“This word no get concrete meaning oo”: Pragmatic markers in Nigerian online communication

Honkanen, Mirka

doi:10.1016/j.pragma.2022.10.015

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Cited by 19 publications

References 31 publications

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Investigating the Pragmatic Functions of Nigerian English-Based Proverbs: A Corpus-Driven Method

Unuabonah,

Akinwotu

2024

Corpus Pragmatics

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Investigating the Pragmatic Functions of Nigerian English-Based Proverbs: A Corpus-Driven Method

Unuabonah,

Akinwotu

2024

Corpus Pragmatics

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“Sorry it took me a long time to reply”: Sorry as a discourse-pragmatic feature in African Englishes

Unuabonah,

Daniel,

Fifelola

2025

Journal of Pragmatics

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A corpus-driven description ofoin Naijá (Nigerian Pidgin)

Manfredi

Čéplö

2023

JPCL

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Widely attested in both creole and non-creole languages of the Atlantic basin, the function word o has been traditionally described as a ‘sentence/phrase final particle’, owing to its typical syntactic behaviour, rather than to its multiple grammatical meanings. Based on the corpus-driven analysis of the NaijaSynCor, a ~400K words corpus of spoken Naijá (i.e., Nigerian Pidgin), this study suggests that sentence-final o can be better described as an ‘illocutionary force indicator’ whose main pragmatic function is to modify the illocutionary force associated with directive and assertive speech acts. The study also provides evidence for the emergence of new coordinating and subordinating functions of o in intra-sentential position that are semantically harmonic with its assertive (i.e. epistemic) meaning in sentence-final position. The corpus-driven analysis further shows that the higher occurrence of sentence-final o in (formal and informal) dialogic texts in comparison to monologic texts is a reflex of its basic illocutionary function.

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“This word no get concrete meaning oo”: Pragmatic markers in Nigerian online communication

Cited by 19 publications

References 31 publications

Investigating the Pragmatic Functions of Nigerian English-Based Proverbs: A Corpus-Driven Method

Investigating the Pragmatic Functions of Nigerian English-Based Proverbs: A Corpus-Driven Method

“Sorry it took me a long time to reply”: Sorry as a discourse-pragmatic feature in African Englishes

A corpus-driven description ofoin Naijá (Nigerian Pidgin)

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