“Are you saying …?”
Open Access
- 6 July 2022
- journal article
- Published by John Benjamins Publishing Company in Pragmatics
- Vol. 27 (1), 115-143
- https://doi.org/10.1075/prag.27.1.05unu
Abstract
This study explores metapragmatic comments in Nigerian quasi-judicial public hearings, involving interactions between complainants, defendants and a hearing panel, with a view to investigating their forms, features, distribution and functions. The data are analysed quantitatively and qualitatively from a discourse-pragmatic framework that incorporates Verschueren’s theory of metapragmatics, Mey’s pragmatic act theory, Grice’s Cooperative Principle and conversation analysis. Four types of metapragmatic comments are used: speech act descriptions, talk regulation comments, maxim adherence/violation related comments and metalinguistic comments. Their distribution and functioning are shown to be partly predictable from properties of the speech event, while they also co-determine the nature and development of the analysed hearings.Keywords
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