Contextual Beliefs in a Nigerian Quasi-Judicial Public Hearing

Unuabonah, Foluke Olayinka

doi:10.1177/0021909614553238

Cited by 6 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 11 publications

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“…In most cases, grandmothers and old women in the neighborhood are the custodians of these beliefs. These shared beliefs reflect in the structure of the interactions and also contribute to the understanding of meaning as the interactants draw on the aspects of their knowledge to which the other party has access (Unuabonah, 2016). These ultimately form the common ground to which both interactants orient themselves through their language use.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

‘Pregnancy no bi disease’: Contextual beliefs in antenatal classes in selected Nigerian hospitals

Olajimbiti

2023

Discourse Studies

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This paper examines how language is used to show shared beliefs between caregivers and pregnant women in antenatal classes in the Nigerian context, which hitherto suffers neglect. The data consist of tape recordings and observational notes taken during antenatal classes in selected hospitals in Lokoja, Nigeria. The study adopted a top-down analytic approach using Odebunmi’s model of contextual beliefs, supported by van Dijk’s epistemic context model, and Fetzer and Fischer’s lexical markers model. The analysis shows three categories of shared knowledge: a. state of pregnancy and postnatal care b. sexual relationships and spice lexemes c. traditional child care and superstitions. Shared knowledge of the state of pregnancy and postnatal care manifests in pregnancy misconceptions, nutrition during pregnancy and postnatal care orientations highlighted by lexical markers such as recoverable knowledge connector and joint attention builder. Shared knowledge of sexual relations and spice lexemes reflect sexual communication and native spices using metaphorization and proximal deictic lexical markers. Grandmothers’ involvement and insistence on using traditional methods and superstitions frame shared knowledge of traditional child care and superstitions through belief affirmative and self-reformulation markers. Analysis of the shared beliefs shows how caregivers represent pregnant women’s mental knowledge in interactions as well as how pregnant women interject beliefs for clarification and validity. This way, both participants demonstrate how contextual beliefs facilitate communicative processes and meaningful understanding in their interactions.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

‘Pregnancy no bi disease’: Contextual beliefs in antenatal classes in selected Nigerian hospitals

Olajimbiti

2023

Discourse Studies

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“…Previous studies on quasi-judicial public hearings have focused on the discourse features, pragmatic features and critical discourse aspects (e.g. Anthonissen 2006;Bock et al 2006;Bock 2007;Berlin 2007;Verdoolaege 2009aVerdoolaege , 2009bUnuabonah 2012;Unuabonah 2016) without exploring MPCs in the hearings. Although Bock (2008) and 2011have examined shifts in tense and codeswitching in the South African Truth and Reconciliation hearings, these are implicit metapragmatic acts which do not address explicit evaluation in the hearings.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“Are you saying …?”

Unuabonah

2022

PRAG

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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.

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Argumentation in Nigerian investigative public hearings

Unuabonah

2020

JAIC

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This paper examines defendants’ argumentative discourse in the 2008 Nigerian investigative public hearings on the Federal Capital Territory administration. The data, which consist of nine defendants’ presentations, are analyzed qualitatively, using a combination of the pragma-dialectical and extended pragma-dialectical theories of argumentation. The findings show that the hearing panel initially starts of as the institutional protagonist and defendants as the antagonists, and but later serve as the institutional antagonist and protagonists, respectively. The defendants tend to use analogy and causal argumentation schemes while employing subordinative and complementary coordinative argumentation structures. The defendants also employ different strategic maneuvers at different argumentative stages of the critical discussion. Due to the politico-forensic communicative domain and information-seeking genre of the investigative public hearing discourse, the concluding stage is suspended. Thus, the study shows the influence of communicative activity type on the argumentative activities in a critical discussion.

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Contextual Beliefs in a Nigerian Quasi-Judicial Public Hearing

Cited by 6 publications

References 11 publications

‘Pregnancy no bi disease’: Contextual beliefs in antenatal classes in selected Nigerian hospitals

‘Pregnancy no bi disease’: Contextual beliefs in antenatal classes in selected Nigerian hospitals

“Are you saying …?”

Argumentation in Nigerian investigative public hearings

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