The Pragmatics of Politeness in Kofi Awoonor’s “This Earth, My Brother…” and “Comes The Voyager At Last’’
Keywords:
Politeness, Implicature, Speech Acts, Kofi Awoonor, PragmaticsAbstract
Politeness deals with the processes that involve the social face of those engaged in interactions. Studies on politeness in diverse contexts have considered face to face interaction and other discourse events and have identified aspects of politeness marking in print media political interviews, doctor-client relationship, greetings amongst tribes in Nigeria, Im/politeness in Religious Discourse, amongst others. We are however uncertain of how this notion of politeness is expressed in the literary works of Kofi Awoonor. Hence, this study investigates Awoonor’s two novels: ‘This Earth, My Brother…’ and ‘Comes the Voyager at Last’ to determine how politeness marking construes and enhances understanding of the texts. The study adopts Brown and Levinson (1987) aspects of self-image: Positive and Negative face to determine how people present themselves and other in speech. The study finds that face saving act featured in instances of greetings and banters especially in presenting self-image, while face threatening acts occurred mostly in challenging corruption particularly to the face of others. An understanding of the main tenets of politeness is essential therefore, for the proper understanding of the study texts and meaning generally.
References
Austin, John. How to do Things with Words. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1962.
Awoonor, Kofi. This Earth, My Brother...Doubleday & Company, Inc. Garden City, New York. 1971
----------Comes the Voyager at Last. African World Press, Inc. Trenton, New Jersey. 1982
Ayeloja, K. A. and Alabi, T. O. Politeness and Discourse Functions in Doctor-Patient Verbal Interactions at the University College Hospital, Ibadan, Nigeria. International Journal on Studies in English Language and Literature (IJSELL) Volume 6, Issue 12, PP 1-12, 2018.
Bach, Kent. Conversation implicature. Mind and Language 9: 124-62. 1994a.
Brown, Penelope and Levinson, Stephen. Politeness: Some Universals in Language Usage. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987.
Grice, H.P. Presupposition and conversational implicature. In Cole (ed.), 183-98. (An earlier unpublished version was presented at the University of Illinois in 1970). 1981.
Grundy, Peter. Doing Pragmatics. 3rd edition. Hodder Education, 2008.
Halliday, Michael Alexander Kirkwood. An Introduction to Functional Grammar. London: Edward Arnold, 1985.
Horn, Lawrence and Ward, Gregory. The Handbook of Pragmatics (Ed.). Oxford: Blackwell, 2006.
Kareem, S. Im/politeness in Muslim Discourse: A Study of Nigerian Friday Sermons. International Journal of Linguistics and Communication, Vol. 6, No. 2, pp. 20-34, 2018.
Leech, Geoffrey Principles of Pragmatics. London: Longman, 1983.
Lakoff, Robin. The logic of politeness, or minding your p’s and q’s Chicago Linguistic Society 9:292-305, 1973
Mey, Jacob. Pragmatics: An Introduction. Oxford: Blackwell, 2001
Odebunmi, Akin. Greetings and Politeness in Doctor-Client Encounters in Southwestern Nigeria. Iranian Journal of Society, Culture & Language, 1(1), 2013 ISSN 2322-4762
Austin, John. How to do Things with Words. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1962.
Awoonor, Kofi. This Earth, My Brother...Doubleday & Company, Inc. Garden City, New York. 1971
----------Comes the Voyager at Last. African World Press, Inc. Trenton, New Jersey. 1982
Ayeloja, K. A. and Alabi, T. O. Politeness and Discourse Functions in Doctor-Patient Verbal Interactions at the University College Hospital, Ibadan, Nigeria. International Journal on Studies in English Language and Literature (IJSELL) Volume 6, Issue 12, PP 1-12, 2018.
Bach, Kent. Conversation implicature. Mind and Language 9: 124-62. 1994a.
Brown, Penelope and Levinson, Stephen. Politeness: Some Universals in Language Usage. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987.
Grice, H.P. Presupposition and conversational implicature. In Cole (ed.), 183-98. (An earlier unpublished version was presented at the University of Illinois in 1970). 1981.
Grundy, Peter. Doing Pragmatics. 3rd edition. Hodder Education, 2008.
Halliday, Michael Alexander Kirkwood. An Introduction to Functional Grammar. London: Edward Arnold, 1985.
Horn, Lawrence and Ward, Gregory. The Handbook of Pragmatics (Ed.). Oxford: Blackwell, 2006.
Kareem, S. Im/politeness in Muslim Discourse: A Study of Nigerian Friday Sermons. International Journal of Linguistics and Communication, Vol. 6, No. 2, pp. 20-34, 2018.
Leech, Geoffrey Principles of Pragmatics. London: Longman, 1983.
Lakoff, Robin. The logic of politeness, or minding your p’s and q’s Chicago Linguistic Society 9:292-305, 1973.
Mey, Jacob. Pragmatics: An Introduction. Oxford: Blackwell, 2001
Odebunmi, Akin. Greetings and Politeness in Doctor-Client Encounters in Southwestern Nigeria. Iranian Journal of Society, Culture & Language, 1(1), 2013 ISSN 2322-4762
