A Study of Taboo Language and Its Sociolinguistic Functions Among Yoruba Speakers in Oyo Town

Taboo language constitutes a sociolinguistically significant domain that reveals community norms, power relations, and cultural prohibitions within a speech community. This study investigates taboo language and its sociolinguistic functions among Yoruba speakers in Oyo Town, Oyo State, South West Nigeria. Employing a qualitative ethnolinguistic design, data were collected through semi-structured interviews, focus group discussions, and ethnographic observation involving 60 participants drawn from different age groups, occupational categories, and religious affiliations. The corpus of taboo expressions was documented and classified into categories including sexual, sacred, death-related, and food-related taboo language. The theoretical framework draws on Goffman's face theory and sociocultural approaches to language taboo. Existing literature on Yoruba taboo language tends to focus on isolated lexical items rather than on the functional roles of taboo expression in real communicative contexts. This study fills that gap by capturing taboo language in naturalistic discourse and analysing the social dynamics of its use and avoidance. The research examines whether taboo expressions are consistently avoided across all social contexts or whether they serve permissible functions in specific settings such as humour, intimacy, and ritual. Findings are expected to reveal age and gender as primary determinants of taboo language tolerance, with younger urban speakers showing greater permissiveness. Recommendations will address sociolinguistic awareness in language education and the documentation of Yoruba taboo lexis for archival purposes. Keywords: taboo language, sociolinguistics, Yoruba, Oyo Town, cultural norms.