What does Signifying Monkey mean in African-American culture?
The signifying monkey is “distinctly Afro-American” but is thought to derive from Yoruban mythology, which depicts Echu-Elegua with a monkey at his side. Numerous songs and narratives concern the signifying monkey and his interactions with his friends, the lion and the elephant.
What does signifying mean in Signifying Monkey?
Learn about this topic in these articles: the “Racial” Self (1987) and The Signifying Monkey: A Theory of Afro-American Literary Criticism (1988). Signifyin’ is the practice of representing an idea indirectly, through a commentary that is often humourous, boastful, insulting, or provocative.
What is the theme of The Signifying Monkey?
Often regarded as a foundational text of black literary theory, the book’s stated intention is “if not exactly to invent a black theory…to locate and identify how the ‘black tradition’ had theorized about itself.” Gates achieves this by focusing on the Black cultural practice of “signifyin(g),” a sophisticated form of …
Who wrote The Signifying Monkey?
Henry Louis Gates Jr.The Signifying Monkey / AuthorHenry Louis “Skip” Gates Jr. is an American literary critic, professor, historian, filmmaker, and public intellectual who serves as the Alphonse Fletcher University Professor and Director of the Hutchins Center for African and African American Research at Harvard University. Wikipedia
What is signifying in black discourse?
Signifying is a combination of rhetorical strategies employed in African American speech communities–in particular, the use of irony and indirection to express ideas and opinions.
What does signifying mean in literature?
Signifying, in African American literary and cultural contexts, refers to a mode of verbal joust or play where a speaker covertly makes fun of, ridicules , undermines, outsmarts, or insults someone through clever wordplay or indirection.
What does signifying mean in slang?
Signifyin’ (sometimes written “signifyin(g)”) (vernacular), is a wordplay. It is a practice in African-American culture involving a verbal strategy of indirection that exploits the gap between the denotative and figurative meanings of words. A simple example would be insulting someone to show affection.
How does Henry Louis Gates define signifying?
While signifyin(g) is the term coined by Henry Louis Gates, Jr. to represent a black vernacular, the idea stems from the thoughts of Ferdinand De Saussure and the process of signifying—”the association between words and the ideas they indicate.” Gates states, “‘Signification,’ in standard English, denotes the meaning …
What is signifying in African-American literature?
What is the best synonym for signify?
designate,
What is the antonym of signify?
Antonyms. differ dissociate generous nice noble abnormal. intend stand for denote refer.