Conversations in Hausa: Analysis of Openings and Closings in Hausa Conversations

Citation: Umar AHMED (2018). Conversations in Hausa: Analysis of Openings and Closings in Hausa Conversations. Yobe Journal of Language, Literature and Culture (YOJOLLAC), Vol. 6. Department of African Languages and Linguistics, Yobe State University, Damaturu, Nigeria. ISSN 2449-0660

CONVERSATIONS IN HAUSA: ANALYSIS OF OPENINGS AND CLOSINGS IN HAUSA CONVERSATIONS

Umar AHMED

Abstract

This paper analyzes openings and closings in Hausa telephone conversations within the framework of Conversation Analysis (CA). The purpose is to determine how openings and closings in Hausa conversations fall within what is universal and language specific about conversations. The data was collected through tape recording of conversations of some Hausa speakers in Sokoto, north-western Nigeria. The results of the study show that Hausa conversational openings are where participants identify and display recognition of each other. Closings on the other hand, are where undertakings are done, agreements are reached (or not), farewells are passed, well wishes and gratitude or appreciations are expressed, assurances are given, insertions of mentionables are made, reinvocations of certain sorts of materials talked of earlier in the conversation are made. The study shows and indeed concludes that conversational openings and conversational closings constitute two independent as well as interrelated sections of Hausa conversations which are carried out through the use of certain speech activities described in the study.

1.0 Introduction

Conversational Openings (COs) and Conversational Closings (CCs) occur at opposite ends of a conversation; the Opening occurs at the beginning and the Closing occurs at the end of a conversation, and they provide means of entering into and exiting from conversations. The Opening part of a conversation allows participants to become mutually accessible to one another and thus, further interaction becomes possible and, the Closing allows conversationalists to smoothly conclude their interaction (Schiffrin, 1977; Omar, 1993). As commonplace and as obvious as these speech activities may seem, they still have their own formulae and conventions (Abdul, 2003), which can vary according to different cultural and social settings. Jeffs and Smith (1999) observe that many people find conversations difficult to handle not because of abnormality in such persons, but because they lack some level of competence that we use and rely on to sustain conversational cooperation. It is thus, important to note that there are “slots” in conversations where specific kinds of speech activities are appropriate or expected. It can also be posited that conversations are orderly and this orderliness is seen as the product of systematic deployment of specifiable interactional “devices” or “systems” that are used by participants to successfully enter into and exit from conversations (Abdul, 2001).

Definitely, entering into a conversation with someone on any topic at all requires an opening. Conversational Openings bear a significant influence on the rest of the conversational exchanges (Loveday, 1982), because it is with their use that the relationships between the participants is set. In fact, it is during the opening sequence that we evaluate each other and judge whether further interaction is possible.

Similarly, a conversation does not simply end, but is brought to a close (Sacks 1974). Such closings are not as simple as they may seem: they are socially problematic (see Traugott and Pratt, 1980), because the person initiating the closing may likely go contrary to his partner’s expectation or wish. Moving to end a conversation may be interpreted to mean that one does not wish for the conversation to continue and as Cameron (2001) points out, it could imply that the company of the other is either not being enjoyed or one chooses silence over continued talk and this can be face threatening. This perhaps, explains why some really find it difficult to get out of a conversation, as improper “exiting” can be embarrassing. In Hausa culture for instance, a person who abruptly terminates a conversation without using the correct signals may be seen as being unfriendly or even ill-mannered. As such, withdrawal from conversations must be handled with care, so that it will not convey an improper evaluation or generate misinterpretation. It should also, be able to forestall comments like “he left me in the middle of our conversation without saying a word” Abdul (2003, p. 5).

As an important aspect of discourse, conversations in Hausa have been studied by many researchers (e.g. Abdul, 2001, 2003; Muhammad, 2007; & Ahmed, 2010). However, much as studies on conversations in Hausa exist, there is hardly any attempt to study openings and closings in Hausa face-to-face conversations. Hence, this study attempts to fill the gap. Using data collected through tape recording of conversations of some Hausa speakers in Sokoto (northwestern Nigeria), the study examines how conversational openings and conversational closings are carried out and signaled in Hausa language. It does this by employing the techniques of Conversation Analysis (hereafter CA) to analyze the ways in which our subjects (i.e. Hausa speakers) enter into and exit from conversations. CA is a linguistic research paradigm concerned with the study of how people structure their talk and the social order of such talk as obtained in different cultural and social settings (Woofitt, 2005). The focus of much CA work is on the competences which people use and rely on to co-construct orderly and mutually understandable courses of action in conversations. This makes the framework of CA very suitable for the present study, which seeks to show how Hausa speakers enter into and exit from conversations. The purpose is to determine how openings and closings in Hausa conversations fall within what is universal and language specific about openings and closings in conversations.

The paper is organized as follows: section 1 introduces the topic of the discussion. It also discusses conversations as an aspect of discourse. Section 2 provides a review of some relevant previous studies on openings and closings in conversations. The data and research methodology employed in the study are described in section 3. While the analysis of the data form the subject matter of section 4. Section 5 concludes the discussion.

1.1 Conversations as an Aspect of Discourse

The term “conversation” has been described in the literature as “dialogue, “chat” (Schegloff, 1968), and “talk” (Speier, 1972; Cook 1989). It has thus been viewed variously by different linguists and researchers. Schegloff (1968), in what might be seemed to be an ambitious definition sees conversations as “all shades of the state of talk” Schegloff (1968, p. 1076). By this definition, conversation is seen as an umbrella term covering almost all kinds of informal speech activities such as dialogue and chat. However, to Speier (1972), conversations are a special class of a larger class of phenomena called “talk”. A talk, Cook (1989) argues, can only be seen as as a conversation if unequal power of participants is partially suspended, turns at talk are small, the talk is for the participants not for the outside audience and also, it is not primarily necessitated by a practical task (Cook 1989).

More formally and explicitly, a conversation is considered as that familiar predominant kind of talk in which two or more participants freely alternate in speaking and which generally occurs outside specific institutional settings like religious services, law courts, classrooms and the like (Levinson, 1983).

Wardhaugh (2002) identifies certain characteristics of a conversation which include repetitions, simple active sentences, speaker-listener combining to construct propositions, stringing of clauses together or the juxtapositions of clauses with no overt links at all, deletion of subjects and referents, and the use of deictics (e.g. this, that, here, there, etc). He further identifies conversation as unplanned, unpredictable and unedited speech activity (Wardhaugh, 2002).

In engaging in conversation we draw upon our communicative competence which is our innate knowledge of the abstract rules of a language. Such competence, Schiffrin (1988) notes, includes knowledge of the linguistic and related communicative conventions that the speaker must have to create in order to sustain conversational cooperation (Abdul, 2001).

And, in the course of our everyday conversations, these communicative conventions or rituals are used between people (Ferguson, 1976), and they are often regarded as falling among the most conventionalized and perfunctory doings we engage (Abdul, 2001; 2003), and because such activities have become so routinised, we tend to see them as obvious, given or natural. However, as soon as we begin to think deeply about it, we can see that it is a “sophisticated activity” which is certainly not only the most frequent for most people (see McCarthy, 1991), but also often times, the most difficult to venture into (see Sacks, 1978).

As obvious, given or natural as conversational encounters seem to be, they still have their own formulae and conventions (Abdul, 2003), which we follow. For example, Ahmed (2010) observes that in Hausa culture a person who wants to initiate a conversation is expected to start with a greeting or a phatic inquiry for instance, which can take different forms depending on the setting and power relations between the participants.

2.0 Review of Literature on Openings and Closings in Conversations

This section provides reviews of some previous studies on Conversational Openings (COs) and Conversational Closings (CCs) carried out in some languages and cultures.

2.1 Studies on Conversational Openings

Of all the studies conducted on Conversational Openings, Schegloff and Sacks’s (1973) work is the most authoritative and comprehensive. These researchers show that English Conversational Openings usually start with an adjacency pair, such as Hello! Hi! This pairing is often followed by a post-opening, such as How are you? Post openings are the elements that come between the greeting and the main body of a conversation. Similarly, Loveday (1982) observes that English speakers do open up conversations with expressions like, “How awful?” or “How nice the weather is today?”

Irvine’s (1974) study of Conversational Openings in Wolof (a language spoken in Senegal) shows that participants clearly take two dissimilar roles: the Initiator/Questioner and the Respondent. The Initiator/Questioner is usually a person of lower status. As a result of the status association of the Conversational Openings, she observes that two persons who are going to engage in an encounter must place themselves in an unequal ranking. They must come to some agreement about which party is to take the high status role and which one takes the lower status role.

In Kiswahili, a major African language spoken in East and Central Africa, Omar (1993) notes that Conversational Openings are initiated by using features some of which are optional and others are mandatory. These features are: (i) a unique opening hodi (knock) and its response karibu (welcome), (ii) an expression of joy or calling out a would-be-interlocutor’s name, (iii) a general salutation (iv), a sequence of respectful greeting and, (v) recursive sequences of phatic inquiries and phatic responses. She also notes that where there is a socially significant age difference, the younger participant initiates the opening and the older participant responds and adopts the role of Questioner, whereas same age participants compete for the Questioner role.

In Hausa, Muhammad (2007) examines the structure of Hausa conversations, he identifies Hausa conversations as a tripartite speech activity consisting of an opening segment, the body and closing part. Similarly, Abdul (2001) investigates turn-taking mechanisms in Hausa conversations. His research shows that conversations in Hausa are orderly and follow particular patterns. More recently, Ahmed (2010) studies telephone conversations in Hausa in which he identifies certain features which makes Hausa telephone conversations relatively different from face-to-face interactional activities.

2.2 Studies on Conversational Closings

The terms “parting”, “farewell” (Firth, 1972) and “leave taking” (Clark and French, 1981) have been used in the literature to represent that part of conversation referred to as Conversational Closing in this paper. Studies on conversations in English (e.g Schegloff and Sacks, 1973; Loveday, 1982) show that conversational closing often ends with an adjacency pair called terminal pair/exchange (e.g. Bye-Goodbye). However, before this terminal pair, speakers often attempt to shut down the topic, that is, complete closing by using pre-closing elements such as: “Well, it was nice talking to you” or “I’ll talk to you later” (Schegloff and Sacks, 1973; Bardovi-Harlig, et al, 1996).

In an analysis of Conversational Closings in Kiswahili, Omar (1992, 1993) shows that unlike English, in which closing features are rigidly ordered (Schegloff and Sacks, 1973), the order of features in Kiswahili Conversational Closings is not rigid, and the equivalent of “goodbye” is optional.

3.0 The Data and Methodology

The data used for this study was collected through tape recording forty conversations involving 40 Hausa men and women who have agreed to participate in the study. The participants comprises of low and middle class individuals residing in Sokoto, northwestern Nigeria. Their ages range from 20 to 50 years. Note that the participants comprises of both educated and uneducated speakers of the language. By educated, I mean western education. Note also that no research assistant was employed. All the recordings were done by the researcher through the use of a tape recorder. Consent of the subjects was sought one month before the recording of the conversations. This was done in order to prevent what is called the “Hawthorne effect” Wray, Trott, & Bloomer, (1998, p. 163), which can make the participants become negatively or positively involved, thinking that they are involved in a study or getting special attention. Assurances were however given to them that the data obtained from them will be treated with the utmost confidentiality, and will be used for academic purposes only.

As we could not arrange how the recording of the conversations would go, the question of whose conversation was to be recorded had to be left to chance, in fact, to those who have agreed to participate in the study. We also, played the role of a participant observer by taking on the spots notes of “if drop data”, as well as, the context of the conversations. The data collected was transcribed, translated and analyzed, as discussed in the following section.

4.0 Data analysis

As our concern is the commencement of talk and closure, we restricted our discussion on the first utterances that sparks off the entire conversational exchanges and the sequence which seems to signal the end of a talk and the complete closing of a conversation, as discussed in the sub-section that follows.

4.1 Conversational Openings in Hausa

We observe that our subjects initiate a Conversational Opening by the use of one or more of the following opening strategies shown in Table 1.

Table I. Opening up talk strategy prevalence in both home and street encounter settings.

S/N	STRATEGIES	OCCURRENCE	PERCENTAGE
1	The (Hausa Loaned) Arabic salutation	17	42.5%
2	Honorifics	10	25%
3	Vocatives	9	22.5%
4	Greetings	2	5%
5	Questioning	1	2.5%
6	Social remarks	1	2.5%
		40	100%

As can be seen in Table 1, certain discursive strategies seem to be used more often than others. For example, the strategies of the (Hausa loaned) Arabic salutation, honorifics and vocatives have occurred more than others in the data.

4.1.1 The Arabic Salutation

The Arabic salutation “Assalamu Alaikum” (peace be upon you) does not only shows the initiators gesture of friendship, but also of assurance that s/he is harmless and that all is well. It can also signal the initiator’s availability for talks. An example of this opening strategy is provided in the example below. Example 1 [D talks to B on a street]:

D: Assalamu Alaikum D: Peace be upon you

B: Wa’ alaikumu salam B: Peace be upon you too.

Sometimes, conversations are opened with a greeting as shown below.

Greetings such as Barka da Asuba (Good morning) and Barka da aiki (Well done), as demonstrated in example 2 where [N saw D cleaning the premises of a compound].

N: Sannu da aiki N: Well done

D: Yawwa! D: Thank you!

4.1.2 The Use of Honorifics

The use of honorifics is a mark of respect or politeness (Yakasai, 1989). It signals the high regards which the speaker has for the person addressed and the desire of the addresser to talk. Honorifics such as Ranka ya daɗe (“may you live long”), yallaɓai (“your highness”), maigida (“master”) can be used to open a conversation in Hausa as exemplified in the example below.

Example 3 [S sent for U and when U came utters]:

U: Ranka ya daɗe! M: May you live long!

S: Malam Musa. S: Malam Musa.

4.1.3 The Use of Vocatives

Vocatives (Quirk, Greenbaum, Leech, & Svartvick, 1985) expressed by verbal recognition in the form of calling out the name of the would-be-interlocutor at the start of a talk can select the person or party that should have the floor, as well as call his attention that he is about to be addressed, as example 4 below illustrates [U produces an expression of joy at calling the name of K who he met on a street].

U: Ka.(0.2) Kabiru! Yaushe a gari? U: K...(0.2) Kabiru! When did you arrive?

K: Tun jiya da rana  K: Since yesterday afternoon

U: Barka da zuwa!    U: You are welcome!

4.1.4 The Use of Questioning

Questioning strategy enables one to identify a potential talk mate as a way of inviting him or her to join the conversation. Questioning strategy such Ko mai gidan nan ya na nan? (Is the owner of this house in?) and Waa ke sallama? (Who is knocking the door?), as found in the data, were used to open conversations as demonstrated in the example below.

Example 5 [SH visits the house of SA who was her friend].

SH: Ko masu gidan nan na ciki? SH: Are you in?

SA: ah! Shafa ce. SA: ah! Is it Shafa [name of SH]

SH: eh! Ni ce. SH: yes! It is me.

Conversations in Hausa can also be opened by a social remark or an exchange of jokes to show that all is well with the interactants, as shown in example 6 [U visits I at home, on seeing U, I remarks]:

I: Manya ‘yan aji bakwai. I: The big one of standard seven.

Ganin ku sai an cika form. One that cannot be seen without any protocol.

Ashe ana ganin ku. So, it is possible to see you.

U: Hmm! Inno ke nan. U: Hmm! that’s Inno.

One common feature of Conversational Openings in Hausa is Phatic Inquiries and Phatic Replies/Responses which often followed Opening sequence. Phatic Inquiries and Phatic Replies/Responses serve as post-opening elements that often come between the first utterances that spark off the conversation and the business tier/section or body of the conversation. A Phatic inquiry can be described as a ritualized inquiry after the interlocutor’s well being, realized by a routine formula such as “How is your family”, “How is work?”, etc., and it has an eliciting discourse function. A Phatic Reply/Response on the other hand, is a ritualized response to a Phatic inquiry, eg. “Fine” or “I’m fine”. The presence of these aspects of discourse in Conversational Openings in Hausa often makes it elaborate, as shown in example 7 below.

A. Barka da yamma	A. Good evening
B: Ya aiki?	B: How are you coping with the work?
A: Alhamdulillahi. lafiya ƙalau	A: We thank God. I’m doing fine
A: Ka na nan ƙalau?	A: Are you fine?
B: Lafiya ƙalau. Ya yaara?	B: Very fine. How are your kids?
A: Lafiya ƙalau	A: Fine
B: Kwana biyu	B: Long time no see
A:Wallali kwana biyu kam.	A: Yes, it has been long indeed.
B: Ya hidimomi?	B: How are things?

4.2 Conversational Closings in Hausa

Our data on conversational closings in Hausa reveal that closings are generally places where undertakings are done, agreements are reached (or not), farewells are passed, well wishes and gratitudes or appreciations are expressed, assurances are given, insertions of mentionables are made, reinvocations of certain sorts of materials talked of earlier in the conversation are made, inquiries about the health and well-being of a participant’s family or friends are made, and arrangements for future encounters are secured (or blocked). Closings in Hausa conversations can be initiated by the use of pre-closing and complete closing strategies. Table 2 provides some stratistics on pre-closing strategies observed in the data.

Table II: showing pre-closing strategy prevalence in both home and street encounter settings.

S/N	STRATEGIES	OCCURRENCE	PERCENTAGE
1	Pre closing items	15	37.5%
2	Declaration to leave	8	20%
3	Appreciations & thanks giving	6	15%
4	Future undertakings	4	10%
5	Expression of continuation	3	7.5%
6	Prayers	3	7.5%
7	Phatic Inquiries	1	2.5%
		40	100%

As it can be seen from the table above, the strategies of pre-closing items, declaration to leave and of course, appreciations and thanks giving feature more prominently than other pre-closing strategies. Pre-closing items like “alright”, “well” signal that the speaker is exhausted and want the listener to accept the invitation for closure. Declaration to leave is used deliberately though politely to announce the suspension of talk or leave-taking which will lead to closure. Another prominent pre-closing strategy, though, it does not rank high in this preliminary study, is showing appreciations or thanks giving to the listener for his company. This gesture is capable of signaling that speaker’s purpose of the talk has been achieved and so the conversation should be brought to a close since mission accomplished or agreement has been reached.

Closings in Hausa telephone conversations are initiated through the use of some pre-closing strategies. Pre-closings are the cues that may lead to the securement of closure of a conversation. Below are some pre-closing strategies we observed in our data.

Example 8: By expressing future undertakings

B: Za a gyara insha Allahu	B:God’s willing, it will be corrected
A: Tau ya yi, na gode Malam	A: It’s alright, thank you, Sir.

Example 9: By expressing futurity

A: Tau zamu haɗu in an- jima.	A: Well, We’ll see later.
B: Tau ya yi.	B: It’s Okay.

Example 10: By using items such as “O.K,” “alright”

B: Tau, zan shiga ran Friday zan je weekend	B: Okay, I will be going there on Friday for weekend
A: Tau ya yi.	A: It’s alright.

Example 11: By using finality tokens

A: Shike nan.	A: That’s all.
B: Ok toh ya yi, sai ka shigo ɗin.	B: O.k it’s alright, see you when you come.
A: Tau shike nan	A: Okay, that’s all.

Example 12: By expressing futurity

A: Zaka shigo ko? Ko sai next week ɗin?	A: Are you coming? Or until next week?
B: Ah! sai Friday zan shigo gaskiya don=	B: Oh! until Friday before I may come because =
A: =Tau sai a haka nan ɗin	A: = Okay, see you then
B: Madallah	B: Thanks

Example 13: By saying or conjoining in a prayer

A: Tau Allah ka taimake mu	A: May God help us.
B: Amin, amin. Toh, sai an jima	B: Ameen, ameen. Alright, see you later.

Example 14: By re-opening of the closing bid

A: Ya kowa da kowa?	A: How is everyone?
B: Lafiya ƙalau.	B: Fine
A: Kuna lafiya ko?	A: Are you all fine?
B: Lahiya ƙalau.	B: We are fine.

Example 15: By thanking the other party

A: Toh, shike nan. Thank you very much =	B: It’s alright. Thank you very Much =
B: = Lallai da ya dawo zan ba shi file ɗin.	A: = Sure once he comes back I will give him the file
A: Toh ba komai. Thank you very much	A: It’s alright. Thank you very Much
B: It’s O.K. Na gode	B: It’s O.K. Thanks
A: Na gode ni ma.	A: Thank you too

Example 16: By expressing well wishes

A: Tau Allah ya kai ka lafiya.	A: Safe journey.
B: Tau amin. amin. Na gode ƙwarai.	B: Ameen. ameen. Thanks a lot.

4.3 Complete Closing Strategies

Complete closing strategies terminate a conversation. Some of the strategies observed in the data include: farewells, well-wishes and finality tokens (see Table 3). These strategies were used to completely close conversations in both home and street encounter settings.

Table 3. Complete Closing Strategies

S/N	STRATEGIES	OCCURRENCE	PERCENTAGE
1	Farewells	27	67.5%
2	Well-wishes	11	27.5%
3	Finality tokens	2	5%
		40	100%

4.3.1 The Use of Farewells

The use of farewells signals to the listener that the speaker enjoys his company and is looking forward to another enjoyable, fruitful encounter in the future as this one has ended. According to Abdul (2002), the expression of satisfaction that the encounter has been acceptable, is assumed to have been achieved when all parties have demonstrated unequivocally that they have all hit upon the same target to withdraw from the conversation. Expression of farewells by both parties therefore, seems to express their appeasement that the talk can end at that point in time. This can be seen in example 17 below.

SH: Toh, sai anjiman ku SH: Alright, we’ll see later.

SA: Toh, sai anjima Shafa’atu. SA: Well, we’ll see later Shafa’atu.

4.3.2 The Expression of Futurity

One way of getting conversation terminated which has rank high in our data is the expression of futurity. Speakers, who want to terminate a conversation, particularly where the co-interlocutor have declined to initiate such closure, do deliberately; though politely announce the suspension of the talk which will lead to closure. Such announcements as found in our data include: “we shall talk more tomorrow,” “when we meet next we will discuss it,” as exemplified in example 18 below.

B: Zan zo Insha Allahu	B: God’s willing, I will come
A: Toh	B: Okay
B: Thank you	B: Thank you

4.3.3 The Use of Well Wishes

The expression of well wishes may be used to signal the utterer’s conviction that the end of a conversation has come and that it has been nice talking with the other party. Well-wishes endear participants to each other. A well-wish also, signals the desire and expectation for future talks. To wish another well is to pray that he is kept in good living so that next encounter can be possible, as can be seen in example 19 below.

A: Sai da safe. A: Good night.

K: Toh, mu kwal lafiya. K: May we sleep well.

5.0 Conclusion

This paper has examined how Hausa speakers (in Sokoto, north-western Nigeria) initiate and handle openings and closings in conversations. We went into the field, collected data by tape- recording people’s conversations and taking on the spots notes of “if drop data”, as well as, the contexts of the interaction of our subjects. Our findings show that Hausa people are capable of initiating and handling conversational openings and closings. In entering into or exiting from a conversation, they employ some strategies which enable them to successfully initiate and handle conversational openings and closings. The results of the study show that Hausa conversational openings are where participants identify and display recognition of each other. Closings on the other hand, are where undertakings are done, agreements are reached (or not), farewells are passed, well wishes and gratitude or appreciations are expressed, assurances are given, insertions of mentionables are made, reinvocations of certain sorts of materials talked of earlier in the conversation are made. The study shows and indeed concludes that conversational openings and conversational closings constitute two independent as well as interrelated sections of Hausa conversations which are carried out through the use of certain speech activities described in the study.

The study has thus contributed to the literature on conversations across cultures, as it shows how openings and closings in Hausa face-to-face conversations fall within what is universal and language specific about openings and closings in conversations.

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