GENERICSTRUCTUREPOTENTIALOFSOMENIGERIANFOLKTALES

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GENERIC STRUCTURE POTENTIAL OF SOME NIGERIAN FOLKTALES
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International Journal of English Language and Linguistics Research
Vol.6, No 2, pp. 73-87, April 2018
___Published by European Centre for Research Training and Development UK (www.eajournals.org)
GENERIC STRUCTURE POTENTIAL OF SOME NIGERIAN FOLKTALES
Thompson Olusegun Ewata (Ph.D)1, Titilade Adefunke Oyebade1 and Inya Onwu2
1
The Federal University of Technology, Akure, Ondo State
2
University of Ibadan, Ibadan, Oyo State.
ABSTRACT: The structure of folktales has been largely considered within literary tradition.
Though a few studies have examined folktales from a linguistic perspective, little or none has
studied the Generic Structure Potential of Nigerian folktales. In this study, we purposively
studied twenty folktales narratives selected from a corpus of one hundred Nigerian folktales,
downloaded online. The texts were closely examined for uniformity and representativeness of
both the Nigerian folktales and folktales in general and on that basis a GSP catalogue for
Nigerian folktales, [TTÔR]^CA^1^2^RS^1^2^[F]^(MR) was generated. The elements
generated in the catalogue include: Title TT, Orientation OR, Conflicting Action CA,
Resolution RS, Finis F and Moral MR. while MR is an optional element, the remaining
elements are obligatory. The paper concludes that the elements of GSP catalogued here are
typical of Nigerian folk narratives and suggests that the model could be applied to other forms
of narratives that have not so far been studied.
KEYWORDS: Corpus, Folktale Narrative, Generic Structure Potential, Nigerian Folktales,
Representativeness
INTRODUCTION
Folktale is a form of folklore which includes myth, legend, proverb, aphorism, reminiscence,
anecdote and joke. In general, folktales comprise various kinds of narrative prose literature
found in the oral traditions of the world. They are heard, remembered and are subject to various
alterations in the course of retelling (Kehinde, 2010). They have been given several definitions
by scholars of different orientations. For instance, to Akporobaro (2001, p. 51), the folktale is
a purely imaginative story that could have a basis in real life but intended essentially to entertain
rather than to record history or social experience and are not believed to be true.
To Abrams (1981, p. 66), the folktale, is a short orally transmitted narrative of unknown
authorship. Quinn (2006, p. 169) also maintains the folktale’s orality as he describes it as an
orally handed down story from generation to generation and has become a part of a people’s
tradition.
From the Nigerian context, folktales perform a host of functions which include: entertainment,
keeping of records, inculcating and instructing younger generations in the society’s philosophy,
world-view, cosmology, sense of community, knowledge and skills required to handle
problems and riddles in life and powers of rhetoric and repertoire. Speaking further of these
functions, Akujobi (2009), reiterating Ogunjimi et al. (2004) states that the functions of
folktales include the introduction of cultural practices to children and other accounts point the
way to the customs, institutions, mores and beliefs of their community. These oral traditions
help people to develop meaningful psychological traits, expose them to concepts of
meta/physical phenomena, inculcate a sense of social organization and collective
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Vol.6, No 2, pp. 73-87, April 2018
responsibility, and serve as meaningful forms of intellectual engagement and a sense of
belonging.
Due to the popularity of folktales in literary, cultural and anthropological studies, the forms
and functions have been variously categorised. For instance, Hagan (1988, p.19) presents a
comprehensive and critical list of the technical features of a folktale as he claims it has:
a literary convention expressed in the scheme of formal features: the introductory
statements; the body of the tale interspersed with songs; the moral or etiological
conclusion; the narrator-audience interaction; the use of language characterised chiefly
by repetition and resort to ideophones; the role of songs to punctuate sections of the
story and to advance the plot in some cases.
These features have been analysed from a literary perspective which give a little insight into
the idea of genre in literary traditions. While so much has been done in this regard, only a few
works in linguistics on the structural features of narratives and fairy tales exist. Among these
are the works of Propp (1968), Lévi-Strauss (1967) and Hasan (1984). The present study is
concerned with a linguistic exploration of some selected Nigerian folktales drawing on
Systemic Functional Linguistics to investigate the discourse structure of the folktales with a
consideration to the communicative purpose of their structural elements.
The study examined twenty purposively sampled Nigerian folktales from six online resources
on folktales and African literature with the objective to generating GSP catalogue for Nigerian
folktales.
Significance of the Study

Folktale as a genre has been viewed from different countries and cultures: Slovenian
(Gradišnik, 2010), Thai (Patpong, 2013), Mali (Leguy, Dembele, Diarra, & Diarra, 2016)
among others. This study is important as it help puts Nigerian folktales on the world map
among studies that have been done in that aspect. At the same time, it will help showcase
Nigerian rich folktale culture and help characterise the Nigerian folktales. This study will be
of great importance to academics in general and those studying narrative, cultural studies and
generic structure potential model, in particular.
Previous Studies
Many studies have been carried out on the structure of narratives. The earliest came from the
field of narratology in the 1960s. Narratologists study the internal structure of stories, aiming
to define their component parts, distinguish between their different categories, as well as make
distinctions between narrative and non-narrative discourse. They also study and identify
different types of story genres. Despite all they have done, there is a limitation to their work
because of its focus on the abstract identification of universal elements of a narrative rather
than on actual storytelling in everyday life (Brockmeier & Carbaugh, 2001). For instance, Frye
(1957) produced a grammar of narrative genres, maintaining that four basic categories capture
all the plot lines of literature (comedy, tragedy, romance and satire).
Propp and Lévi-Strauss are regarded as pioneering figures on narrative structure as their
theories have cast great light on genre analysis of this particular genre type. Propp (1968)’s
classic study of 100 Russian folktales is generally acknowledged to be one of the most
important studies of the nature of narratives. Propp holds that there are 31 (and no more than
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31) “functions” – all such stories have the same structure – and that the sequence of functions
found in folktales and fairy tales is always identical. Lévi-Strauss (1967) offers “paradigmatic
analysis” of texts to the study of stories and suggests that in contrast to a syntagmatic analysis
which is concerned with what happens in a text, a paradigmatic analysis reveals what the text
means to people.
Other studies follow suit in identifying features that define narrative. Bruner (1990, p. 272 cited
in Benwell & Stokoe, 2006, p.131), suggests five features: action, scene, actor, instrument and
goal, plus trouble which is defined as “[S]ome kind of imbalance or conflict between the five
elements [which] gives rise to the subsequent actions, events, and resolutions that make-up a
coherent, bounded narrative”. Another study is that of Labov (1972) who takes research on oral
narratives structure to another level. In his study of oral narratives conventional organization,
he stresses: “A complete narrative begins with an orientation, proceeds to the complicating
action, is suspended at the focus of evaluation before the resolution, concludes with the
resolution, and returns the listener to the present time with the coda” (p. 369).
Of much relevance to the present study is Hasan (1984), which focuses on the generic structure
of fairy tales with both regard to paradigmatic and syntagmatic relations of Propp (1968) and
Lévi-Strauss (1967). She analysed some classic English fairy tales, and came up with her
famous Generic Structural Potential that sees the structural elements of fairy tales as six, which
are placement, initiating event, sequent event, final event, finale and moral. These will be
elaborated upon under the theoretical framework.
Taken together, the various lists of narrative components share several features. First,
narratives have a teller and a trajectory: they are expected to ‘go’ somewhere with a point and
resolution. They have beginnings, middles and ends, and include the recounting of events that
are displaced spatially and, crucially, temporally. For a stretch of talk or text to be categorised
as a ‘narrative’, it has to incorporate basic structural features including a narrator, characters,
settings, a plot, events that evolve over time, crises and resolutions. These features are central
to our ability to characterise a stretch of discourse as narrative.
Theoretical Framework
This paper draws theoretical insights from the Generic Structure Potential model (henceforth,
GSP) proposed by Michael Halliday and Ruquiya Hasan (cf. Halliday/Hasan 1985 and Hasan,
1996). The model is built on the assumption that Contextual Configuration (CC) – a specific
set of the values that realises the field, tenor and mode, "permits statements about the texts
structures" to be made (Halliday & Hasan, 1985, p. 56). Contextual Configuration plays a
pivotal role in the structural unity of texts and reveals the relationship between a text and its
context. Specifically, a CC can predict the following about text structure:
1. Obligatory elements – What elements must occur?
2. Optional elements – What elements may occur?
3. Sequencing of elements – What arrangements of elements are obligatory and optional?
4. Iteration – How often may what elements occur?
Given a particular CC, Halliday & Hasan (1985) state that it is possible to express the total
range of optional and obligatory elements and their order in such a way that we exhaust the
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possibility of text structure for every text that can be appropriate to a particular CC. This
possibility is what is known as the structural potential of this genre or its generic structural
potential (GSP). GSP captures the possible characteristics of texts belonging to a particular
genre. It represents the preferred textual organisation for texts in a genre, a preference hinged
on the social/communicative purpose the genre sets out to achieve. It is a powerful device that
permits a large number of possible structures that can be actualised. Halliday and Hasan (1985)
submit that a particular GSP is known essentially and adequately realised by the set of
obligatory elements.
Inya (2012) GSP analysis of Christian apologetics identifies the obligatory and optional
elements of Christian apologetics and presents the following catalogue shown in Figure 1:
[TTÂN]^[BI]^PCP.ÂOP.Â.ÊL.^(TMs)^[F]
Figure 1: GSP model for Christian apologetics (Inya, 2013, p. 78)
The elements that constitute the GSP include: Title TT, Author's Name AN, Background
Information BI, Presentation of Contrary Positions PCP, Articulating Own Position AOP,
Argumentation A, Elaboration EL, Finis F and Testimonials TMs. The round brackets in the
catalogue above indicate optionality, therefore, (TM) is the only optional element discovered
in the data and TT, AN, BI, PCP, AOP, A, EL, F are obligatory. PCP, AOP, A, EL are
recursive and therefore, have the curved arrow ( ) on them. The dot (.) between elements
means that more than one option in sequence is possible. Therefore, the sequence PCP. AOP.
A. EL. is only one option, as the sequence could be: AOP. PCP. EL. A. The square brackets []
limit the place of occurrence of the elements within them, which implies, for instance, that
[TTÂN] can only occur in the beginning of a Christian apologetic text and nowhere else. The
same explanation holds for [B] and [F]. Finally, the caret sign (^) stands for sequence that
shows how Christian apologetic texts progress from TT^^^^^^^F, from the title to the
conclusion (Inya, p. 78). Given the obligatory elements in the GSP of Christian apologetics,
Inya avers that it belongs to the argumentative genre.
With respect to folktales, scholars have attempted to delineate the textual structure of this
narrative genre. However, of particular interest to us is Hasan’s (1984/1996) work on fairy
tales. Based on some classic English fairy tales, Hasan (1984) proposes the following Generic
Structural Potential of fairy tales as shown in Figure 2:
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Figure 2: GSP model for fairy tales (Hasan, 1984, p. 54)

According to Hasan (1984), the GSP model for fairy tales includes six elements, namely,
Placement, Initiating Event, Sequent Event, Final Event, Finale and Moral. While Initiating
Event, Sequent Event and Final Event are obligatory elements and define the fairy tale genre,
Placement, Finale and Moral are optional as their occurrence is not critical and essential. The
current study, differs from the foregoing largely in terms of choice of data, examines some
folktales from Nigeria.
DATA AND METHOD

The data for this study consist of twenty Nigerian folktales that were taken from six online
materials on folktales and African literature: http://eyemags.com/em/prev/story.jsp?
s=9&id=14346&mwidth=320 (n.d.); Ogumefu, 2009 - http://www.sacred-texts.com/
afr/yl/yl20.htm; Akinwale, 2011 - http://clapg2011.blogspot.com.ng/2011/06/how-aaye-and-
aigboran-became-enemies-by.html; Oduntan, 2011 - http://clapg2011
.blogspot.com.ng/2011/04/; Oladejo, 2011 - http://clapg2011.blogspot.com.ng/2011/05/how-
tortoises-shell-became-rough-by.html; and Tutuola, 2014 - https://destee.com/threads/
nigerian-story-dont-pay-bad-for-bad.65967/. The twenty folktales were purposively selected
from the pool of about one hundred Nigerian folktales that cut across the southern and northern
parts of Nigeria. The online edition of the Nigerian foltales was chosen as the genre covers
diverse themes and subjects as well as "the uniformity of the folktale’s form of presentation
and above all availability of the folktales (Ewata, 2017, p. 41). The tales are subjected to the
method of content analysis using the Halliday and Hasan’s Generic Structure Potential (GSP).
The schema below presents the GSP of the selected folktales.
[TTÔR]^CA^1^2^RS^1^2^[F]^(MR)
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Data Analysis and Findings
The elements that constitute the GSP of Nigerian folktales include: Title TT, Orientation OR,
Conflicting Action CA, Resolution RS, Finis F and Moral MR. The round brackets in the
catalogue above signifies optionality, which makes (MR) the only optional element discovered
in the data. This is consistent with Hasan (1996). TT, OR, CA, RS, and F are obligatory
elements that characterize Nigerian folktales. CA and RS are recursive and therefore have the
curved arrow ( ) on them. In other words, in some of the texts examined, there are multiple
instances of CA and RE, which are represented as: CA1^CA2^RS2^RS3. The square brackets
are used to limit the mobility of elements within them as such [TTÔR] can only occur at the
beginning of a folktale and nowhere. The same understanding applies to [F]. Finally, the caret
sign (^) stands for sequence and relative fixity, that is, it indicates the progression of the
narrative texts from the TT to the MR, on the one hand, and suggests that the elements
preceding the caret can only occur there and not after the caret. The following is a detailed
description of each element with excerpts from the texts to illustrate this.
Title (TT) refers to the title of the folktale which usually reflects the moral and at times the
purpose of the story. Aside this, the title may also contain the name(s) of characters in the story.
In the data, some titles are phrases while others are sentences.
Ex. 1: Don't pay bad for bad
The title in Ex. 1 is a simple sentence and it occurs in the imperative mood. This imperative
clause indicates the moral of the story. This is a common feature of TT in the Nigerian
folktales. Since one of their functions is to teach morals, this is foregrounded most times in the
TT.
Ex. 2: The Twin Brothers
This TT is a phrase and it simply contains the subjects or the main characters of the story who
are twin brothers. This is another feature of the Nigerian folktale. This kind of title tells the
reader or hearer the main characters that the story revolves around and from the beginning
gives the audience a hint of the possible direction of the story.
Ex. 3: Rere, the Disobedient Son
Ex. 4: Akanke and the Jealous Pawnbroker
The examples above are quite different from 2, though they have the same syntactic structure.
Ex. 3 and 4 contain the names of the main characters of the story and provide the audience with
some information about the character/attitudes of the main characters that are relevant to the
plot of the story. For instance, in example 3, the audience gets the idea that the disobedient
attitude of the main character, Rere, would lead to his downfall.
Ex. 5: How the tortoise's shell became rough
Like myth-making, folktales are also a means for providing non-scientific
reasons/interpretations for certain physical/natural phenomena. Titles like Ex. 5 are very
common in Nigerian folktales and are found in stories about animals, creation of the world and
how some sayings came to be used by a group of people. This type of title, most often, occurs
with the adverbial particle ‘how.’ The foregoing clearly indicates that titles of folktales reflect
the overall thematic preoccupations of the folklorists, the object lessons as well as the main
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characters of the tale etc. Furthermore, the title naturally dove-tales into the orientation of the
narrative and this is the next element in our GSP of Nigerian folktales.
Orientation (OR): this element indicates time, place, persons and the activity of the narrative:
the who, when, what, and where. Orientation as espoused in this paper is informed by Labov
and Waletzky’s (1967) conceptualisation. According to them, the orientation introduces and
identifies the participants in the action: the time, the place, and the initial behavior (Labov,
2010). This stage is typically presented by presenting reference and expressions of habitual
action. The Orientation (OR) could be a sentence or a paragraph comprising five to fifteen
sentences. Let us see some examples to buttress this:
Ex. 6:
Once upon a time, a feast was organized for birds in the sky. Tortoise persuaded birds
that he would love to go with them. Birds refused to allow Tortoise go with them
because Tortoise is not a bird and he is known to be very greedy and cunning too. After
much appeal from Tortoise, Birds agreed to allow him go with them (Oladejo, 2011).
In the excerpt above, the OR identifies the who: tortoise and birds, the when: once upon a time,
the what: a feast organised for birds, and the where: in the sky. The orientation sets the setting
for the story in terms of subject matter, time of occurrence, characters involved and the place
of occurrence. This is a typical orientation.
In the next example, the OR does not only provide the setting for the narrative it presents a
non-conflictual/pre-conflictual state of affair:
Ex. 7:
Dola and Babi were good friends in their days. Both were young ladies, and they had
loved each other heartily from when they were children. They always wore the same
kind of dress, and they went together everywhere in their village, and to other villages
as well. They did everything together, so much so that anyone who did not know their
parents believed they were twins. So Dola and Babi went about together until when
they grew to be the age for marriage. Because they loved each other so much, they
decided within themselves to marry two men who were born of the same mother and
father, and who lived together in the same house, so that they might be with each other
always.
Luckily, a few days after Dola and Babi decided to do so, they heard of two young men
who were born of the same mother and father, and who lived together in the same house.
So Babi married one of the young men while Dola married the second one, who was
older than the first one. So Dola and Babi were very happy now, living together as they
had before they had been married in their husbands' house (Tutuola, 2014).
EX. 7 furnishes the reader with information on the names of the characters, their actions,
decisions and of their village and some other villages they had been, which are not definite. In
the OR, Dola and Babi are bosom friends, who are very fond of each other. In order to remain
friends they decide to marry men who are brothers and live together. They are able to achieve
this and are very happy. This peaceful, non-conflictual, amicable existence is typical of ORs
in the data. The harmonious atmosphere is usually upset by conflict, which the next element of
the GSP.
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Conflicting Action (CA): this part of the folktale tells the audience what actually happened
that makes the story worth telling. It deals with opposition, tension or disagreement among the
characters of the story. This is actually the crux of most stories. In fact, there will be no point
for telling stories if there is no conflict. This element is an obligatory element found in most
Nigerian folktales. It occurs in variations and is recursive. In many of these folktales,
conflicting actions tend to be multiple and we also found that a resolution of a conflicting action
can lead to another conflicting action that will also result into another conflicting action before
the end of a story. They occur in simple sentences and the CA could also take a whole
paragraph. Examples are provided below.
Ex. 8:
A few days after their marriage, Dola cleared a part of the front of the house very neatly.
She sowed one kola-nut on the spot. After some weeks the kola-nut shot up…After
some months, the kola-nut tree grew to the height of about one metre. But now the
domestic animals of the village began to eat the leaves of the tree and this hindered its
growth… When Babi noticed that the animals of the village had eaten nearly all the
leaves of the tree, she went back to her room. She took the top part of her large water
pot, the bottom of which had broken away. She gave it to Dola, and she told her to
shield her kola-nut tree with it so that the animals wouldn't be able to eat its leaves
again. Dola took the large pot from her and thanked her fervently. Then she shielded
her tree with it, and as from that morning the animals were unable to eat the leaves of
the tree. And so it was growing steadily in the centre of the large pot. A few years later,
the tree yielded the first kola-nuts. The first kola-nuts that the tree yielded were of the
best quality in the village, and because the nuts were the best quality, the kola-nut
buyers hastily bought all the nuts, paying a considerable amount of money. Similarly,
when the tree yielded the second and third kola-nuts, the buyers bought them with large
amounts of money as before. In selling the kola-nuts, Dola became a wealthy woman
within a short period. Having seen this, Babi became jealous of Dola's wealth.
Jealously, Babi demanded back the water pot…. 'You must not break it or split the head
of my water pot before you return it to me!' Babi shouted angrily. 'I say it cannot be
taken away from the tree without breaking it or cutting the tree down,' Dola explained
angrily. Babi boomed on Dola: 'Yes, you may cut your tree down if you wish to do so.
But all I want from you is my water pot!' Dola reminded Babi with a calm voice, 'Please,
Babi, I remind you now that both of us started our friendship when we were children.
Because of that, don't try to take your water pot back at his time.' 'Yes, of course, I don't
forget at any time that we are friends. But at all costs, I want the water pot now,' Babi
insisted with a great noise (Tutuola, 2014).
This rather long excerpt is an instance of CA. In the example above, the CA takes several
paragraphs and we see that it comprises not just one action, but series of actions. While the
point of conflict is actually when Babi requested for her pot, the CA starts with the various
things that Dola did that made Babi come to her rescue, which later generated the latter’s
jealousy. Here, we can rightly say that folktales do not just comprise conflict, but conflicting
actions. The actions that lead to the point of conflict and the ensuing happenings after the point
of conflict are all taken as conflicting action(s). This element makes such folktales believable,
realistic and persistent in the people’s common narrative culture.
Ex. 9: Yet Rere rejected his father's advice. He insisted he would go and hunt in the
bush and jungle instead. So Oluwu left him to himself (Tutuola, 2014).
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There are three sentences in the example above and we can see that the conflicting action stated
is quite different in structure from the first example given on CA. Here, we see the CA
emanating from the character’s own attitude of disobedience, while for the first example; it was
not the fault of Dola. In many Nigerian folktales, we have this kind of conflicting action. In
this tale, Rere’s attitude of disobedience was so much that his father’s efforts to get him to
change his mind became futile and so the man got tired and left him. This confirms a saying
among Yoruba people about disobedient children: “omo mapami, tobaya adi omo mapara re”
(don’t kill me child, soon enough it becomes don’t kill yourself child).
Ex.10:
One day, one of the closest friends to Aigboran was playing aayo olopon among other
groups of men as Aaye was passing with her calabash of beans, he called “Aaye, eewa
re nda mi loran…wa ta ewa fun mi, eewa re ni mo f’era, se wa taa fun mi? (Aaye, your
beauty is dazzles me, don’t sell beans for me, it’s your beauty I want to buy, will you
sell it to me? Other men in the group joined in the jest and refused to pay Aaye,
everyone insisted that such beauty was not meant for one man but the woman just
carried her calabash and left in tears. The rumour of what transpired between the men
and his wife got to Aigboran. Then he decided to be more watchful. He consulted an
herbalist and asked him to put “magun” (thunderbolt) on his wife. The herbalist advised
him against such wicked acts, but he refused. Aigboran went ahead to Orunmila.
Orunmila said he could never assist Aigboran in such bad acts, Orunmila however
consulted Ifa and ensured Aigboran that his wife was not having any extra-marital
affair. Aigboran did not believe Orunmila; he wanted to be very sure nobody in the
village was sleeping with his wife. All the warnings of Orunmila fell on the deaf ears
of Aigboran. He went to Esu, who gave him a solution to his problem. Esu taught
Aigboran how to remove his eyes and pasted it on the calabash of Aaye whenever she
was going to sell beans. That was how Aigboran made sure his eyes went with his wife
whenever she was not in the house. When she returns, he would remove his eyes from
the calabash and put it in his eye balls again. That meant that Aigboran would be blind
until his wife return from her trading.
One fateful day, Aaye sold her beans together with the calabash to a man who wanted
to do a ritual. She was glad to sell because the man gave her a huge sum of money. She
got home and started counting her money when her husband asked from inside the
room. “Aaye mi, ni bo ni igba ewa re wa? Mo n wa oju mi o? (Aaye dear, where is your
calabash of beans, am searching for my eyes?”Aaye gladly and innocently informed the
husband that she had sold the calabash together with her beans for large sum. Aigboran
screamed on top of his voice and started weeping profusely. He narrated to his wife
how he used to remove his eyes to monitor Aaye whenever she was going out to sell
(Akinwale, 2011).
In this example, we see how one CA leads to another without a break in the plot of the story.
This is an example of a recursive CA. Here, we see a conflicting action caused by third parties
affecting the two main characters and resulting in another conflicting action coming from one
of the main characters, Aigboran, against his wife who he did not trust. This made him to
commit another conflicting action of putting his eyes on his wife’s calabash of beans. As a
consequence of his wrong action, his wife unknowingly committed another conflicting action
that led to his loss of eyes and abandonment by his wife. This kind of CA is very common to
Nigerian folktales.
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RESOLUTION (RS): this is a point where the conflict created by the conflicting action(s) in
a story is resolved. This is an obligatory element in most Nigerian folktales and is also
recursive. The resolution of the plot of a story could range from a sentence to a whole paragraph
or more. Here are examples.
Ex. 11: To settle this point they decided to cast stones, and the one who made the longer
throw should claim the throne, and afterwards send for his brother to share in his
splendour (Ogumefu, 2009)).
This is a type of resolution that leads to another conflict as this occurs as the first resolution to
the first conflicting action that occurs in the story. In the story, a conflict is caused by the death
of the king who is the father of the twin brothers who are the main characters. His death has
resulted in an empty stool and to be able to resolve it, the main characters would have to
compete. The decision to compete makes the first resolution in the story, which still results in
another conflicting action. This is very common to many Nigerian folktales of this nature.
Ex. 12:
As soon as he had given Tortoise a seat, he started to serve him and flatter him
continuously. And as Tortoise was greedy in everything, he drank so much that he
became unconscious within a few minutes. As soon as he fell down from the seat and
fell asleep, Oluwo went and loosened the leather of the drum and then pulled out his
son, Rere, who was nearly suffocated by the heat. Then Oluwo sealed the drum back
with the same leather that he had removed from it. He did the seal so carefully that the
drum seemed as if its leather had not been removed at all. Then he replaced the drum
behind Tortoise. Then he rushed his son, Rere, to an open place where there was fresh
air to breathe in. All Oluwo's guests had gone away before Tortoise woke up in the mid-
night. As soon as Tortoise, the Jungle Drummer, lifted up his drum and felt that it was
lighter than when Rere was inside it, he knew that Rere had come out of it. 'Who has
tampered with my drum?' Tortoise started to shout angrily. But when Rere's father heard
the noise, he beat Tortoise with a club mercilessly, and then drove him away from the
house (Tutuola, 2014).
This is another type of resolution in which the character that is in harm’s way is rescued and
the character involved in committing the bad act against the hero punished. It is a kind of
resolution that we can call a final resolution as it resolves the overall conflict of the story. It is
a common type of resolution in many Nigerian folktales.
Ex. 13:
Then as the chief closed his eyes with grief, he gave the order to the swordsman to
behead Babi's daughter. But, just as the swordsman raised his sword up to cut the head
off, Dola hastily stopped him by pulling his arm down, and then she announced loudly,
'It will be a great pity if this daughter of mine is killed, because she has not offended
me. No! It was her jealous mother (Tutuola, 2014).
This is another type of final resolution to an overall conflict of a story that answers the question
‘what now happens after all these recursive conflicts and resolution?’ This is just like the one
above but it does not mete out punishment against the bad person, but rather stops the process.
This is also a common type of resolution in many Nigerian folktales, especially the ones that
involve seeking revenge.
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Ex. 14:
A good Samaritan helped Aigboran to Orunmila’s house but Orunmila told Aigboran
in simple terms: Ti aba ri Aaye, o leri oju re o”. Airi oju re, lowo Aaye lowa” (if we
cannot find Aaye, you can never get your eyes. You can’t get your eyes, because it’s in
the power of Aaye) (Akinwale, 2011).
The example above is a kind of resolution in which the character who is at fault in the story
does not get solution to the problem he has caused for himself/herself. In this instance,
Aigboran’s blindness cannot be cured because the only way out is for him to find his wife Aaye
and since the latter cannot be found, he will have to live with his blindness. This is another
kind of resolution that is common to many Nigerian folktales. While Aigboran here goes with
blindness, in other stories, it is either death or loss of fortune or some other types of scar that
will teach others people lessons of not to indulging in bad acts.
FINIS (F): this element signifies that the story has come to a close and states, at times, the
final state or condition or what eventually happens to a character or characters after the conflict
in the story has been resolved. This section in this type of narrative text can be optional, as
many stories may just end with the resolution. It can also be abrupt and elaborate. The examples
below serve to illustrate these points.
Ex. 15: Of course, Aigboran remained blind till death because Aaye could not be found
in the village or anywhere around (Akinwale, 2011).
This is a type of FINIS that is abrupt and short. In the plot of the story, one expects to still see
some actions being performed by the characters, but the narrator cuts off the flow by giving us
the final state of Aigboran and also providing his own evaluation, which comes before and after
the end of the story. This kind of ending is common in many Nigerian folktales, especially the
ones that have to do with the origin of a people, of some sayings, names or actions.
Ex. 17:
After this, a signal was sent to tortoise to jump down. Tortoise jumped, landed on the
sharp objects, sustained serious injury and had his shell broken in the process. The
injury left his shell with scars till today (Oladejo, 2011).
The example above is an instance of FINIS that involves the last actions taken by the hero of
the story, whether the ones that land him/her/it in trouble or fortune. It is also a common type
of ending for many Nigerian folktales, whether the ones that involve animals or human beings.
This can be seen in the examples below which have to do with human characters.
Ex. 18:
The chief and the rest of the people clapped and shouted loudly with happiness when
they heard this announcement from Dola. Then everyone went back to his or her house.
And Dola and Babi were still good friends throughout the rest of their lives (Tutuola,
2014).
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Vol.6, No 2, pp. 73-87, April 2018
Ex. 19: Thus the jealous pawnbroker lost both her son and money as a result of her
greediness and jealousy
(http://eyemags.com/em/prev/story.jsp?s=9&id=14346&mwidth=320).
Ex. 20:
After Rere had become conscious and had eaten, his father asked, 'Rere, will you go
and hunt in the jungle again?' 'Never shall I go and hunt in any jungle any more, not
until I am old enough!' Rere replied with regret. 'Never shall I go and hunt in any jungle
any more, not until I am old enough!' Rere replied with regret (Tutuola, 2014).
Ex. 21: On getting to Orunmila, he told them that the earth is the oldest. He said that it
was after the earth was created that every other thing began to come to be. He added
that at the end of time, it is the land that will consume everything (Oduntan, 2011).
In the examples above, example 18 is an instance of FINIS that does not just provide us with
what happens to the character/characters eventually, but also provides an evaluation of the
character’s actions and we see that the moral of the story has been embedded here. This is also
a type of ending or FINIS that we can find in many Nigerian folktales. The intrusion of the
narrator in the plot to provide an evaluation is an element that shows the nature of folktales as
stories that are told or supposed to be told: orality. In example 19, we see the story ending with
a dialogue between Rere and his father and Rere’s final decision to be an obedient child after
showing so much penitence. This is another type of FINIS for many Nigerian folktales,
especially the ones that involve a character flaw in the life and actions of the hero. The hero
suffers because of his/her actions and character and later makes up his/her mind to be good
after so much regret. Finally, example 20 is a type of FINIS that involves a kind of subtle
resolution to the issue at stake (conflict) in the plot of the story. This kind of ending is typical
of many Nigerian folktales that have to do with historical origins of communities, the world
and even sayings and proverbs of a particular set of people.
Moral (MR): this element has to do with a conclusion about how to behave drawn from the
folktales. It could be a sentence or more but it usually comes as the final part of a story even
after the FINIS and it is meant to give advice, and to teach good values drawn from the theme(s)
of the story. This could be optional, implicit and explicit and we found that it is not necessary
for it to occur at the end of a story as it could occur in the middle of a story. We also found that
the moral of a story could be in layers. Another fact about the moral section of folktales is that
it serves as the narrator’s comment or evaluation of the theme(s) of a story.
Ex.22: The moral of the story… do not cast your pearls before swine, an animal will
always be an animal.
This is an example of moral that comes immediately after the end of the story and it states
explicitly the lesson the audience should learn from the story. This is a very common kind of
moral in many Nigerian folktales. These kinds of tales are told to children in order to inculcate
in them good character and the values of the community in which they are members.
Ex. 23:
And in the judgement, the chief added that the head of Babi's daughter would be cut off
on the assembly ground which was in front of his palace, and, also in the presence of
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Vol.6, No 2, pp. 73-87, April 2018
all the people of the village, so that everyone might learn that jealousy was bad
(Tutuola, 2014).
This is another type of moral and it can be found in a few Nigerian folktales unlike the first
type. Here, the moral is not stated by the narrator but by a character in the story. Another thing
about this section is that it occurs in the plot of the story immediately after the resolution of a
conflicting action. We also discovered that this kind of moral is found in stories in which there
are more than one moral lessons to be learnt by the audience. For instance, this particular story
states another moral that is also given by a character in the story. We have this below.
Ex. 24:
'And I believe, if we continue to pay "bad" for "bad", bad will never finish on earth.
Therefore, I forgive Babi all that she has done to my kola-nut tree of which she was
jealous!' (Tutuola, 2014).
In this example, we see that the overall theme of the story is reinstated in the moral section.
This proves that there can be layers of moral lessons to be learnt from a story and that the moral
does not necessarily have to be said by the narrator.
Ex. 25: Thus the jealous pawnbroker lost both her son and money as a result of her
greediness and jealousy
(http://eyemags.com/em/prev/story.jsp?s=9&id=14346&mwidth=320).
In the example above, the moral is stated implicitly as part of the FINIS. This is another way
of stating the moral of a story, in many Nigerian folktales.
Implications of the Study

Folktales are drawn from the basic simple human existence and to understand them, we need
to look at them from the basic human life and not from the more complex products of literary
and oral traditions, according to Labov and Waletzky (1967). The implication of this is that
this study takes a look at the basic form of storytelling in the Nigerian culture without the
subtlety of literary tradition to examine the human society and interaction form.
In addition, sociologists and psychologists have stress the combination of the environment and
the psychological factor on the human being which they classify as the psychosocial factor.
Narratives from other cultures of the world have helped in throwing light on this. The
implication of this is that humanity is one as the narrative technique used to argue this which
exists in the other cultures is also present in the Nigerian context.
Another implication of this study is that Nigerian cultural view portrayed through the language
which is exhibited through the narratives is apt to portray the people’s worldviews and beliefs
and are not inadequate in anyway. The fact the folktales in Nigeria have a structure that can be
determined and is not an assortment of different unorganised things means that every language
in the world is used to perform basically the same function.
More so, the study help argue the anthropologists assertion that storytelling entails negotiated
symbiotic exchange between tellers and listeners and that this negotiation is mastered from
infancy. The implication of this is that humans do not only interact in the society but that there
is always a negotiated interplay of things in the society.
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CONCLUSION
The study examines the GSP of Nigerian folktales, and argues that the elements of the GSP
model work together to achieve the social/communicative purpose of the discourse, which is
to narrate stories that are meant to entertain, teach moral lessons and provide historical reasons
and origins for the reality of today’s Nigerian society. In the literature, genre categorization is
determined by the communicative purpose of the discourse. Since folktales are meant to narrate
past events, occurrences and experiences of a people or community, it belongs to the narrative
genre. For example, the ideal textual organisation of any folktale has to have OR, CA and RS
as obligatory elements to be regarded as folk narrative. One thing to note about this is that
folktales share these obligatory elements with many other narrative genres and that is why we
can call them stories. Finally, the model generated proves to have high educational and
pedagogical value, as it can enable the audience of this type of narrative genre to learn the basic
features of this type of narrative and be able to differentiate it from other types they are exposed
to at some other time. Future research could apply this model to other forms of narrative
discourses such as stories in jokes and riddles, Christian oral testimonies and newspaper and
television news on events etc. to further test its validity.
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GENERIC STRUCTURE POTENTIAL OF SOME NIGERIAN FOLKTALES

Article · April 2018

Thompson Ewata Onwu Inya

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Significance of the Study

Figure 2: GSP model for fairy tales (Hasan, 1984, p. 54)

DATA AND METHOD

Implications of the Study

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