Written By:
Ngozi U. Emeka-Nwobia.
Languages and Linguistics Department.
Ebonyi State University, Abakaliki, Nigeria
SCOPE AND LIMITATION
This work is concerned with the
pragmatic analysis of President Olusegun Obasanjo’s political speeches. The
study examines the campaign, corruption, inaugural, economic reform speeches of
former head of state of Nigeria,
in order to identify the extent to which his speeches comply with the conversational
maxims. This work will also examine the application of speech act theory in the
analysis of the political speeches. The utterances shall be subjected to analysis
using the felicity conditions as spelt out by Austin (1962) and Grice (1975) co-operative
principles.
Austin’s felicity conditions include
(i) Sincerity
condition
(ii) Executive
condition
(iii) Preparatory
condition and
(iv) Fulfillment
condition while Grice’s co-operative principles are anchored on the four maxims
of quantity, quality, manner and relevance.
The evidence gleaned from these will
enable discussions that will give rise to a better understanding of the use of
the resources of language to project the intended message and human consciences
in socio political texts.
The
study covers political speeches taken between 1999 and 2007. Time is always a
factor in a research of this nature and therefore, poses a limitation as it is
not possible for all the speeches made both within and outside Nigeria
by the former President to be analyzed. This work does not intend to delve into
all his political speeches.
Although
this work is a pragmatic study, which have different theories and principles,
the work is not a study on implicature even though it showed some
characteristics of this with strict adherence to the cooperative principles of
Grice. There is no intent to study the field of references, presupposition,
deixis and other fields of pragmatics. Similarly, this study will not access
the perlocutionary effect of the speeches on all Nigerian people, since time
and space may not permit us to do so. The study will rather use selected
newspaper and magazines’ opinion to access the effect of the speeches on the
hearers.
Also
important to mention is the fact that various authors have written on the
theory of speech Act. Our focus is on Austin’s
principles and taxonomy. The work does not intend to use the other models as analytical
frame work.
Finally
the present work has appropriated the theories and technical terms from
writers, in way perhaps not indented by these writers. We agree with Paul
Brithiaux (1996:165) that, “any given terminology must mirror the value and
metaphors of its parent culture”. Much as we have tried to keep to this rule,
we crave the indulgence of writers whose works may have been affected in
deliberate and unintentional ways, through what may be seen as our
misrepresentation of their view points in the course of this research. Our
humble intent is to advance the field of pragmatics through the development of
rigors and methodology that may be applied in the study of language and
language use in Nigeria
at large.