PRAGMATIC ANALYSIS OF SELECTED UTTERANCES IN SOYINKA'S ALAPATA APATA, OSOFISAN'S ARINGINDIN AND THE NIGHTWATCHMEN

Language users express their thought mostly with a general assumption that some aspects of meanings that are not expressed in words are deducible from the context. The study examines the role of pragmatics in the conveyance of meaning through contexts and other pragmatic tools. The qualitative and quantitative methods were adopted in the analysis of the purposively selected utterances from Soyinka's Alapata Apata and Osofisan's Aringindin and the Night Watchmen. Thereafter, from each utterance, all the locutionary acts that have the features of the chosen pragmatic tools were categorised under the identified pragmatic tools. And, the data for this study's analysis included five (5) selected utterances each from the given texts, making ten (10) samples in all. It was discovered that, the function of an act performed could be outlined by the social power relation of the participants. Also, Implicature conveyed social-cultural and linguistic functions in the texts, through the adoption of euphemism, irony, understatement, semantic transfer, proverbs and idiomatic expressions. Some of the linguistic elements adapted in applied utterances were introduced by different linguistic patterns such as pidgin, code-mixing/switching as well as borrowing. As a result of the findings, it can be concluded that, if meaning Jormation is left solely to the scope of semantics, language users would not only have challenges in everyday communication, but will also acquire bad communication skills. Therefore, adhering to and following pragmatic principles, particularly courtesy and cooperative maxims, would promote co-relationships and mutual understanding.