The Place of Pragmatics in Language: President Buhari’s Speech on IPOB Paradigm
The Place of Pragmatics in Language: President Buhari’s Speech on IPOB Paradigm

Summary/Abstract: The meaning of any sentence depends on many factors which include the situation and context. This is however the purview of pragmatics that was hitherto a subset of semantics until recently. With the introduction of pragmatics, utterances are no longer randomly made, because, it could be misunderstood, as they have more meanings than they appear to have on the surface. The proscribed indigenous people of Biafra have been one of the major concerns of the ruling class in Nigeria. Both the Nigerian president and some state governors have ceaselessly given the arm forces orders to clamp down on the members of the IPOB, wherever they are found. This research applies John Langshaw Austin’s speech act theory, Grice’s Maxims, Samuel Ichiye akawataǯs Snarl (angry) and Purr (gentle / kind) in its analysis. his paper analyses one of the speeches of the Nigerian President on the proscribed IPOB using the pragmatic features such as: componential analysis- analyzing the components of the sentence, the pronominal. This study applies qualitative method in the analysis of the pragmatic features in the President Buhari’s speech on IPOB. This paper discovers that the statement of the president was characterised with more of angry words than snarl words. It therefore recommends that leaders of fragile democratic countries like Nigeria should apply more of the snarl words than purr, fuming and irritating words.

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