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The pragmatic roles of as in in Nigerian English usage
Author(s) -
OGOANAH FELIX NWABEZE
Publication year - 2011
Publication title -
world englishes
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.6
H-Index - 49
eISSN - 1467-971X
pISSN - 0883-2919
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-971x.2011.01706.x
Subject(s) - utterance , relevance theory , meaning (existential) , relevance (law) , interpretation (philosophy) , linguistics , process (computing) , discourse marker , psychology , computer science , philosophy , cognition , political science , neuroscience , law , psychotherapist , operating system
No previous accounts of discourse or pragmatic markers have considered the contributions of as in as a marker in utterance interpretation. Yet, this particle, although essentially a Nigerian English usage, shares the same features with some of the most commonly discussed markers such as, that is, in short, in other words, so, you know, I mean and so on. Drawing examples from spoken data, which are analysed within the framework of relevance theory, this paper describes the contributions of as in as a pragmatic marker in the interpretation of utterances in Nigerian English usage. As a pragmatic marker, as in encodes procedural meaning by constraining the inferential process in a way that maximizes relevance. Specifically, this paper argues that as in in various ways and in diverse contexts signals the speaker's desire to get the hearer to recognize that a crucial aspect of his meaning is being communicated in the host utterance, and in the process encourages the hearer to arrive at that meaning with minimal processing effort.