Objection Overruled: Language Dynamics and Power Relations in Courtroom Interactions

Officers and men and fallen heroes: The discursive construction of regimented masculinity in the Nigerian Army

“…Language practices in such social contexts create and adopt linguistic forms that are commonly used among members. It is the shared knowledge, expectations and experience that provide insights into the meaning disambiguation in situated language usage in social contexts of setting and participants (Uwen, 2023a;Uwen, 2023b;Uwen and Ushie, 2022). The knowledge creates a mutual understanding of the situated meanings of gendered forms used and serves the intragroup communication needs of the Nigerian Army.…”

“…This explains the reason for relying on the features of some discourse communities for the evaluation of their identities and ideologies. This also makes language ideologies well positioned to provide a useful framework for the evaluation of the connection between contexts and group language in institutionally structured language patterning (Canese, 2018;Uwen, 2023b). On this, Kroskrity (2007) argues that language ideology symbolises an ingroup's beliefs that certain language practices are created to serve the intragroup interest.…”

Emotional women and promiscuous men: Language use as discursive stances of wives on cheating husbands

“…The practice in Nigeria is that Christian marriages conducted under the marriage act can be dissolved in the high court of any state, customary marriages are dissolved at the customary court, while Islamic marriages could be dissolved in several ways including using the Sharia Court. Uwen [77] ascertains that the dissolution is effected in patterned linguistic peculiarities that instantiate legal discourse. It is observed that women who deploy the appraisal pattern associated with the divorce stance, are predominantly, and often highly educated, economically independent, outspoken and well connected with the powers that call the shots in the society.…”