DOING PRAGMATICS: AN ILLOCUTIONARY ACT ANALYSIS OF STUDENTS’ GRAFFITI INSCRIPTIONS IN ABIA STATE UNIVERSITY
Authors: Kenneth O. Patrick, Godwin I.N. Emezue
Publication Details
Published: June 14, 2024
Reference: Volume 8, Issue 2
Abstract
This study is an analysis of the illocutionary acts performed by students of the Abia State University, Uturu in their use of graffiti as a medium of communication. The study adopts a qualitative approach. Corpus for the study was gathered by taking still pictures of graffiti on walls and buildings in public spaces in and around Abia State University. This study adopts the speech acts theory, with emphasis on the illocutionary act, as the theoretical framework. 75 graffiti inscriptions constitute the corpus for this study. The inscriptions are classified into six thematic categories that portray the issues – namely, students’ politics/unionism, education/academics, faith/religion, nicknaming, and street philosophy - for which the users inscribed the graffiti. The themes provide the needed contextual foreground in analyzing the speech acts performed by the communication. The study shows that the graffiti inscriptions in Abia State University perform the five illocutionary speech acts (assertive, directive, declarative, commissive, and expressive) according to John Searle (1969). It is also obvious that the language of graffiti inscriptions in Abia State University is influenced by the language of the immediate Igbo socio-cultural milieu.
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How to Cite
Kenneth O. Patrick, Godwin I.N. Emezue. (2024). DOING PRAGMATICS: AN ILLOCUTIONARY ACT ANALYSIS OF STUDENTS’ GRAFFITI INSCRIPTIONS IN ABIA STATE UNIVERSITY. ABIA JOURNAL OF HUMANITIES , Volume 8 (2) .