ABSTRACT
This research investigates the
features of discourse in the interaction among market women and their customers
in Oba Market, Benin in Edo state. The study is restricted to the. spoken
language as used by market women. This was done through the method of participant
observation. The researcher was highly involved by tape-recording their voices
during their business dealings. The raw data were collected in pidgin English
but rendered in correct English and analyzed using Sinclair and Coulthard model
of analysis developed in 1975. It was discovered that interactional talk is the
bedrock behind every successful business transaction .Sales are made possible
by these women through various techniques which they employed in form of clues,
prompts, bids which, according to Sinclair and Coulthard, are means through
which buyers are convinced to patronize their goods. Sales are eventually made
possible as the end product of business transaction.
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.0 Introduction
This study investigates the features of Discourse in the
interaction Among Market Women in Oba market, Benin with their customers.
Language is made up essentially of written and spoken modes. There are formats
and methods of analysis attached to each of the modes.
The written language has a long history of analysis while the
spoken form has only recently gained attention in Linguistic analysis. Our
interest in carrying out this research is to further the development of the analysis
of the spoken language.
In this introductory chapter, some key concepts, sub - themes
and terminologies used in the study will be presented.
1.1 Background to the Study
Many linguists describe language as the most important
attribute of man.
Allenton (18) in his own view defines language as;
-----the fully developed natural human communication involved in transmitting ideas or information from person to person.
He sees language as a tool for information transfer.
Thomas and Wareing (6-9) in their book Language, Society and
Power, postulate that one of the obvious ways of thinking about language is
that;
It is a systematic way of combining smaller units into larger
units for the purpose of communication, for instance, we combine the
sound segments of our language (Phoneme) to form words(Lexical items) According
to the rules of language we speak.
Language is essentially a rule-governed system of this kind,
but there are other ways of thinking about how language works. James Caper as
cited in Obi- Okoye (2) considered language as:
A system of communicating with one another using sounds,
symbols and words in expressing meaning, ideas or thoughts.
Thus language can be used in many forms primarily through oral
and written communications. Equally body language could be used to
communicate thoughts and feelings.
In this work, we are interested in such questions as: What
function does a given utterance do? Is it a statement, question, command or response
and how do the participants know
Although, there were some linguists who saw language as a
series of interrelated levels mediating, and showing relationships between context
and phonetic substance as seen by Halliday etal quoted in Sinclair and
Coulthard’s work titled;
Towards an Analysis of Discourse page one. It attempts to
show how a given phonetic realization has a grammatical structure and meaning
but there is a major difference in the concept. Firth in Sinclair and Coulthard
suggests that;
The principal components of ---- Meaning is phonetic
function, which I call ‘minor’ function, the major functions-lexical,
morphological, syntactical---And the function of a complete location in the
context of situation, The province of semantic (1-2)
Firth had observed that in conversation, we shall find the
key to a better understanding of what language really is, and how it works.
Our interests were in the function of utterances and the
structure of discourse. Sinclair (2) suggested examining real examples with all
their performance features. He focused on questions and answers and suggested
that only by examining the context in which an utterance is produced, the
presuppositions behind the utterance, the intention of the speaker and
respondent, and the evidence available to a decoder, can one really understand
the meaning of an utterance.
This early work also stressed paragraphing in spoken
discourse. Conversations are everyday examples of the fact that several participants
can jointly produce coherent texts; utterances and parts
of utterances relate back and forwards, place certain restriction on what can
occur and affect how or succeeding items are interpreted. Sinclair (3) went on
to examine the relationship between the grammatical structures of an utterance
its function in discourse. Question, for instance, can have a declarative,
interrogative, imperative, or modeless structure. There are often features in
the situation such as relative status of participants, which will determine
which form is most appropriate form will be interpreted as cheekiness,
condescension, sarcasm and so on.
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Item Type: Project Material | Size: 65 pages | Chapters: 1-5
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