Narrative Frameworks and Moral Pedagogy in Yoruba Folktale Performances During the Olojo Festival: Discourse Patterns in Intergenerational Storytelling

Abstract

This article examined Yoruba folktale performance as a discourse-based system of moral pedagogy within the ritual and cultural atmosphere of the Olojo Festival in Ile-Ife, Nigeria. While studies of Yoruba oral literature have often emphasized the educational significance of folktales, riddles, lullabies, songs, and other children’s verbal arts, and while studies of Olojo have foregrounded its sacred, royal, and socio-religious importance, less attention has been given to the discourse patterns through which festival storytelling converts communal memory into intergenerational ethical instruction. Drawing on performance theory, social semiotics, and scholarship on African oral literature, the article argues that Yoruba folktale performances operate not merely as entertainment but as structured pedagogical events in which elders, children, families, and community audiences co-produce moral meaning. The study adopts a qualitative interpretive design based on critical synthesis of scholarly literature and discourse-analytic modelling of Yoruba storytelling conventions. It identifies five recurrent discourse patterns: ritualized opening and attention management, narrative sequencing of transgression and consequence, call-and-response participation, proverbial and musical moral condensation, and dialogic evaluation between elders and younger listeners. The article further shows that the Olojo Festival’s symbolic emphasis on origin, authority, renewal, Ogun, Oduduwa, and communal continuity intensifies the moral force of folktale performance. It concludes that Yoruba folktales in festival contexts should be understood as performative classrooms where cultural heritage, ethical reasoning, language aesthetics, and communal identity are transmitted across generations. The article recommends systematic audiovisual documentation, corpus-based discourse analysis, and the incorporation of festival-based storytelling into indigenous education and cultural-preservation programmes