Studies in Pragmatics and Discourse Analysis

Framing and the Social Construction of Violence in Select Online News Discourse on the 2023 General Elections in Nigeria

Isaiah Aluya, Jime Terver — Sat, 20 Jul 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Violence undermines the democratic character of elections, and the news discourse is a significant route through which such issue is socially constructed. This study investigates how the Vanguard and Arise News employed transitivity theory as an interpretive schema in framing the violence that marked the 2023 general elections in Nigeria to determine the impact of election violence on voters. Fourteen extracts (7 each from Vanguard and Arise News) as well as responses from 20 participants (5 each from the fields of Journalism, education, accounting and public relations) were purposively selected and analysed using mixed methods comprising descriptive content analysis and in-depth interviews. The findings unveil both news reports’ usage of material, verbal, and relational processes as frames to foreground shades of electoral violence such as the snatching of ballot boxes, disrupting of the voting process, intimidating of voters, disrupting of the collation of results, kidnapping of INEC officials, decimating of innocent citizens, vandalizing of polling units, assaulting of election observers, and carting away of electoral materials. Transitivity processes highlight power relations between groups as well as label certain groups positively and others negatively. The responses from the in-depth interview reveal that electoral violence have a detrimental influence on voters because it produces feelings of dissatisfaction, dread, and dejection in them thereby preventing them from wanting to vote in subsequent elections.

Speech act of claiming among Cameroonian and Chadian French speakers

Joseph Avodo Avodo — Sat, 20 Jul 2024 00:00:00 +0000

This article examines the ways in which Cameroonian and Chadian speakers are producing the speech act of claiming. The study focuses on situations in which the speaker occupies the position of claimant. The aim of the study is to describe the main pragmatic variations between the two groups of speakers. The methodological approach is based on variational pragmatics. The results show that the strategies are similar, but there are strong differences in the types of formulations and mitigation strategies. The results indicate that the Cameroonian data presented more indirect realisations of acts than the Chadian data. Participants from both language communities used a variety of markers to modify their claims. External modifications typically included politeness forms, forms of address, apologies, justifications, greetings and thanks. Internal modifications also included modalisers and minimisers.

A Critical Pragmatic Analysis of some Selected Songs of Ilerioluwa Oladimeji Aloba (MohBad)

Peter Makinde, Chinasa Nora Chikezie, Lucky Amarachukwu Onebunne — Sat, 20 Jul 2024 00:00:00 +0000

This study investigates a critical pragmatic analysis of some selected songs of Ilerioluwa Oladimeji Aloba (MohBad). Specifically, the study focuses on Speech Act analysis of the selected songs and ascertains the ways speech acts are expressed in these songs. Two research questions: What speech acts are represented in Mohbad’s songs? And to what extent are the tenets of speech acts expressed in Mohbad’s Songs? guided this study. The theory of the Pragmatic Act introduced by Jacob Mey (2001) is used as the theoretical foundation of the study. The research is categorized as descriptive qualitative research. The data for the study consists of selected songs of Ilerioluwa Oladimeji Aloba: ‘Ask About Me’, ‘Feel Good’ and ‘Peace’. These songs were selected based on the complex and multifaceted narratives which mirror the songwriter’s life and struggles. The songs’ lyrics are made available and readily accessed from music streaming platforms like Spotify, Apple Music, and YouTube for lyric references. The findings of the study reveal that the lyrics of Aloba’s songs show a variety of speech acts such as assertions, declarations, interrogatives, expressive utterances and commission, all of which help reveal his journey from hardship to fame and how he accomplished acceptance, his challenges and resilience, his defiance and self-assuredness; and his boldness in engaging his listeners. These have revealed the depth of meaning and intention of the songwriter beyond the lyrics of the songs.

Examining Theories at Work: Speech Acts, Implicatures and Politeness in a Pragmastylistic Analysis of Anton Chekhov’s The Bear

Jhonas Lumanlan — Sat, 20 Jul 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Through a descriptive qualitative method, Anton Chekhov’s The Bear is examined for its use of speech acts, implicatures, and politeness. To surface the said theories, a stylistic analysis is conducted, following the principles of pragma-stylistics. Pragmastylistics is used in analyzing a literary piece towards arriving at particular themes, and in which the focus of analysis is how a speaker or writer chooses to realize their speech act in consideration of the intended meaning and effect of which towards an audience. The subject of the following analysis is a one-act play considered to be a farcical comedy depicting the story of a woman mourning her husband’s recent death, amidst which she encounters and eventually falls in love with her deceased husband’s creditor. The analyses focused on the employment of the pragmatic theories of speech acts, cooperative principles and implicatures, and politeness. The paper attempted ultimately to show through an analysis of dramatic text how words could mean differently or even have meanings at all when put into context.

A Pragmatic Analysis of Ostensible Invitations among Moroccan Arabic Speakers

Imane Masmoudi — Sat, 20 Jul 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Unlike genuine invitations, which are extended with a sincere intent to get the invitee to attend or participate in a specific event, ostensible invitations are insincere invitations that the speaker extends not to be taken seriously. Such invitations are characterized by a number of properties that set them apart from genuine ones, allowing the interlocutor to recognize their insincerity. The present paper aims to determine the functions of ostensible invitations in the Moroccan context, examine if Moroccan Arabic speakers use the same strategies suggested by Clark and Isaacs (1990) for extending ostensible invitations and assess whether the ostensible invitations extended by Moroccan Arabic speakers draw on the properties proposed by Clark and Isaacs (1990). To this end, data for the current study were collected from 30 Moroccan Arabic speakers residing in Meknes city, comprising 18 females and 12 males, who have managed to participate in semi-structured interviews. Phenomenological and descriptive designs were used for the collection, analysis and interpretation of data. The collected data were analyzed on the basis of Clark and Isaacs’ (1990) model. Accordingly, the present study came up with three primary conclusions. First, Moroccan Arabic speakers use ostensible invitations mainly to show politeness and maintain social ties. Second, invitations in the Moroccan context align with the five properties of ostensible speech acts suggested by Clark and Isaacs’ (1990) model. Last but not least, Moroccan Arabic speakers draw on the same strategies of ostensible invitations proposed by Clark and Isaacs (1990).