The proverb as a mitigating and politeness strategy in Akan discourse.

This article was posted with permission of the University of Nebraska Press.Among the Akan of Ghana, the proverb is highly valued as a mode of communication. Pragmatically, it may be used in the management of "face." Specifically, it may act as a mitigator that minimizes the offensive intent of an upcoming "difficult" utterance, it may show a speaker's humility or his acknowledgement of the addressee's sensibility by providing a common ground that does not impale the sensibility of any of the conversational participants; or it may show deference or solidarity. Structurally, it may function as a predifficult, a preclosing, or a closing