A PRAGMATIC STUDY OF SOME SELECTED POLITICAL POSTERS

ABSTRACT

This long essay focuses on the pragmatics study of selected political posters imprinted in the pages of selected newspapers. It seeks to identify the influence of pragmatic elements on encoded texts or utterance; it analyse the thought provoking influence of such political posters; the rules of pragmatics governing the use of language in this aspect. The data of choice were randomly selected (from the pages of THE NATION, THE SUN and THE VANGUARD newspapers) and the pragmatic elements were applied on them. Posters are capable of influencing the mind of the reader(s) when the context is taken into consideration, political ones for that matter. Implicitly, there are hidden intentions in most political posters. The pragmatic elements help to bring out the intended meaning of most posters. The outcome was evident in course of this research work. The study has shown that for political posters to perform their functions effectively, they must have in mind the reader’s ability to understanding their message through what is displayed.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE: GENERAL INTRODUCTION

Introduction

Purpose of study

Justification

Scope of the work

Methodology

Data description

CHAPTER TWO: LITERATURE REVIEW

Introduction

Definition of Pragmatics

Historical development

Elements of Pragmatics

Context

Presupposition

Implicature

Inference

Participants

Topic

Intention

World knowledge

Mutual contextual beliefs

Theories of Pragmatics

Searle’s Theory of Pragmatics

Adegbija’s Theory of Pragmatics

P Grice’s Theory of Pragmatics

Bach and R.M Harnish’s Theory of Pragmatics

Definition of poster

Headline

Handbill

Placard

Conclusion

CHAPTER THREE: DATA ANALYSIS       

Introduction

Data Analysis

Datum one

Datum two

Datum three

Datum four

Datum five

Datum six

Datum seven

Datum eight

Datum nine

Datum ten                                                                                                                                                                                              Summary

Conclusion

CHAPTER FOUR                                        

Summary

Findings

Conclusion

BIBLIOGRAPHY

CHAPTER ONE

GENERAL INTRODUCTION

INTRODUCTION

      The dynamism of language as a powerful tool of communication cannot be over-emphasized. There is countless number of things which we could do or use to achieve. It is therefore, no surprise if language is used to influence decision in various ways (even in the field of politics). Can one really mention any particular field of endeavour that does not involve the use of language?

      This bring us to the view about pragmatics; an aspect of language study. Communication in any society happens chiefly by means of language. However, the users of language as social beings communicate and use language in the society’s premises. Mey (2001), in his second publication: Pragmatics: An Introduction has this to say:

    …pragmatics as the study of the way human being use their

                                         Language in communication, bases itself on a study of those

                                         Premises and determine how they effect and effectualize human

                                         Language use… (pp6)

         With the above aforementioned extracted text, we therefore, take a critical look at pragmatics, its influence on the analysis of political posters. The strength it commands in influencing the needed effect.

1.1         PURPOSE OF THE STUDY

       The purpose of this research work is to identify the influence of pragmatics elements on encoded texts or utterance; the meaning that is implied and the effect on the addressee. We do this with the use of deployed political posters (statements) in the field of politics. Besides exploiting the features of pragmatics, this study seeks to analyse the thought provoking influence of such political posters; the rules of pragmatics governing the use of language in this aspect.

This study, we hope, prioritize on the need to view utterance as instrumental in influencing necessary developmental changes. We also analyse the feature of context, among other things, as a necessary factor to understanding inherent objectives of most political posters. We intend to carry-out this work in relation to semantics since the synergy will help us in understanding of this research work.

1.2      JUSTIFICATION

So far it has been discovered from the analysis of previous research that many a researcher, who have carried research works  on this particular aspect of pragmatics and its use on political posters have left some unresolved issues which we hope to clarify. Previous or past works on this matter need be advanced with the hope that future researchers would find it worthwhile in making reference to this work as a stepping stone. The manipulation of language as pointed out in the work of Mey (2001, p308) in his publication Pragmatics: An Introduction is an issue that need be corrected. The author seems to view utterance (what he referred to as ‘manipulation’) from the negative aspect. It must be stated that not all manipulation of language are of diabolic intention. Mey (2001) gave limited information which we hope to expand. Conversely, this present work will take a deeper look at the utterance of political posters (i.e. word captions, pictures, and headlines etc), their pragmatic meaning and implication on the hearers.

1.3       THE SCOPE OF THE STUDY     

         There are many aspect of pragmatics in different fields, delving into all its parts in entire will be too daunting for this research work. It is, therefore, necessary to limit our research to a more specific unit. Herein, we make use of Leech’s (1983) Principles of Pragmatics as we attempt to define, describe, analyse, explain and subsume the core aspects of pragmatics. This will, in no small way, help our understanding of some selected political posters i.e. applying those pragmatic features on samples of political newspaper headlines, pictures, captions etc entailing how meanings are decoded from them.

1.4      METHODOLOGY

      The data of choice as used in this research work would be from randomly selected samples of political posters. By this, we mean deploying pragmatic elements, rules ad theories to captions, pictures etc in political aspect. These data material are randomly selected. We analyse them (i.e. the posters), the language and the affect they are trying to draw from the readers or hearers; the information they convey to the readership etc. we examine the level of understanding these political posters.

1.5    DATA DESCRIPTION

     The data of choice for our analysis focuses on the events building up to the 2011 elections, the presidency state visits, and legal tussle that characterised the previous election held in Nigeria. All these data were imprinted in the pages of newspapers that fall within the year 2010.

Majority of these data, seven of them precisely, were randomly selected from the THE NATION newspaper. Two of them were taken from THE VANGUARD newspaper. A datum was taken from THE SUN newspaper. The imprinted political posters in these daily newspapers were randomly analysed. We apply the pragmatic elements on these data wherever applicable.

The next chapter shall deal with the theoretical aspect of pragmatics and the various postulations about pragmatics.