Pragmatic Acts in Selected Klama Songs Performed during Krobo Dipo Rites in Ghana

Klama songs accompany important social and ritual performances among the Krobo of Ghana and provide a medium through which participants express culturally situated meaning. This study examines the pragmatic acts embedded in 11 Klama songs sung during Dipo puberty rites in Yilo Krobo and Manya Krobo. Ethnographic material was gathered through participant observation, field notes, audio recordings, and interviews during six months of fieldwork. Twenty adult Klama performers and cultural practitioners (15 women and five men, aged 40–75 years) were interviewed. The selected Klama lyrics and their English translations were examined through Mey’s context-sensitive account of pragmatic acts, with representative, directive, and commissive functions used as descriptive categories. Each song was assigned one primary function for summary purposes, while secondary interpretations were considered separately. Four songs primarily performed representative functions, six performed directive functions, and one performed a commissive function. Informing and advising occurred in two songs each, and reporting, describing, requesting permission, inviting, questioning, challenging, and promising appeared once each. The songs communicate ritual achievement, familial concern, remembrance, respect, mutual assistance, and expectations of social conduct. These interpretations are specific to the purposively selected corpus and cannot be treated as estimates of the distribution or effects of Klama songs across Dangme communities.