A Pragmatic Analysis of Victory and Inaugural Speeches of President Umaru Musa Yar‟Adua

Bibliographic Data

ID5845401
AuthorsOmoniyi Moses Ayeomoni (Kwara State Polytechnic), Olajoke Susan Akinkuolere
Year2012
Volume2
Issue3
Publication date2012-03-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueTheory and Practice in Language Studies (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1799-2591 • E-ISSN: 2053-0692
PublisherAcademy Publication (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.4304/tpls.2.3.461-468
OpenAlexW1994794179
LanguageEN
Citations received10
References cited15

The study was conducted to identify the speech acts features of President Umaru Yar'Adua's Victory and Inaugural Speeches.Hence, the study focused on the pragmatic functions of locution, illocutionary and perlocutionary acts of the speeches.This was done with a view to determine the global pattern of pragmatic moves of the selected political speeches.The data were drawn from the Victory speech and Inaugural Speech and analyzed following the Speech Act theory of Austin (1962) and Searle (1969).The tabular presentations of the analysis were drawn showing the relative frequencies of the speech acts and percentages.Twenty (20) sentences were obtained from the speeches, from which forty(40) speech acts (direct and indirect illocutionary acts) were obtained.The findings showed that the Overall Relative Frequency Percentages (ORFPs) for the selected speeches of Umaru Musa Yar'Adua were: assertive-60%, directive-35%, expressive-15%, verdictive-40%, commisive-30%, and declarative-20%.These ORFPs results showed that Umaru Musa Yar'Adua relied more on sentences that performed assertive acts than other speech acts.He used the sentences that were vindictive and directive to assert his authority and exercise his power as the President.Sentences that were expressive had the least ORFP; hence, it was observed that the President exploited less of sentences which were meant for indicating the sincerity of his intentions.The Speech Act analysis of the political discourses of Umaru Musa Yar'Adua provided the understanding that political leaders in Nigeria perform various acts through their speeches.These speech acts assist in the understanding and interpretation of the messages in their speeches

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