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Abstract

Many researchers have focused on analysing novels, poems, and drama in the French language while neglecting certain subgenres. Although numerous studies have been conducted on semiotic analysis in French, little effort has been made to analyze Yorùbá drama. Thus, this study aims to provide a semiotic analysis of Rẹ́rẹ́rún (Catastrophe au rendez-vous) by Ọládẹ̀jọ Òkédìjí. This study adopts a qualitative research approach and textual explanation as its methodology. The semiotics theory proposed by Ferdinand de Saussure is employed as the theoretical framework. Following the qualitative method, twenty signs relevant to this study were selected for interpretation. Semiotics is chosen because it is best suited to guide, select, interpret, and, most importantly, do justice to the chosen data. This research establishes that Ọládẹ̀jọ Òkédìjí employs words and expressions in the form of signs to convey hidden messages. It highlights the author’s linguistic competence while demonstrating the richness of this play in its use of local color. It is also noteworthy that Ọládẹ̀jọ incorporates African orality, as well as cultural, religious, and economic codes of the African society in general and the Yorùbá society in particular, to construct meaning in his play. This semiotic study of Ọládẹ̀jọ’s play concludes that one cannot assign a proper or specific meaning to words or expressions in a play work without referring to a literary interpretation of the system of codes in which these elements operate. Future studies on the semiotics of this work will further explain the richness of the Yorùbá culture.

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