Selected Utterances from the Christian Scriptures. A Pragmatic Study

Index

Introduction

Review of Related Literatures

Theoretical Framework
Speech Act
Politeness Theory

Research Methodolog

Textual Analysis
Speech Act Analysis of the Texts
A Politeness Analysis of the Texts

A Tabular Representation of the Result

Discussion

Conclusion

Works Cited

Abstract

This research work is a pragmatic analysis of selected utterances from the Christian scriptures using the speech act theory of Searle of 1969 and Politeness theory stipulated by Brown and Levinson; the motivation for this study is the fact that the Christian scriptures has received little attention when it comes to scholarly investigations. The work is divided into five chapters: Chapter one features the background to the study, definitions of terms, statement of problem, aim and objective of the study, significance of the study and the scope of the study; Chapter two features the review of literatures relevant to this research in terms of theory, data and area of study; Chapter three contains the exploration of the methodology and theoretical framework adopted for the study; Chapter four features the analysis of the selected utterances into two subheadings: speech act analysis focusing on the illocutionary, and politeness analysis of the same set of utterances which are taken from the New Testament part of the Bible, Matthew, Luke and John to be precise. After the analysis, a table is attached which summarises the research question; the last chapter is chapter five and this is where the summary of the findings made in chapter four is done.

Keywords: pragmatics, speech act, text, politeness, utterances, scripture

Introduction

Pragmatics as a level of linguistic analysis describes language from the point of view of the language users; most importantly, the choices these language users make, the constraints they encounter in using their language for social interaction and also the effect of their use of language on other participants in a speech event. This is the domain of pragmatics. Hence, social context is considered in any pragmatics study because in any social context, the sole aim of the language is to foster communication and when talking about communication, there is always the “more than” notion – a speech saying much more than what the ordinary message may project and pragmatics bothers itself with the ability to interpret the inner message of any speech.

Language is a very unique instrument of communication that is particular to man. This is given the fact that every individual on the planet earth has a particular way of using language for the purpose of communication. However, it should not be confused with the fact that communication is not the primary purpose of language in spite of the fact that language is a necessary condition of thought and knowledge (Akwanya 21). The effective use of language most times result to mutual understanding between a speaker and an interlocutor whereas a poor language technique may result to misinterpretation of the message intended. It is against this backdrop that Abelard in Akwanya (22) talked about language as “a vehicle of communication which is used by two thinking beings” (22). In other words, communication takes place in speech when the interlocutor and the speaker are able to understand the speech situation.

The language of the scripture is one that is rich in acts, especially Jesus‟ utterances and speeches in the very first chapters of the New Testament namely: Matthew, Luke and John.

These are the areas which this research has set out to explore against the backdrop of speech act theory and the theory of politeness by investigating some of the utterances Jesus made during his ministry as well as the speech event that unfolded before his arrest and while he was still on the cross.

In speech act, speakers can do many things with language through their speeches, given the fact that speech has been recognized by several linguists as the performance of action. Speech act explores the force utterances have for counting as actions rather than merely giving information while politeness on the other hand is the exercise of language choice to create a context intended to match addressee’s notion of how he or she should be addressed as well as the speaker’s consideration of his interlocutor’s feeling. This research focuses on technically analyzing the texts selected in order to discover the nature of the speech act performed by Jesus and the two thieves that were crucified with him, through their speeches and utterances, and the interpretation of the politeness strategies utilized or manifested through the utterances.

Review of Related Literatures

Ezike in “Discourse Analysis and Pragmatics: A Case Study of Classroom Conversations in the University of Nigeria, Nsukka” focuses on declarative sentence and also considers their thematic structure by collecting classroom conversations between students, and between students and lecturers. A total of 30 people’s speeches were collected through a tape recorder. The purpose was to establish a common ground between pragmatics and discourse using Sinclair and Courthard’s rank scale of conversational analysis of 1975 which has five units: lesson, transaction, exchange, move and act. Ezike stated that discourse rank scale could be approached through two possible means: the topmost unit – descending order and the lowest unit- ascending order.

Norminingsih did a research on “A Pragmatic Analysis of the Directive Utterances in New Testament”, where much effort is made in accounting for utterances from the New Testament, the Gospel of Matthew to be precise, as directives using Searle‟s speech act theory. The illocutionary act of directive which is one of the five speech acts identified by Searle was used in the analysis of the selected utterances. The aim is to analyze the forms and the intentions of directive utterance found in the Gospel of Matthew. The researcher collects data for the analysis from a particular Bible version – Revised stand version (RSV). The researcher establishes in this research that most of the utterances in the New Testament, especially the ones spoken by Jesus are mostly directives judging from the selected utterance analyzed.

Onukagha in “A Pragmatic Analysis of selected Speeches in Chinua Achebe‟s A Man of the People”. This research work aimed at exploring the pragmatic aspects of a literary text through selected speeches in A Man of the People. The researcher selected ten different speeches from the text during the research exercise, with the sole aim of identifying and describing speech acts in terms of illocutionary acts; exploring the ways the characters in the text perform actions with their speeches in the text and to explore the significance of these actions to the development of the plot. The researcher analysed the speeches, one at a time by describing what speech act has been performed by the character.

The researcher in the analysis discusses each of the speeches selected as illocutionary acts, paying attention to the effect of the characters‟ speeches in relation to the text and how misinterpretation of a speaker‟s intention in speech upsets everything, leading to rivalry, betrayal and the novel progresses by means of these actions. The researcher in this work explores the role of speech act in a literary work, establishing the idea of conflict in a novel ensuing from the misinterpretation of acts performed by characters, especially Odili the narrator and Chief Nanga. Hence the researcher opines that speech act, especially the illocutionary acts play a vital role in the formation, development and sustaining of the plot of a story.

Onukagha in the above research makes use of the five speech acts propounded by Searle in Horn and Ward (59) to analyze the ten speeches from the selected text. As a literary text that is usually written in narration, the researcher identifies some important speeches that gave impetus to most of the serious actions in the novel. Hence, one cannot help but see how language in its uniqueness progresses to form actions and Akwanya in support of this says in the third edition of Verbal Structures:

once the impulse has set discourse in process, it proliferates by being inserted in language, either interconnecting with other structures in language and forming a pattern with them or by elongating and complicating itself metonymically into a narrative (42).

Oguegbu researched on the “Pragmatics Analysis of the Language of Sticker Printed in English”. The aim of the study was to use pragmatic principles to analyze the language of stickers printed in English by evaluating how advertisers appeal to the senses of their audience. The research aimed to unveil the fact that structural analysis cannot be relied on for a better understanding of the messages that stickers are meant to convey. The objectives of the study centered on assessing meaning on stickers, suggesting solutions to the problem of speaker meaning and sentence meaning and to reveal the propaganda tricks and exaggerations involved in the language of stickers through some pragmatic principles selected such as deixis, Implicature, speech act and co-operative principle.

Okeke in “A Pragmatic Analysis of Selected Speeches of President Muhammadu Buari” selects three speeches: the acceptance speech, inaugural speech and the Nigerian 55th independence speech, focusing on the language use of the president, examining the projection of his ideological components of change, dominance and inequality, manipulative intents, and opposition. The researcher analysed the speeches using Van Dijk‟s Critical Discourse Analysis.

Obitube in an “Analysis of President Muhammadu Buari‟s Apologies for Plagiarism as Politeness strategy” aims at analyzing the Nigerian President‟s apology under pragmatics through the politeness strategy and speech act. According to the researcher, a speech that the President presented was said to have been appropriated from president Obama’s victory speech and this leads to the questioning of the president’s integrity, intelligence and moral conduct. The work looks at the nature of speech act performed by the president, whether his apologies amount to any politeness strategies. The work adopts an analytical approach of analysis to study the apology speeches of the president with regards to the nature of speech act performed and the interpretation of the politeness strategy used.

Ojukwu in “A Pragmatic Analysis of Selected Political Speeches of Nelson Mandela” carries out the analysis on the basis of his political experiences and this is done using Austin’s Speech Act Theory with reference to Searle’s illocutionary acts and Austin’s felicity conditions for the purpose of finding out the effectiveness of Mandela‟ speeches, the intentions which the selected speeches might have achieved and the perlocutionary acts of those speeches. The researcher selects four speeches out of the numerous speeches Mandela made during his struggle for his people’s freedom in South Africa when apartheid was the order of the day. These speeches are: “I am prepared to die” of 1964, Mandela’s address in Cape Town on his release from prison of 1990, his address to the people of Cape Town on the occasion of his inauguration as president 1994 and his statement as president of the African National Congress 1994.

Theoretical Framework

Speech Act

Speech act in the perspective of theorists whose views are centered on the use of language and language as social actions discuss linguistic phenomena in terms of speech act. Speech act is one of the theories or principle of pragmatics as cited in Mbah (236), that its development is credited to the Oxford philosopher, J.L. Austin in his work published with the title: How to do Things with Word. His philosophy is based on the motive that a statement does not just state facts or describe situation, but perform some certain kind of action by itself. He stipulated three kinds of acts that could be realized when language users put language in to use and those are: locutionary act, illocutionary act and perlocutionary act.

Kempson as cited in Ojukwu (56) summarizes the distinction between these acts stipulated by Austin thus “…speaker utters sentences with a particular meaning (locutionary) and with a particular force (illocutionary) in order to achieve a certain effect (perlocutionary) on the hearer.”

Grice, though unperturbed by Austin‟s preoccupation, had a profound influence on speech act theory in 1957-1967 (Horn and War 58). For him, communication does not take place by means of convention but by means of the language user demonstrating certain intentions, as well as getting the hearer to recognize these intentions. He also pointed out that speakers make use of various maxims of cooperative behaviour in order to ensure the hearer‟s recognition of those intentions.

Strawson as cited in Horn and Ward (59) opposes Austin‟s view on the way language acts through his categorizing of speech acts, especially the illocutionary act. He opines that such acts as marrying, christening etc. occur ordinary in “highly formal, ritualistic, or ceremonial situations thus it cannot be said to be an ordinary communication behaviour. However, he agrees with Austin that such acts involve convention.

In Horn and Ward (59) again, Searle argues in favour of Austin‟s speech act theory by stipulating a neo-Austinian analysis in which convention was given prominence though he did not over-look Grecian‟s intentions in communication. However, he stated that the theory is inadequate because it failed to explicitly evince the divergence between certain speeches. For Searle, to perform an illocutionary act is to follow certain conventional rules that are constitutional of that kind of act. Austin in his theory grouped the performative verbs in to five major classes however, Searle finds out some problems with Austin‟s classification due to the fact that Austin did not clearly explicate the set of principles with which an act is constructed so that it does not get mixed up with another as one category. Hence he stipulated three major ways speech act can vary: “they can differ in the way in which they fit words to the world, they can differ in terms of the psychological state they express and they differ in terms of point or purpose” (Mbah 245). With regard to these three dimensions, Searle stipulated five classes of the illocutionary act:

- Representative Act – describing events, process, states; also assertions, claims, reports, suggestion etc. A newspaper report such as “the plane crashed at Lisa in Ogun state in the early hours of yesterday” will be considered as performing a representative act.
- Declarative Act – these are acts that are able to change the reality of a situation with regard to the proposition of the declaration: pronouncing, sentencing, christening, e.g. I christen you John.
- Directive Acts – these acts give impetus to actions: commanding, requesting, pleading, inviting, e.g. leave this room immediately !
- Expressive Acts – these acts expresses the speaker‟s attitudes and emotions towards the proposition: greeting, scolding, condoling, appreciating, congratulating, apologizing, e.g. I wish a merry Christmas
- Commissive Acts – betting, challenging, promising, threatening, offering, vowing, warning e.g. I promise to provide you with adequate social amenities.

Searle also talked about the indirect speech act which is said to contain a primary illocutionary act that is non-literal and the secondary illocutionary act that is literal and he also gave guidelines as to how to identify these acts.

Politeness Theory

Politeness Principle is one of the domains of pragmatics that was championed by Penelope Brown and Stephen C. Levinson (311). These linguists distinguished between negative politeness and positive politeness strategies. The negative strategies are those acts performed strategically with the aim of avoiding offense through deference while the positive strategies are those acts performed with the sole aim to avoid offending the hearer by emphasizing friendliness.

This theory revolves around the concept of “face” introduced by the Sociologist Ervin Goffman as cited in Brown and Levinson (311). The term face was also got from “the English folk term, which ties face up with notions of being embarrassed or humiliated, posits Brown and Levinson (311). Within the domain of politeness, face describes people’s desire to protect their self-image, emotional and social image from possible damage through social inferences. Hence, there are two kinds of faces: negative and positive face.

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