A Speech Act Study of Salutation in Igbo and English Languages
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Date
2017-09
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Besing Books Multipurpose Publications
Abstract
This paper is a report on a speech act investigation of salutations in Igbo and English languages. Establishment of social obligations among members of a community and the society at large for the purpose of actualizing cordial relationship is achieved by the use of salutation. Salutation among individuals accomplishes its pragmatic functions when it is conducted in appropriate demeanour and in accordance with the culture and acceptable code of conduct of the native language users. This study sought to find out if there is any direct connection between the forms or structures of salutation and its pragmatic functions or illocutionary forces they generate in Igbo and English. It also aimed to highlight the areas of differences in the salutations of the two languages. In using and interpreting salutation in discourse, interlocutors are influenced by a number of factors, which confirms Lambrecht's (1998) assumption that there is a complex relation existing between a given salutation form and the function the speaker wants the salutation to perform in a discourse. The geographical location for the study included the five prominent Igbo speaking states of, Abia, Anambra, Ebonyi, Enugu, and Imo and the salutations elicited from the speakers of English within the research area. The standard variety of Igbo and English languages, which are regarded as prestigious from the sociological point of view guided the analysis of the data. The data for this study included the salutations used in all possible contexts of interaction among the elders who have lived most of their lives in Igbo land (including the researchers) and the English salutations as used by the English speaking people as well as those collected from newspapers, radio and television within Ll and L2 contexts. The paper employs Lawal's (1997) model of the "Aspects of a Pragmatic Theory" as the framework. Findings indicate that majority of Igbo salutations are direct declaratives, imperatives and interrogatives which, however, perform the indirect illocutionary acts of expressive and directives. Although similarities exist in the form of some salutations in the two languages, there are dissimilarities in their illocutionary functions.
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Igbo,, English,, Salutation,, Speech Act