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ABSTRACTThis study set out to examine the semantics of Igbo Devaluation proverbs on women. It sought to answer three key questions, namely: What is the dominant community perception of women as reflected in the proverb? In what context are the proverbs used? How does relevance theory account for how the hearer understands the proverbs? Relevant research objectives and hypotheses were formulated to guide the research conducted within the theoretical perspectives of Relevance Theory. Using interactive data collection methods, series of proverbs were collected and were later classified into categories. These were finally subjected to a relevance- theoretic analysis. The results revealed that: There are stereotypical proverbs about women in the society; the majority of the proverbs are demeaning to the woman; cultural context is the right cognitive environment needed to process the proverbs; relevance theory adequately accounts for how the hearer understands the proverb among the speakers. Result also shows that these proverbs are used to show male domination, masculinity and class society. Making the women look inferior in the society
