Phraseology and Culture in English

2. The socio-cultural background of the African model of community 
Before turning to the analyses of linguistic expressions, it is necessary to 
provide some background information on the belief system to which they 
relate, namely the African kinship or community model.
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This model in-
volves a holistic cosmology, in which community is central, and in which 
community extends from the immediate family and local context to the vari-
ous social units, further to the spiritual world of the ancestors, and ultimately 
to God/the gods, (cf. Musopole 1994: 77; Mbiti 1990: 102; Wolf 1999). The 
spiritual dimension implicates witchcraft, a concept with negative associa-
tions to the Western mind, but which has an ambiguous status in the Afri-
can community model (see Wolf 2001: chapter 5; Wolf and Simo Bobda 
2002: 244–250). 
Kinship and witchcraft have long been identified as fundamental and 
common to traditional societies of sub-Saharan Africa. Contrary to the ex-
pectations of the popular Western-oriented modernization theory, the impact 
of the kinship model and of the occult has not diminished with the world-

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Fixed expressions as manifestations of cultural conceptualizations
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wide drive to “modernity.” Instead, one can observe a massive revival of 
these patterns in contemporary Africa. However, culture is not to be seen as 
a static reproduction of some fixed set of norms and values.
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Recent an-
thropological and socio-political studies support the view that a particular 
contextualization of traditional concepts is taking place in contemporary Af-
rican society.
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Indeed, with respect to the model described here, one can 
observe a continuous process of adapting traditional norms and practices to 
historical changes and an incorporation of influences from outside, as, e.g., 
in the blend of “modern” Christian or Islamic elements with “traditional” 
African spirituality (see Wolf fc.). It is a sign of the model’s vitality and 
flexibility that this incorporation can take place, while the basic conceptual 
structure remains quite stable. The community model is a historically 
grown and culturally coherent system with its own inherent logic and func-
tions as a “sense-making device” for people. 
The critical question may be raised if it is not too sweeping to treat sub-
Saharan Africa as one cultural unit. We have discussed this issue elsewhere 
(see Wolf 2001: 275). Suffice it to say that we are in the company of many 
scholars who hold the opinion that fundamental concepts are indeed shared 
across the region, despite its heterogeneity. Our data from different varie-
ties of AE fully support this view. 
In what follows, we will turn to an analysis of this model from a linguis-
tic point of view and will make suggestions as to how linguistic data can be 
used to elaborate and systematize its conceptual structure.