ABSTRACT
Cultures persist in part due to the implicit and explicit rules about social behavior. Proverbs are ubiquitous reminders of such cultural expectations, norms, and practices in African settings and across the world. This chapter investigates representations of cultural expectations about emotion in Efik (Southeastern Nigeria) proverbs. It focuses on the cultural narrative about the emotion-related adjustments that members of Efik society are expected to make in their everyday lives. This is accomplished by using emotion regulation theory informed thematic analysis of proverbs collected via linguistic fieldwork in Southern Nigeria. Our analysis indicates that in Efik culture, emotion norms are consistent with cultural expectations about social relationships within the cultural context.
