Speech Acts

CHAPTER ONE INTRODUCTION 1.1 Background to the Study Language is frequently seen as a tool for communication and is often reduced to its instrumental value. However, effective communication involves both the speaker/writer and the listener/reader in a reciprocal and substitutive process, which is not always evident in legal documents. Legal language is often directed at those who are to keep law as set of instructions to be followed, and the legal system ensures that it is interpreted in the most effective way for society to comply with it. Alabi (2003, p.106), cited in Saleem (2019), explains that specialised function of legal language is to promote justice by providing sufficient detail to instill a habit of law and order in society. Unlike the unique and individualized aspects emphasized in literary pragmatics, legal language distinguishes itself by striving for neutrality and objectivity. Babajide (2000, p.68) believes that ‘the three most important functions of language in communication are to reveal the self, to express feelings and values, and to convey meaningful messages. Language is used to assist the audience to understand the sense of meaning of a particular message. It is however unfortunate that as important as language is in any communicative event, it has constituted one of the major challenges in the society today. This is because information is sometimes not appropriately encoded and decoded due to misuse and misinterpretation of language respectively. Poor language skills which can be a weakness on the part of the encoder(s) or the decoder(s), at times, lead to arguments and disagreements between or among interlocutors. This, however, in one way or the other has adverse effects on the flow of communication which has been one of the major setbacks in some communities today. Pragmatics refers to the study of language use in context and how meaning is conveyed through language beyond its literal meaning. In the context of court verdicts, pragmatic features such as implicature, presupposition, and speech acts can affect how the verdict is understood and implemented. For example, the use of certain words or phrases can imply certain meanings beyond their literal definition, leading to different interpretations of the verdict. Additionally, the way a verdict is phrased can impact the actions that are taken as a result of it. For instance, if a verdict is written in a way that is too vague or ambiguous, it may be difficult to implement and enforce. Pragmatics, the sub-field of language study that explores how language is utilized for communicative purposes, was first introduced by scholar Charles Morris. Morris positioned Pragmatics as a component of semiotics, with syntax and semantics as the primary sub-fields. He believed that Pragmatics was supplementary to syntax and semantics, and therefore not a standalone linguistic discipline. According to Morris (2002, p.12), syntax pertains to the relationships between signs, semantics pertains to the relationship between signs and the things they represent, and pragmatics pertains to the study of the relationship between signs and their users. Although most linguists agree with Morris's disjunction, believing that many pragmatic issues can be addressed within semantics, this view has been criticized by some pragmatics theorists. As defined by Leech (1983), ‘Pragmatics is the study of communicative meaning, excluding those aspects of meaning that fall under semantics.’ (p.67) Similarly, Cruse (1990, p.143), distinguishes semantics as the inherent meaning conveyed by an utterance's words and grammar, and pragmatics as the meaning that an utterance conveys in different contexts. Semantics is concerned with inherent meaning, while pragmatics deals with meaning that is influenced by the context in which an utterance occurs. All these suggest that Pragmatics is not at all complementary to other sublevels of the study of language but rather, is an autonomous sub-level. The major contribution of Pragmatics in the study of language is the recognition of the factor of the user in respect of his ‘attitudes, behaviour and beliefs’ (Leech and Thomas I990, p. I73). This suggests that the meaning that an utterance has is dependent on the speaker who utters it. We may say that meaning is not the property of words but that of the users of words. This is because the speakers of any language can use the sentences of that language to convey messages, which do not bear any necessary relation with words they contain and their grammatical arrangement.