition of
this section with the socio-cognitive model of CDA as a benchmark for this. The ideological orientation of the larger Edo society and those of the guilds are typically expressed by a variety of linguistic strategies. One of the linguistic strategies associated with this is the concept of relational modality which was proposed by Fairclough but which is modified in this study as a socio-cognitive representation due to the mentalistic nature of this model of ideological analysis. The relational modality typically expresses the relations of authority and that of personality in a social group as manifested in the discourse of such a group. This tool of CDA exploration employ such linguistic elements as the modal auxiliary verbs, adverbials and honorifics to portray such ideological orientation as, solidarity, leadership hierarchy and commonality as the case may be. This position can be aptly captured by means of the schema designed for this study to capture the link between discourse, ideology and social context below:
Discourse Structure
Discourse Actors
Social Context Fig. 1. The Discourse flow chart
Ideological Expressions
This is a model of ideological expression that demonstrates the inverse link between discourse structure and discourse participants on the one hand and social context and discourse participants on the other hand. The manifestation of this socio-cognitive model of discourse orientation will suffice from the examination of some of the discourse of the guilds obtained for this study. Consider the following sample of expressions as an instant of this representation.
(1) Avbe tania erha oghe ima ghe okhaemwe Ine ne o ya la kode ke ode we o kheke ne o na re enonwaren ne o ya ekhoe enonwaren ya mu otu na khian ne ima nii kere mie eke na gha lele ere khian vbo rhunmwuda igho ne a ya rrie evbare ukpo nii o ma haa e;re gba, awarokpa nii ona ghi khare we igho nii iren gha ha ere vbe eghe ne e khian kpe gbe o.
'We also told our father, Chief Ine to employ every means possible as he is an elder in the group to use the mind of an elder in heading this group. This will make it possible for the rest of us to follow in his footsteps because he is yet to pay his dues for the past year though he has currently assured us that he will pay everything in no distant time.'
An examination of the different components of this discourse will reveal the following: that the head (supervisor) of this guild is affectionately referred to as erha oghe ima 'our father'. In the presentation of the fact that he is yet to pay his dues/levies unlike other ordinary members of the group, a more polite appeal is made to him thus ne o na re enonwaren 'as he is an elder' and ye ekhoe oghe enonmwaren 'use the mind/wisdom of an elder'. This is a strategy to soft pedal on the accusation of indebtedness which is against the rule of the guilds, by the chief heading it. In this way, by placing the head as an elder, he is expected to behave as such by being an example of order and adherence to the rules of the group. As a result of this polite appeal/presentation, the chief promised to pay up even when the deliberations were still on. This therefore represents one of the several instances of
relationality in terms of appeal to a particular authority and an instance of the employment of varied linguistic devices for the dissemination of ideological orientation. Another instance of this is illustrated by means of another discourse extract as seen below.
(2) Emitin okaro ere na khin, omwa ne o na erhunmwu ne a ya kie owa keghi re oten ima ighe ikponmwosa ne o na re emitin okaro vbe ukpo na, a ma rre rre suen rhunmwuda emwa nii bun ma rre rre rre vbe iran ma ren ghe ere na ere emitin suenren.
'This is the first meeting and the person that said the opening prayer is our brother Ikponmwosa. As this is the first meeting for the year, we did not start on time due to the fact that many of us did not arrive on time as they did not know the meeting would start today.'
The above extract represents one of the instances of the guilds discourse which was recorded during one of the meetings held by the group that the researcher was allowed to be present in. A careful observation of this speech sample will reveal a variety of linguistic devices employed in portraying the ideological orientation of the group. In this extract, attention will be paid to some of the subtle reference to the ideology of the guild, the first of which is the use of the term oten 'brother'. This term is employed here as a reflection of the socio-cognitive orientation of members who see themselves as a unit of a family. This representation appeals to the sub-conscience of the members of the guild in the course of projecting tenet of oneness that made it possible for the activities of the group to be obscured from other members of the Edo society.
Honorifics
This is another instance of the expression of ideological orientation by the guilds through the use of honorifics. This consists of the appellation made to the titles, ranks, status and positions of certain members of the group and the general Edo society at large within the hierarchical framework of the socio-cultural organization of the society. Honorifics serves as a very important aspect of the discourse structure of the guilds as careful attention are clearly paid to the proper representation of titles and ranks and the allusion made to personalities or figures associated with the different aspects of the guilds activities. This property of discourse is illustrated by the following expressions from the example below:
(3) Akowe oghe owa na keghigu owa na guan we evbe ne ima ka yd guan i eghe i mobo rro ne ima khian ta vbe ere na. We a gbe iseiogbe ne egbe vbe ofumwegbe vbe ukpo ogbon ere mobo no kevbe we Avbe emwe ne orro hia ne a mu onrin khe emeetin ne o de. Ugbenmwe o ghiguan ghe oten ima Akeghe ne kherhe ghe ¡kponmwosa we ne Akowe oghe owa na ne o gbene vbene a yd lo igho oghe ufdmwe oghe ukpo ladian.
'The secretary of this house spoke to the house concerning the issue of time as there was none for the day's deliberations. That we have to wish each other a new year and glad tidings and that all deliberations should be moved to another day. While our brother Akeghe was speaking, the young man Ikponmwosa told the house to instruct the secretary to write out how money was spent for entertainment in the previous year.'
The extract above represents another instance of the guild, a careful examination of which will reveal certain linguistic strategies. This discourse came from one of the meetings of the guild of bronze casters where the focus of their deliberation is on the financial transaction of the group. This may also
be treated as a representation of the socio-economic orientation of the group whereby financial irresponsibility and impropriety are strictly frowned at by the group.
The use of the expression Akowe which stands for an educated person is very interesting in this context as virtually all the members of this guild of bronze casters in the course of our interaction with them are very well educated. So the allusion of the character of an 'educated person' to a particular individual in this context is very significant as the underlying meaning here is that of a secretary or the person that keeps the records of the activities of the group. This position also happens to be the most important after that of the supervisor and most times, very few persons are actually interested in heading such due to its tasking nature as observed from our interaction with the guild. This is further reflected in the discourse below:
(4) ЁуЬаёгё Akowe oghe igho owa na we ёЬё hia пё o gu iren ghë ёЫа дЬагё. A na ghi wë пё o Ш ёгё, dgben vbe o ghi йё ёгё ne, Л1дЬё na wë o te gha ггё iren drhion уЬё ede пё а тё ёуЬагё ëmwí ukpo nii ne iren Мё igho nii ye aza oghë Ogbemudia ne o re ako oghë owa na na mie na тё igho nii la ётёёШ m a mie na yd de ëmwí ne agha lo.
'It was at this junction that the financial secretary of the house informed all that the records with him are in order. He was then told to read it out and after doing so, Aigbe then said that it was in his mind on the day they celebrated the New Year to pay his own money to Ogbemudia who is in charge of money in the meeting to enable the house buy the things they needed.'
This extract portrays the discourse aspect of the guild which reflects what van Dijk (1998) calls the 'systematic linking of discourse structures with ideological structure'. This is a socio-cultural way of constructing the guilds world centering on a critical evaluation of the underlying ideology of honoring personality's perception among the members of the social group (guilds). Therefore, in the social and cognitive world of the guilds, the person handling the intellectual organization of the group is regarded as a very important component of the overall structure of the group. There are numerous aspects of the socio-cognitive expression of honorifics in the guilds discourse structure which will suffice here. The appellation to the monarch is actually one of such aspects which reflect in the interactions of guild members in virtually every aspect of their activities. It is a virtual sacrilege to not acknowledge the monarch (usually referred to as omo ne Oba 'his majesty the king') in the discourse of members of this group as will be demonstrated from the following illustrations in the excerpt below.
(5) Eh ëmwd Ovbëhëghisetin laho do rue o^, omwa okpa ne o mwe etin ne aya rri omwa o ghirri ere gha dë onio™ omo ne Oba ne o do rue o^, Oba gha to kpe^ - ¡see
'Other persons cannot enter the group or become a member of the group in order to learn about their activities. The only person with the authority to recruit anyone to the group is the Oba. May he live long, Amen.'
This example of the allusion to the significance of the monarch in the activities of the guilds can further be seen in another extract of discourse where the different important personalities in the life of the guilds are presented. This presentation represents the order of significance of the different position of authority in the guilds and these reflect in the socio-cognitive knowledge of members in their ability to make this distinction on a practical basis. Consider the extract below:
(6) Okaro, Oba mwa tdbore, iren o nyae inwinana, iren Osa yd re wë, nдgiëva, ori okhaemwe, Ine ne iguneronmwo ne ёЬо tie^ custodian.iren o gbë aro ghë inwina na vbë odin Edo hia fefefe-emwd vbë hia vbë rro Avbë Ehanire, ¡hama, Avbe Akenuwa eni hia fefefe vbë rro, të a rriori vbë ukhu.
'First of all, it is the Obahimself, he owns the works of the guilds, and it is to him God gave these artefacts. Secondly, is the Chief, Ine of the bronze casting guild who is the custodian of the group. He is in charge of the work of the guild in the Edo society on behalf of the Oba. There are other people of prominence in the group like Chiefs Ehanire, Ihama, Akenuwa and so on all of which are hereditary positions in the Edo society.'
In this extract, concrete reference is made to the authority of the monarch as the only one with the power to determine the membership of the guilds. In the same vein, Chief Ine is presented as the person who acts on the monarch's behalf in the guild while the other categories of chiefs like Ehanire, Ihama and Akenuwa are also mentioned to reflect the hierarchy of authority in the group. These later mentions notwithstanding, the Oba still remains the single most important authority/power guilding and dictating the activities of the groups in question while the others are merely nominal authorities.
Indexicality
This is another aspect of discourse structure for the expression of ideology among members of the different guilds examined in this study. This is the phenomenon in socio-pragmatic and semiotic investigation adopted into CDA for the purpose of signifying certain properties of ideology and identity in discourse. It has to do with the phenomenon of pointing out or signifying (indexing) certain objects in the context of discourse in which they occur (Braun and Clarke 2006). Indexicality typically make reference to a time frame, locational frame as well as the moment a particular interactive expression is made with functions similar to deixis as the following expressions will portray here.
(7) Sokpan ime na ta ma onren we ghe ёдЬё igho vbe rrio abo oghe emwiku rro ne sokpan vbe ne eghe khare. A vbe tare se rrio we Iran ne o ze igho gheghe ne o ma ze igho fo ne a khian ya rue emwidkpo ghe igho oghe Iran o gbe o.
'Though I told him that with respect to such money, there is already an error in its computation, but nothing could be done due to time constraint. It was also discussed to the extent that those that paid a part of their levies and are yet to pay in full for the New Year celebration have forfeited their money.'
The above extract explores the viable aspects of the guilds' discourse dwelling on the distinction between those that are indebted to the group and those that have fulfilled all their financial obligations. Reference is made here by means of the pronominal Iran 'they' as those who are still indebted to the group, ime 'me' to the speaker who is not in that category and ma for every other member who has fulfilled all financial obligations and are therefore no longer indebted to the group as illustrated by the discourse so presented. This is therefore an important linguistic tool of expressing the distinction between persons in the group. It is also important to note here that the setting of the discourse while not of paramount importance in pointing out this phenomenon which we may tag: socio-economic status of members plays a role in outlining the linguistic pointers in this discourse. For instance, the reference of ime 'me' is used to indicate the speaker who in this context happens to be the secretary Akowe as noted earlier on whose position as not a debtor to the group empowers him to identify those who are indebted. As one of the rules of these groups, a debtor irrespective of his position within the group cannot preside over the deliberations of any meeting as this is seen as an affront to the integrity of the group. There are numerous aspects of the socio-cognitive expression of honorifics in the guilds discourse structure which will suffice here.
There is finally, the fact that the guilds project a unique cultural ideology which confers on them the authority to perform certain rites/rituals normally presided over by the Monarch thereby making the guild to be a kind of a state within a state with all the trappings of traditional political authority and prestige. Based on the objectives and goals of the present study, we propose an understanding of language ideology as "the set of socio-cultural values, norms, attitudes, beliefs and orientation regarding the use of language by a group of people in a society". In other words, different sections/segments of a society could possibly possess different orientation about a language in addition to the general norms regarding the language. This leads to differences in language use and eventually gives way to variation in the language.
Conclusion
We have thus far in this study been concerned with the ideological orientation of a group's discursive strategies from the West African and especially Nigerian socio-cultural perspective. We were able to portray some of the ideologies expressed by the guilds in the course of members' interaction and the different linguistic devices used to convey such linguistic ideologies from a socio-cognitive and cultural perspective.
It was observed based on the selective analysis of different discursive extracts using a socio-cognitive model of discourse representation that the following ideologies are expressed by the groups with respect to their interactional structure.
i) Patriarchal ideology whereby every activity of the group including the process of new members induction is based on a link to the father's side of one's heritage. Little or no significance/consideration is given to those from the mother's side. Also in the discourses of the guilds, it was found out that reference is often made to the legacies of fathers' érhá as our data examination reveals, and
ii) Gender ideology which is another orientation of the guilds' discourse based on the patriarchal system presented above. It was observed that a lot of gender bias exists in the guilds as females are generally restricted from the activities of the guilds. It was seen from our examination of interactions that this gender restriction to the activities of the guilds extends to the process of membership adoption/initiation wherein those from the paternal side are automatically taken as opposed to those from the maternal side of a heritage.
We conclude this investigation by recommending the use of the term igun as a reference to the guild system (which was previously used to refer to the bronze casters' guild) from the perspective of the Edo (Benin) language. This will ensure a proper identification of the group as a social/functional variety of the Edo language.
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