About the Research
The Luwa is delivered during wakes or nights after the burial as a way to entertain the bereaved family, the luwa is one of Panay’s many oral traditional pieces of literature. This literary treasure is particularly a part of the Western Visayan mourning custom and “is first intended to be funny and lewdly suggestive to appease the drooping shoulders of the relatives of the departed” (Lagon, 2007). According to Padilla (1994), the luwa is usually arranged in a quatrain, rhyming in several ways, like A,B,A,A or A,A,B,B or A,A,A,A, etc. Examples can be categorized into “humorous or often absurd and a few are lewd and vulgar.”
Objectives of the Study
The study, EXPLORING THE WESTERN VISAYAN DYING TRADITION OF LUWA: A STRUCTURAL- SOCIAL SEMIOTIC ANALYSIS, aimed to analyze various samples of luwa from Western Visayas using structural analysis and social-semiotic approach. Through the lenses of structuralism and Michael Halliday’s social-semiotic approach, this qualitative study aimed specifically to look into the (1) linguistic elements such as diction, imagery, rhyme, rhythm, pattern, sound and sense, and tone, found in the luwa that relate to the cultural sensibility of the Ilonggos; (2) social signs reflected in the luwa, and (3) binary oppositions conveyed in the selected samples of luwa.