Pragmatic Acts Research Articles

Pragmatic acts of humour in family discourse in selected Maryam Apaokagi's comedy skits

Humour plays a crucial role in family discourse as it fosters emotional connection, diffuses tension, and promotes open communication by providing a light-hearted and relatable atmosphere. Extant studies on family discourse have focused on (im)politeness strategies and pragmatic markers. However, scant attention has been paid to the communicative functions of humour in family discourse. This study was, therefore, designed to investigate humour in Maryam Apaokagi’s comedy skits, to identify the types, their pragmatic functions, and how they contribute to the overall meaning of the discourse. Jacob Mey’s Pragmatic Acts Theory served as the theoretical framework. Data for the study comprised eight selected Maryam Apaokagi’s comedy skits, produced in Nigeria. The selection is based on their humorous reflections of family issues and subjected to pragmatic analysis. Findings reveal that pragmatic acts exist in four interlocutory contexts among family members: couple (husband-wife) relationship; sibling(s)-relationship; mother-child relationship; and distant-family relationship. The contexts are indexed by eight pragmatic acts and functions which underpin expressions of humour: warning to threaten the husband, promising to raise hopes, requesting to make a mockery of the elder brother, ordering to deliberately disrespect the elder sister, questioning to persuade and apologise indirectly, scolding to condemn a child’s inappropriate actions, exaggerating to boast and show off, speculating to impress the mother and indict the child. Employed with wit to avoid serious conflicts, these humorous acts were largely foregrounded by conversational, psychological and physical acts, and underscored by such contextual factors as inference, reference, relevance, and shared situation knowledge to humorously depict how family issues are variously handled.

Pragmatic Acts in the Inaugural Speeches of Military Heads of Government in Nigeria

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Pragmatic Acts in Characters’ Utterances in Femi Osofisan’s Women of Owu

Studies on Femi Osofisan’s Women of Owu have examined the use of lexical choices and discourse markers in the drama text neglecting the choice of meaning negotiation in characters’ utterances. This paper, therefore, undertook a pragmatic investigation of how meanings and actions are generated in a play text using Femi Osofisan’s Women of Owu. Mey’s (2001) Pragmatic Act theory was used alongside implicature and presupposition as elements of pragmatics to analyse five (5) purposively selected extracts from the play. This is done to critically bring to the fore the practs performed in the utterances, the maxims obeyed and those flouted and the type of presupposition made. Findings revealed that the practs of informing, explaining, stating, naming, and influencing were used in the text unveil the thought pattern of the audience. The paper also revealed that the pivotal role context plays in decoding the exact meaning(s) conveyed in each of the extracted utterances. Context is instrumental to the performance of certain acts. From this, the paper concludes that in order to do things with words and to use characters to communicate effectively in any given context, especially in tradition based plays like Women of Owu, a writer needs to have the knowledge of grammar as well as the knowledge of how to use language from a functional perspective in the contextual and traditional backgrounds.

Candidacy Endorsement and Rebuttals as Mediated Campaign Strategies in The 2023 Nigerian Election

Endorsements trigger arguments and rebuttals about the relevance of political actors by the spokesmen frontline political parties. Previous linguistic studies have focused more on campaign speeches; little attention has been paid to endorsement as a campaign strategy. This study investigated the endorsement speech of Olusegun Obasanjo (OBJ) and rebuttals by supporting and opposing spokesmen of Labour Party (LP), People’s Democratic Party (PDP), and All Progressive Congress (APC) in Nigerian elections, identifying and analysing the locutionary, illocutionary and Pragmatic strategies. The qualitative design was used. Data comprise purposely selected and transcribed texts from Channels Television (CHNLSTV) interview, moderated by Seun Okinbaloye. Data was downloaded from their YouTube channel Mariana Sbisa’s Speech Act, supported by John Searle’s classification of illocutionary, and the textual part of Mey’s Pragmatic Acts were used as the framework. The locutionary strategies of endorsements and rebuttals in the data were: juxtaposition with alternative facts, conscious denial of position and facts, affirmation of thoughts, representation of opinionated position and counter-position, acceptance of position or facts and attack/defense of personality traits. Three major illocutionary acts: expressive, representative, and directive, were seen. Pragmatic resources such as inference, reference, relevance, metaphor and shared situational knowledge underlined. Expressive was achieved by condoning, criticising, condemning and praising. Representative was constructed by the forces of asserting, accusing, comparing and contrasting or juxtaposing. Directive was justified by defining, declaring, endorsing and analogising. The study concludes that endorsements and rebuttals are the performance ratings of political agents.

Birth Congratulation Messages on Facebook in Jordan: A Sociopragmatic Analysis

This study examines online congratulation messages for childbirth as expressed in Facebook users’ comments on birth announcements in Jordan. The principal aim is to study the congratulatory strategies and their pragmatic functions. To this end, a total of 1206 comments on six birth announcements were analyzed within the framework of Mey’s (2001) pragmatic act theory. The analysis revealed that congratulation messages can be classified into seven distinct categories, with the congratulation act being the primary means of conveying congratulations. Other supportive strategies include expressing good wishes, expressing happiness, complimenting, using protection formulas, using non-verbal language, and welcoming the newborn. When these strategies are examined within social, cultural and contextual parameters, they perform various pragmatic acts such as congratulating, blessing, well-wishing, advising, praising, and welcoming. This study concludes that birth congratulations given on Facebook in Jordan are typically influenced by religious and socio-cultural norms and conventions. Keywords: Congratulation, Newborn, Context, Pragmatics, Strategy

Pragmatic Acts in the Language of Alms Begging in Southwest Nigeria

The meaning of language is tied to the context where it is used. This study examines the different pragmatic acts performed by beggars across Southwest Nigeria while soliciting alms. The aim is to establish the role of language as a tool in perpetuating this age-long profession of soliciting alms from members of society. The study employs Jacob Mey’s Pragmatic Act theory as its theoretical springboard while data for the study was obtained by closely observing the activities of the subjects across selected locations within the study area. This is done with the consent of the subjects. The study discovered beggars often employ nine pragmatic goals in achieving their objective, that is, soliciting, hailing, praying, directing, informing, assuring, requesting, pleading and inquiring, with the pragmatic goal of pleading to account for the highest percentage of the occurrence. The study also identified a linguistic adaptation where the research subjects conform to the situational context in their linguistic choices, including a manifestation of shared situational knowledge between the research subjects and their addressees.

The Pragmatic Acts in Selected Nigerian Print Media Reports on the Abducted Chibok School Girls

A news report is a form of writer-reader negotiated meaning and contextual consideration of language, structure, and verbal codes. Thus, the study explored the various pragmatic acts performed in news reports on the abducted Chibok girls in Nigeria, especially the construction of acts or meaning through verbal codes. Using Mey’s (2001) aspects of pragmatic acts as the theoretical framework undergirded the study, a total of thirteen (13) verbal reports were purposively selected from three Nigerian newspapers (The Nation, Daily Trust & The Punch) and analysed from the points of pragmatic acts, Searle’s (1969) classification of Speech acts, implicature and presupposition. The study revealed that instantiated acts (practs) are pragmatically patterned to perform some acts of informing, reporting to the audience, stating the fact in the news reports on the abducted Chibok girls and playing some roles in social change. The study also revealed that The Nation, Dail Trust and The Punch deploy their news reports through implicit practs of castigating the spate of insecurity and condemning the ineptitude of security agents towards rescuing the abducted Chibok girls. The study also showed that the preponderant occurrences of factive presupposition were due to the fact that the assumptions being made about the news of the abducted Chibok girls are actual, real and easily embedded in the news report. The study concludes that Nigerian newspapers play a role in setting the boundaries of what is talked about; shaping social issues happening around the nation and exposing them to their readership.

Generic structure and pragmatic acts in Yoruba traditional weddings in Southwestern Nigeria

This paper investigates the generic structure and pragmatic acts (practs) in Yoruba traditional weddings from southwestern Nigeria. Three purposively selected weddings are qualitatively analysed, using the Generic Structure Potential and a modified form of the pragmatic act theory. The study reveals that the practs of praying, instructing, pleading and counselling are deployed within nine structural elements. These practs incorporate psychological and non-verbal acts as well as contextual features such as reference, metaphor, shared situational and cultural knowledge. The paper shows that the generic structure and pragmatic functions of utterances offer valuable insights into the procedure and discourse of Yoruba traditional weddings.

A Pragmatic Analysis of Selected Newspapers' Coverage of the Covid-19 Pandemic in Nigeria

Language is a pivotal instrument in the hand of journalists; they manipulate language at their disposal for accomplishing numerous goals. Thus, this study explores a pragmatic investigation of how meanings are interpreted in the selected newspapers’ coverage of the Coronavirus Pandemic in Nigeria. Mey’s (2001) Pragmatic Acts Theory was used to analyze ten (10) data selected purposively from The Punch and The Vanguard Newspapers between February 2020 and June 2020. The study found out that the pragmatic relevance of the COVID-19 newspapers’ coverage is embedded in its media functions as it serves as an indicator to interpret the messages inherent in the coronavirus newspapers’ coverage and a pract of warning to the citizens of Nigeria to stay safe. The study also revealed that the practs used depend on context, situation and existing shared-knowledge of both the speaker and the reader. It was observed that journalists use the news headlines to perform several acts of warning, sensitising, informing, exposing, etc. to achieve different goals and pass numerous meanings to their listeners/readers during the COVID-19 Pandemic in Nigeria. Results indicated that the Nigerian media performed well in terms of covering the pandemic, which in turn created awareness. However, the coverage was not in-depth as most of the reported stories were short and were predominantly straight news. This paper concludes that journalists use contextual language to enhance social relations among the readers.

Pragmeme of glamorizing material in Olu Maintain’s song, Yahooze

This paper investigates the preponderance of vulgar expressions in the selected song that glamorize materialism. Ostentatious living without a corresponding legitimate source of livelihood makes this study a compelling one as the song under reference seeks to glamorize Advance Fee Fraud otherwise referred to as ‘419’ in Nigeria parlance. This international crime derived its name from the section of the Nigeria Criminal Code in section 419. The study purposively selected the song as it meets the purposes and intentions of the paper while Pragmatic Acts Theory is chosen as its theoretical framework. This study purposively selected Olu Maintain’s song titled Yahooze on the basis of its conviction that it meets its preconceived bias of a song that thematizes and encourages materialism and crime. The study adopts the content analysis approach to discuss the identified lyrics that fit into the focus of this paper. Phrases and clauses in the song that are found to promote and glamorize illegal acquisition and flaunting of wealth are presented in a table and analyzed. Ostentatious living, globe-trotting, and mindless money-spending are evident in the song and highly promoted. The study concludes that Nigeria hip hop artistes should use their songs to mould the characters of Nigerian youths towards nation- building and imbibe the culture of dignity in labour.

Pragmatic Acts in Selected Sermons of Bishop David Oyedepo: A Jacob Mey’s Approach

This study carried out a review of selected sermons of Bishop David Oyedepo in order to highlight the contexts and pragmatic acts deployed in the sermons, as no scholarly work has been done on Oyedepo’s sermons using Jacob Mey’s pragmatic act theory. The objectives are to ascertain the underlying contexts of the themes in the selected sermons and to examine the pragmatic acts performed. Using exclusively Jacob Mey’s pragmatic act theory as a theoretical framework, the methodology is qualitative in its approach. The design is content analysis. From an average of eleven thousand eight hundred and eight sermons, four sermons spanning varying human endeavours are purposively selected. Data was sourced and collected online, employing the top-down analytical approach to revealing the context and pragmatic acts deployed. Findings reveal the contextual constraints of history and war employing the practs of assuring, informing, and re-enlightening. The summary of the findings reveals that ten excerpts were analysed from the data, two pragmatic contexts were established, and three practs were classified, all interjected with pragmatic tools of REL, INF, REF, SSK, VCE, M and conversational acts which runs through the entire data. Through this study, a framework has been provided for the interpretation of Bishop Oyedepo’s sermons which religious scholars and teachers would find a veritable tool for advancing pedagogical skills in mission schools and churches. The study recommends further studies on the phonological acts performed in sermons.

A Study of Pragmatic Acts and Hate Speech Strategies in Christian Sermons in Nigeria

Ideology loaded language may be used as instrument of control and for the production of hate speech and may be linked to the intensity of sectarian violence in contemporary Nigeria. This paper, therefore, evaluates the strategies for hate speech production in Christian sermons using Mey’s (1993) proposal on pragmatic acts, a modification of Austin (1962) and Searle (1969) speech act theories. Data, with two sermons from two well-known clerics and obtained from YouTube, has revealed that hate speech were produced through the pragmatic acts of innuendos and name-calling while set-up and co-option methods were deployed for audience participation. Whereas innuendos were linguistically realised as pronouns, name-calling takes the form of adjectives but function as nouns. Set-up and co-option were indirect linguistic strategies meant to empathise and attend to hearers’ face-needs. Pragmatic acts insulate preachers from backlash and highlight Nigeria’s social-political undercurrents. The enactment of hate speech in sermons justifies government initiatives in regulating religious activities.

Painting the state in the text

Abstract Literary works across cultures are never written in a vacuum. They depict the reality of the society where they are set. With the societal obligation of the writers to serve as righters, especially in Africa, this study attempts a pragmatic inquiry of the state of the Nigerian society as implicitly and artistically painted in Remi Raji’s poetry collection, A Harvest of Laughters. The known literature on Remi Raji’s A Harvest of Laughters have analysed the collection mainly from literary and ideological perspectives. Attention has not been given to the collection from a pragmatic perspective, hence the intervention of this study. Drawing insights from Jacob Mey’s Pragmatic Acts Theory, the study analyses the pragmatic imports in the collection with fourteen (14) randomly selected excerpts across different segments of the collection constituting the data. Data was purposively selected from different poems in the collection. The findings show that the two major discursive issues in the text are the depiction of the government as cruel and the portrayal of the citizenry as victims. The former was conveyed through the practs of oppressing, embezzling and deceiving, while the latter was revealed through the practs of suffering and hoping. The study concludes that pragmatics is a valuable tool in the demystification of texts.

A pragma-rhetorical study of selected Pentecostal sermons in Nigeria

This study examines persuasion and communicative intentions in Pentecostal sermons in Nigeria. Notwithstanding the high scholarly inputs in religious discourse, no single work has examined the devices employed to achieve persuasion and conviction as well as communicative intentions in Pentecostal sermons in Nigeria. This work examines twelve sermons of selected Pentecostal preachers in Nigeria by drawing insights from rhetoric and pragmatic act to account for persuasion and communicative intentions in the data. Findings reveal that preachers strategically deploy rhetorical question; direct address and direct command; metaphor; repetition and structural parallelism; and they develop convincing arguments through logic/reason. It is also revealed that preachers share experiences with their listeners and they assume divine role by speaking authoritatively to convince their listeners into accepting their propositions. Preachers perform pragmatic acts of asserting/stating, encouraging, assuring, directing, commanding, praising, etc. The study has further confirmed that Pentecostal sermons can be used for public mobilisation.

Conflict-motivated acts in the open letters of two former Nigerian presidents

Abstract This study investigates conflict-motivated pragmatic acts employed in the open letters exchanged by two former Nigerian presidents (Olusegun Obasanjo and Goodluck Jonathan). The data are analysed using Mey’s pragmatic act theory. The findings reveal that while Obasanjo employs pragmatic acts of warning, appealing, and praising in order to counsel Jonathan, Jonathan employs pragmatic acts of acknowledging, boasting, correcting, and reminding in order to defend himself. However, they both employ the pragmatic acts of insulting, complaining, accusing, and requesting. These acts are influenced by nationalist and anti-ethnic ideologies as well as the context of the open letters, i.e., conflict among political leaders in Nigeria.

The Pragmatics of Coronavirus Motivated Humour on the Social Media

Humour, an established means of reducing stress and tension, has attracted scholarly attention over the years. In the Nigerian discourse context, studies on Coronavirus-Motivated Humour (CMH) are relatively new. This paper investigates humour that reflect the social, economic and health challenges in Nigeria shared through the social media in order to identify CMH as a form of humour through which real-life experiences of other people can be understood. Insights are drawn from Mey’s (2001) Pragmatic Acts Theory to analyse a total of seven purposively selected humour on Coronavirus from social media, specifically Whatsapp and Facebook. The study found out that the pragmatic relevance of CMH is embedded in its social functions as it serves as an indicator of the sense of citizens’ freedom and a pract of warning to the corrupt and inefficient leaders in Nigeria, particularly on health facilities in the country. Also, the context of CMH construction presents it as a satire of the social, economic and health experiences of the people as it reduces and reinforces status differences as well as strengthens the feeling of connectedness among people. This is achieved through the practs of informing, satirizing and mocking. The paper concludes that humours do not only make people laugh, but also comment on certain societal maladies that finger the minds of Nigerian citizens. Keywords: Coronavirus, Humour, Social Media, Pragmatics and Lockdown.

A Semiotic Study of Selected Political Cartoons in Nigerian Newspapers

Communication has become inextricable part of human lives and the visual modes of communication has been employed in the print media as a veritable means of communicating very serious issues metaphorically. Thus, Semiotic study constitutes a form of discourse which requires visual display of knowledge to understand and interpret any given text. Thus, several attempts have been made on the study of political cartoons using the canonical classifications of Austin’s (1962) and Searle’s (1969) speech acts, implicature, contextual variables as well as Pragmatic Acts theory. However, little attention has been given to van Leeuwen & Gunther kress’ Semiotic Theory in analysing political cartoons in Nigerian newspapers. Hence, this study explores social semiotic theory perceived with the use of language in political cartoons in order to bring to the fore the covert meanings concealed in it, and to correct the societal ills in witty and humorous ways. The study is anchored on van Leeuween and Gunther Kress’ Social Semiotic theory as the theoretical appurtenance. A total of ten (8) political cartoons were selected and analysed from three Nigerian daily newspapers (The Nation, The Sun & Daily Trust). The study revealed that more meaning would have been lost, if not for the advancement of scholars on the exponent of multimodality. This was because people tend to be more concentrated on the monomodal; linguistic approach to meaning, whereas study of data as newspapers’ cartoons and other visual designs transported more than one mode of meaning to communicate a more complete, coherent and complementary meaning. It was also discovered that cartoons enable the readers to understand the difference between the linguistic and non-linguistic resources and how they are used together to create meaning. The study concludes that cartoon has become a haven for journalists in unveiling and satirising delicate political issues. Keywords: Social Semiotic Theory, Political, Nigerian Newspapers, Cartoons and Datum.

A Pragmatic Act Analysis of English Postproverbials on Twitter

Abstract Postproverbiality, the novel perspective to studying proverbs, has focused mainly on the radical revision of African proverbs. However, this phenomenon is not only found in African proverbs, but also in many other languages as already suggested in literature. Therefore, this study investigates postproverbiality in English proverbs as used on social media, particularly Twitter. Twitter is especially known for people’s display of radical ideologies, opinions, and idiosyncrasies; therefore, it serves as a useful source for such radical revision of English proverbs. The analysis was done using Jacob Mey’s (2001) Pragmatic Acts as theoretical framework. The data was purposively gathered using five standard English proverbs to search for postproverbial versions; a total of thirty postproverbials were discovered on Twitter. The analysis revealed ten practs and allopracts which include affirming, insisting, informing, counselling, warning, instructing, and encouraging. These were projected through contextual features of shared situational knowledge, voicing, inference, metaphor, and socio-cultural knowledge. The interaction among the textual and contextual features and the allopracts shows that cultures and occurrences in public affairs affect such cultural indices as proverbs and language use and this interaction increases through the internet and social networks which link the world into a global community.

Nigeria’s 2019 electioneering discourse

The paper interrogates the various discourse strategies adopted by the electorate on social media (SM) to delegitimize political opponents and engender rivalry in the build-up to the February 2019 presidential elections in Nigeria. A total of forty-two (42) Facebook (FB) posts on Nigerian political discourse were purposively selected between November 2018 and January 2019, and subjected to pragmatic and evaluative analysis, adopting Mey’s (2001) pragmatic acts theory and Martin and White’s (2005) appraisal theory.From our analysis, fourteen (14) different delegitimization strategies were found to have been utilized by the writers to achieve the pragmatic acts of discrediting political opponents as unworthy of being voted into powers, while concurrently persuading the electorate to support their side instead. These strategies include the following categories: facts and evidence, issue-based rhetorical question, frank issue-based opinion, contrastive engagement, and dysphemism. Others are implicit antithesis, direct verbal attack, allegations, irony, demonization, self-indictment, lexical gymnastics, sarcasm, and prophetism. The findings show overt and covert persuasive strategies and interactivity towards the pragmatic act of delegitimizing political opponents, showing words as the real weapons on the battlefield of politics. The analysis further reveals that people tend to support a SM post not necessarily because it is true, but because it supports the chances of their candidate or hurts the opposing side. Thus a platform has been provided for implicit and explicit political stance taking, which may be difficult outside SM due to certain insecurity and face threats. SM has become a site for a running, fierce, and open political discourse, the new voice for the voiceless, as well as for issue-based campaigns in Nigeria. It may well become a space where general elections are won and lost even before a vote is cast.

Utterances Functions and the Negotiation of Power in Courtroom Interactions: A Survey of High Courts in Ota, Ogun State, Nigeria

This study investigated the negotiation of power and the pragmatic implication of utterances in courtroom proceedings in Ota, Ogun State, Nigeria. Teun van Dijk’s approach to Critical Discourse Analysis and Jacob Mey’s Pragmatic Acts theory are theoretical frameworks adopted in the study. Data was collected from five High Courts’ trial cases in Ota, Ogun State, Nigeria. In the High Courts, the Judge wills the highest power in the court and controls the proceedings in the High court. The Judge dominates the Counsels, and litigants while the Counsels dominate the litigants. The litigants are observed to be at the receiving end of the discourse as they accept and legitimize this power and dominance. Certain pragmatic acts such as acknowledging, protesting, accusing, justifying were deduced from the discourses. The role played by courtroom participants in the social structure influences power relations in courtroom proceedings. Thus, power, dominance, inequality and hegemony are notable features in the language of High Court proceedings in Ota.