Written By:
Ngozi U. Emeka-Nwobia.
Languages and Linguistics Department.
Ebonyi State University, Abakaliki, Nigeria
According to Mey (2001) the studies of micro pragmatics focuses on the level of language use. It is concerned with the discussion of pragmatics tasks aroused, by the understanding of language symbols reference and implication during conversation. Such includes context, conversational implicature, reference, pragmatics principles, speech acts and conversational Analysis.
The study of macro
pragmatics is on the level of society and culture. It focuses on the problems
of how to use language during the process of communication, including Pragmatic
Acts, literary, pragmatics, pragmatic across cultures and the social aspect of
pragmatics. It studies aspect
s of Meta pragmatics which can be considered as a review, a survey or a reflection of pragmatics itself, including making statement about itself, questioning itself, improving itself, quoting itself, and rethinking the methodologies and theoretic system
during the process of the studies. s of Meta pragmatics which can be considered as a review, a survey or a reflection of pragmatics itself, including making statement about itself, questioning itself, improving itself, quoting itself, and rethinking the methodologies and theoretic system
On Meta
pragmatics, Mey (2001) observes that there are three ways of dealing with meta
pragmatics. The first is a theoretical discussion on what pragmatics is, and
what it should comprise. Second is a discussion of the condition and possibilities that enable people to act
by using words to do pragmatics by acting pragmatically , and finally, the
third is, the pragmatic pendant to the meta pragmatics level, which is often captured under the
label of reflexive language.
The history of pragmatics seems to
anchor on the Anglo American school’s perspective
and has its origin in the works of Charles
Sanders Peirce (1839-1914), William James (1842-1910), John Dewey
(1859-1952) and John Langshaw Austin
(1911- 1961).
Pragmatics made a proper entrant in the
linguistic field in the 1970s. It developed out of the desire to properly
explain the nature of language left unexplained by formal linguistic
disciplines. It explains how language works in the context of people and
situation. Much of the progress made in this discipline is attributed to
reaction of linguistic scholars and scholars of diverse disciplines interested
in communication. Pragmatics and other sociolinguistic sub-disciplines attempt
to demonstrate the social dimensions of language and explain the differences
between linguistic forms (what is said) and what speakers actually mean to say
in different social contexts. Pragmatics has been defined as speakers/context
meaning showing how language users manipulate language forms and distort or
reorganize sentences in order to express their intention.
Pragmatics, therefore, is that aspect of
linguistics concerned with the study of aspects of language that have to do
with how people use language and how contextual factors interact with
linguistic resource in the interpretation of an utterance. It is the systematic
way of understanding and explaining language use in context. The use of
language cannot be characterized in terms of grammar alone. For this reason, a
complementary theory is needed to account for linguistic performance. This is
accounted for in the filed of pragmatics. In the same way, analysis of
President Olusegun Obasanjo’s political speeches cannot be effectively done in
terms of formal grammatical description only. That is why this research
involves a complementary pragmatic analysis to account for the language use and
the context of use.
Atkinson, Kilby and Rocal (1988:217) opine
that, pragmatics is, “the distinction between what a speaker’s word (literally)
mean and what the speaker might mean by his words”. That is to say, that it is
not what words/utterances literally mean that matters when we talk or write. At
one time one may say one thing but mean another, or ask questions to express
requests/ demands. Thus pragmatics demonstrates the relationship between what
speakers say and what they actually mean and the kind of effect they expect on
the mind of the hearers. The study of pragmatics, therefore, aims at enlarging
the scope of enquiry into the true nature of social meaning and their effects
in various situations. Pragmatics delves into the social language skills we use
in our daily interaction with others. They include what we say, how we say it,
our body language and what is appropriate to the given situation. Pragmatics
studies linguistic phenomena unexplained by the grammatical or logical analysis
of language which constitutes the orthodox view in the analytic philosophy of
language. This lack was noticed at the beginning of the 20th century
in Europe by theorists such as Adolf Reinach,
Alan Gardiner and Charles Morris. But it was in Oxford in the 1950’s that a
group of philosophers including Austin, Ryle, Grice, Strawson, Urmson,
precisely criticized logical analysis and truth conditional conceptions of
language. They came up with aspects of language structure and, the principle of
language usage that have little or nothing to do with linguistic structure. As
Gazder (1979) puts it “Pragmatics is concerned with those aspects of meaning of
utterances which cannot be accounted for by straight reference to truth condition
of sentences uttered”. That is to say that pragmatics is language and contexts
that are grammaticalized or encoded in the structure of language.
On this Iloene (2008:227) thinks that
in pragmatics, meaning in language is not entirely as a product of the meaning
of the words “hard wired” in the sentences uttered, but is seen to include the
environment of speech, which influences one’s understanding of what the
speakers intended”.
Pearce M. (2007) sees pragmatics as “a
branch of language study which focuses on the relationship between meaning and
situational, social and cultural contexts”.
Yule
(1996:127) states that,
there are
however, other aspects of meaning which are not derived solely from the
meanings of words used in phrases and sentence ---when we read and hear pieces
of language, we normally try to
understand not only what the words mean, but what the writer or speaker
of those words intend to convey. This study of intended speakers meaning is
called, pragmatics.
Pragmatics is an aspect of language study/communication that interprets
and encodes meaning beyond words or grammatical structures.
It takes care
of social phenomenon
left unexplained by formal linguistic theorists who
see language as a mere cognitive skill that should be studied
from a formal
structural point of view.
From the foregoing, pragmatics is the
study of the relationship between linguistic forms and the users of those forms.
In these definitions only pragmatics allows human (language users) into the
analysis. The major advantage of studying language in use is that one can talk
about people’s intended meaning, their assumption, their purposes or goals and
the type of action they are performing when they speak.
All these views expressed above on
the concept of pragmatics align with two basic positions, that is, the two
basic concepts in the study of pragmatics, which are; meaning and context. Meaning is regarded as the innate
property of the language proper. The property is innate, fixed and stable, not
subject to the influence of external interference. In Iloene’s (2008:229) view,
formal semanticists are concerned with the truth value of the semantic
preposition of a declarative sentence or a statement with the conditions that
have to be satisfied in the truth value judgment.
For instance;
“It is cold
in here”
For formal semanticists this simply
exposes the semantic preposition of “the low temperature of a certain place”. They
do not consider the following factors as; “who speaks it, to whom, where, when
and why etc” In other words, they do not include context in the study of
meanings. Excluding the contextual
meaning, the expression is the same anywhere and situation. That is why Searle (1980:22)
opines that “the literal meaning of sentence only determines a set of truth
conditions given a set of background practices and assumptions. Relative to one
set of practice and assumptions, a sentence may determine one set of truth condition,
relative to another set of practice and assumption, another set, and if some
sets of assumptions and practices are
given, the literal meaning of a sentence may not determine a definite set of
truth conditions at all”.
Gazder
(1979:2) states that “Pragmatics has as its topic those aspects of meaning of
utterances which cannot be accounted for by straight forward reference to the
truth conditions of the sentence uttered. Put crudely: PRAGMATICS=MEANING-TRUTH
CONDITIONS”. Pragmatics is different. It not only studies the meaning of word
proper, but also links those meaning with the users of the word. In other
words, besides studying the word meanings of a speech, it will try to explain
in what situation a speech is used and what purposes the speaker wants to
achieve. This, therefore, implies that pragmatics is concerned with the truth
value by which a speech in a particular context is used. Still from the example
above, the expression;
“It
is cold in here”
apart from stating the temperature of
a place, can be used by a speaker to ask the listener to perform an act like,
closing the window/door, lending him a coat, turning on the heater etc.
These meaning obviously do not exist
in the literal meaning of the utterance, but they are inferred from the literal
meanings. These inferred meaning refers to what the speaker aims to
convey. The task of pragmatics is to
reveal the meaning beyond the meaning; which is capable of exposing the
purposes or intention of the speakers and the desired effect of the utterance
on the hearer. Therefore, pragmatics is concerned not with meanings derived
from words.
In 1974
Hymes introduced the concept of communicative competence. He argued that
communication is not governed by fixed linguistic rules. It is however, a process
in which the speaker first evaluates the social context of the speech and then
selects among the possible option available for encoding. The flaws in
Chomsky’s notion of linguistic competence paved the way for the birth of this
comprehensive notion of communicative competence. Hyme (1972, 1974) criticized
Chomsky’s view of not being the adequate reflection of one’s knowledge of a
language. As a result, he used the term communicative competence to depict a
more colourful picture of our language ability. Hyme sees communicative
competence as the ability not only to apply the grammatical rules of language
in order to form grammatically correct sentence but also to recognize where and
when to use those sentences.
Spitzberg (1988:68) defined communicative competence as
"the ability to interact well with others". He explains,
"the term 'well' refers to accuracy, clarity, comprehensibility,
coherence, expertise, effectiveness and appropriateness". A more
operational opinion is provided by Friedrich (1994) when he suggests that
communicative competence is best understood as "a situational ability to
set realistic and appropriate goals and to maximize their achievement by using
knowledge of self, other, context, and communication theory to generate
adaptive communication performances." This is seen as the ability of
an interactant to choose among available communicative behaviours in order to
successfully accomplish his interpersonal goals during an encounter while
maintaining the face and line of his fellow interactants within the constraints
of the situation. Communicative competence is measured by determining if,
and to what degree, the goals of interaction are achieved. One of the major functions of communication
is to maximize the achievement of “shared meaning.” Parks (1985: 174,175)
emphasizes three interdependent themes: control, responsibility, and
foresight; and argues that to be competent, we must "not only 'know' and
'know how,' we must also 'do' and 'know that we did'". He
defines communicative competence as "the degree to which individuals
perceive they have satisfied their goals in a given social situation without
jeopardizing their ability or opportunity to pursue their other subjectively
more important goals." The goal of communicative competence is not
the ability to use the language exactly as the native speaker but to
communicate competently.
Bell (1987: 207) opines that “he who has
communicative competence has innate knowledge”. He states that,
…the
innate knowledge… permits the use of language to create and comprehend
utterances, to issue the communicative token of speech acts, in which language
operates as an open system in constant interaction with its environment, and is
therefore an instance of pragmatic knowledge of which syntactic and semantic
knowledge are part. A specification of communicative competence can be
recognized as an attempt to define not only how a user is able to judge
grammatically, but also how he is able to recognize what is actable as a speech
act in a social situation.
Canale and Swain in Rose and Kasper
(2001:64) put forward Communicative competence as being made up of four
competence areas: linguistic, sociolinguistic, discourse, and strategic.
- Linguistic competence is knowing how to use the grammar, syntax, and vocabulary of a language. Linguistic competence asks: What words do I use? How do I put them into phrases and sentences?
- Sociolinguistic competence is knowing how to use and respond to language appropriately, given the setting, the topic, and the relationships among the people communicating. Sociolinguistic competence asks: Which words and phrases fit this setting and this topic? How can I express a specific attitude (courtesy, authority, friendliness, respect) when I need to? How do I know what attitude another person is expressing?
- Discourse competence is knowing how to interpret the larger context and how to construct longer stretches of language so that the parts make up a coherent whole. Discourse competence asks: How are words, phrases and sentences put together to create conversations, speeches, email messages, newspaper articles?
- Strategic competence is knowing how to recognize and repair communication breakdowns, how to work around gaps in one’s knowledge of the language, and how to learn more about the language and in the context. Strategic competence asks: How do I know when I’ve misunderstood or when someone has misunderstood me? What do I say then? How can I express my ideas if I don’t know the name of something or the right verb form to use?
Communicative
competence stipulates linguistic diversity or a repertoire of linguistic codes
for the same concept. A competent language speaker according to Hymes (1974),
can, using the so-called knowledge of the components of speech (derived from
the acronym SPEAKING), choose an appropriate code and also understand how a
communicative event achieves its objectives.. Hymes noted that any speech situation
possesses eight defining features:
S: The Setting and Scene of Speech:
Setting refers to the time, place,
physical circumstances and psychological setting and
scenes. That is, the concrete physical circumstance in which speech takes
place.
P: Participants,
(i.e. speakers, addressor, hearer, and addressee.
E: End (i.e.
purpose, outcome and goal of the speech).
A: Act
sequences (i.e. message content and message form)
K: Key. The tone, manner or spirit is which a
particular message
is conveyed. It could be
humorous, playful, solemn, pedantic, sarcastic etc.
I:
Instrumentalities. Refers to tools
that are used in the
construction of the
speech event, codes (language or language variety and channel (vocal or non vocal
e.g. oral, written, telegraphic, verbal or non verbal means etc.
N: Norms. Interaction
and interpretation of specific language
behaviour include turn taking pattern etc.
G: Genre. This refers to clearly demarcated
types of utterances like sermon, lectures, poems, interviews, oration,
editorial, advertisement, campaign, etc.
Each of these genres is
deemed appropriate on certain occasions than the other.
Hymes’ model / formula SPEAKING is a
reminder that speech is a complex activity and that `any particular bit of
speech is actually a piece of skilled work. It is skilled in the sense that if
it is to be successful, the speaker must reveal a sensitivity to and awareness
of each of eight factors outlined above. He noted that speakers and listeners
must also work to see that nothing goes wrong. Hyme (1974) further noted in his
work, Ethnography of Speaking that Speech
is used in different ways among individuals and different groups of people.
Each person or group is identified by his or her own linguistic behaviour.
Ethnography of speaking is the field of study concerned with descriptive study
of ways of speaking in speech communities throughout the world.
Wiersman (1986) states that
ethnography is concerned with what people are, how they are and how they
interact. Further more, it tries to reveal what lies beneath. Recently
ethnography has also become of considerable interest to linguists who see the
need to study human behaviour in social contact.(Nurani 2008). Tuckman (1999)
notes that ethnography is a matter of observing and interviewing rather than
manipulating variables by external instruments. Hall (2002) opines that
ethnography deals with the study of a particular human society in a descriptive
basis or the process of making such a study based almost entirely on fieldwork
which requires the immersion of the ethnographer in the culture and everyday
life of the people who are the subject of study. The ethnography of speech is
concerned with the descriptive study of the ways of speaking in speech
communities throughout the world.
Dittmar
(1976) observed that linguistic codes are not the only component of
communicative competence. He argues that communicative competence also includes
a whole repertoire of psychological, social and pragmatic strategies.
In his (1981) work Leech proposed the basic principles about pragmatic
meaning to include;
- The speaker intention to convey a
certain meaning which may or may not be evident from the message itself.
- Interpretation by the hearer of
this meaning is likely to depend on context.
- Meaning is performed rather than
existing in a static way. It involves action (the speaker producing an effect
on the hearer) and interaction (the meaning being “negotiated” between the
speaker and the hearer on the basis of their mutual knowledge.
(Leech
1981:320)
Leech puts forward four criteria to
determine whether the field of meaning has entered into pragmatics.
a. If
the reference is made to the speaker or listener.
b. If the intention of the
speaker or the interpretation of the listener is made reference to.
c. Whether context was
considered.
d.
Whether the reference has been made to the speech acts performed through
the use of language.
According to Leech (1981) if answer
to any of the above questions is affirmative, then the study of meaning has involved
pragmatics.
Although pragmatics has always clearly
seen itself as complementary to semantics, Paul Chilton clearly illustrated in
his book, Analyzing Political Discourse (2004) that researches in
pragmatics have attempted to distinguish important features of the immediate
context (speakers, hearer, environment/setting, expectations, intentions etc).
These and other relevant dimensions have frequently been left vague or
sometimes to the researchers intention which might be subjective. (Reisigl
2004, Chilton 2004).
It
is against this backdrop that pragmatics emerged in order to account for how
meaning is generated in a communicative act by considering both linguistic and
non-linguistic factors .This work is concerned with the pragmatic analysis of
political speeches of former president Olusegun Obasanjo of Nigeria.
Sukumi (2008) intimates that “although
some people say there is a great wall separating language and politics,
---language places itself as a weapon (in political world) to do some invasion
to another part of the (target) world.” In his view Adetunji (2006) sees
politics as a discourse situation which, not only situates language as action.
His view aligns with van Dijk (2004:8, 9) characterization of politics as
discourse;
--- this field may briefly, and some
what traditionally-be defined
by its overall system (democracy dictatorship),
special social
macro actions, such as government legislation,
elections,
or
decision making --- micro practices, interactions, or discourses, such as
parliamentary debates, canvassing or demonstrations --- special social
relations, such as those of institutional power--- special norms and values (e.g.
freedom, equality etc) --- political cognition, such as political ideologies.
This portrays politics as a discourse
situation which not only situates language in action but also reveals contextualized
actions.
In the socio-cultural or
socio-political context, language is one and only effective means of
controlling people’s opinion by creating such propaganda to influence the
meaning of certain terms through the mass media in order, to achieve certain
aims or purposes. One may be tempted to say that there is a great wall of
demarcation between language and politics, but in fact, language places itself
as a weapon to influence or convince people into accepting or discarding one’s
opinion. Political language becomes a strategic instrument while politics
refers to the ideas and activities used for gaining and exercising power in
society. Santoso (2003:2) captures this in his words that, “in political field,
language becomes a strategic instrument. Politics deals with the use of power
to organize people (mind and opinion). Political language is an instrument used
to control the society in general, which have various socio-cultural backgrounds.”
Khemlani and Dumanig (2011:16) observe that “politics is viewed as a struggle
for power and cooperation. Politics exists for those who seek to assert and
maintain their power and for those who resolve clashes of interest over money,
influence, liberty and the like. It is evident that politics is demonstrated
and observed through language. Therefore, politics and language are interlinked
and in fact, some political activities cannot exist without language”. To
further buttress this view, Orwells (1946) explains the goal of politics as
power and control. This control could be resources, economy, values, or norms
of society, people’s behaviour and world view. In Politics and the English
Language, Orwell further states that, “political language is --- designed
to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of
solidarity to pure wind --- To think clearly is a necessary first step toward
political regeneration (Wu Ju 2006:51). To buttress Orwell’s view Chen Lianjie (2003)
says, “that society was characterized by constant surveillance of its citizens
and omnipresent media controlling their mind with propaganda, torture of
dissidents and especially newspeak.” Still on Orwell’s view Awonusi (2003:93)
says that Orwell sees politics as a mass of lies, evasions, folly, hatred, and
schizophrenia. He opines that for the fact that one of the avenues of
exercising power or authority is through coercion, it does not make it better.
Ghazali (2004) observes that the modern notion of politics and power is the
ability to influence and control people not by force but by mind management.
As noted by Wilson (1990) the first comprehensive attempt
by a linguist to examine political language in a book form was written by Geis
(1982) The Language of Politics.
The present work examines political
discourse in Nigeria
with a thematic analysis of President Olusegun Obasanjo’s political speeches.
Political
speeches/language is not different from any other language. It simply presents
in an extreme form, many of the linguistic devices common to our everyday
lives. Political talks often hinge on the relation between what is explicit and
what is implied, and between the direct and the indirect utterances, of
speeches, interviews, press conferences and political campaigns.
President
Olusegun Obasanjo was the former president of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
He served as the military Head of State in Nigeria from 1976 to 1979 and was
elected and sworn in as a civilian president on May 29, 1999. He served in the above capacity
until 2007 when he handed over power to late president Musa Yar’Adua. His
speeches are, therefore, well thought out, imbued with political experience and
very useful for the analysis of political language. The choice of presidential
speeches for this enquiry is due to the fact that the president is portrayed as
the number one citizen of the country, who is considered the “most eligible”
representative of the entire citizenry of the country and whose words,
therefore, bear the semantic load of the nation’s ethos and existence.
A
number of works abound in the linguistic investigation of president Obasanjo’s
speeches (Yusuf 2003, Agbedo 2008, and Adetunji 2005). This work is designed to
fill the gap left by the previous works undertaken on this subject area. This
work is important because none of the existing works has conducted a thematic
analysis of political speeches of Obasanjo’ using the speech act theory. The
sample utterances shall equally be analyzed to determine the extent to which
they fulfill Gricean maxims and Cooperative Principle. Against this backdrop, the study seeks to
determine how a particular set of linguistic units uttered within a particular
linguistic context can be said to be felicitous. This is dependent on how much
of such a speech act meets the felicity conditions as presented by Austin’s speech Act
Theory.
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