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Nigerian dress as a symbolic language
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Grace Ebunlola Adamo
Published/Copyright:
March 22, 2011
Abstract
Before someone opens her mouth to speak, her clothes are available for interpretation. This means that the way a person dresses provides the first information that we are presented with about her. This paper discusses the many ways in which people create and exchange meanings in communication through dress. In this case, dress serves both instrumental and communication functions. In addition to protecting the body from the elements, it also conveys socially relevant information via cultural categories, cultural processes, and individual meaning. All of these are discussed using the Nigerian setting as a case study.
Keywords:: Nigerian dress; symbolic language; cultural categories; semiotics; dress behavior; non-verbal communication
Published Online: 2011-03-22
Published in Print: 2011-April
© 2011 Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co. KG, Berlin/New York
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Keywords for this article
Nigerian dress;
symbolic language;
cultural categories;
semiotics;
dress behavior;
non-verbal communication
Articles in the same Issue
- Nigerian dress as a symbolic language
- Language and brain: Recasting meaning in the definition of human language
- An exploration of the other side of semantic communication: How the spontaneous movements of the human hand add crucial meaning to narrative
- Rethinking gesture phases: Articulatory features of gestural movement?
- Peirce's 10, 28, and 66 sign-types: The simplest mathematics
- Qualitative-quantitative analysis of narrative structures: The narrative roles of immigrants in Spanish television series
- Rethinking our understanding of diagrams
- Old and new covenants: Historical and theological contexts in Scribe's and Halévy's La Juive
- The rod and the crocodile. Temporal relations in textual hermeneutics: An application of Petri nets to semantics
- Transcendence and alterity: On life, communication, and subjectivity
- Analyzing discourse topics and topic keywords
- The fate of semiotics in China
- Victoria Welby and the Signific Movement
