Citation: Eric Ganan PAM & Pam Bitrus MARCUS (2021). Enhancing Peaceful Co-Existence Through the Use of the Pragmatic Theory of Irony Principle. Yobe Journal of Language, Literature and Culture (YOJOLLAC), Vol. 9, Issue 1. Department of African Languages and Linguistics, Yobe State University, Damaturu, Nigeria. ISSN 2449-0660
ENHANCING
PEACEFUL CO-EXISTENCE THROUGH THE USE OF THE PRAGMATIC THEORY OF IRONY PRINCIPLE
Eric Ganan
PAM
Pam Bitrus
MARCUS
Abstract
Peaceful
co-existence is one of the veritable tools of addressing inevitable human
challenges such as conflict. In the light of this, there is the need to explore
avenues of addressing conflicts in order to ensure peaceful co-existence. The
purpose of the study is to establish the effectiveness of the Irony Principle
as a linguistic and stylistics device in peaceful co-existence in the face of
conflicts. Data for the study are collected from Chinua Achebe’s A Man of
the People. The analysis is based on Discourse Analysis with Geoffrey Leech’s
Politeness Principle and H.P Grice’s Theory of Communication, which he (Grice)
calls the Cooperative Principle. Findings show that the Irony Principle is
significant in view of the fact that through it, criticisms, insults and
displeasures are politely made or expressed. These usages of the Irony
Principle bring about a friendly atmosphere thereby preventing conflicts where
possible. In some instances, it is used under friendly atmosphere to serve as a
shield against possible eruption of conflict and aggression. The paper
concludes that by appealing to the Irony Principle during communication, the
wall of friendship will be consolidated. Thus, the paper recommends, among
others, that interlocutors in general and leaders in particular (political,
religious, community, traditional, etc.) should maximize its usage.
Keywords: Peace, Discourse Analysis,
Irony, Conflict, Discourse Analysis, Communication, Politeness Principle
1.0 Introduction
Language is the
tool with which human beings interact and exchange ideas without which they
will not be different from other kinds of animals. It involves the use of
arbitrary sounds symbolizing ideas, actions and things which are conveyed or
transmitted through communication. Language can be said to be a systematic way
of communicating ideas or feelings by the use of signs, sounds, gestures, etc.
The place of language in peace enhancement has been further buttressed by
Onwuchei (2012, p.79) that “Among the various means of communication, language
is one of the most important, and, therefore, wrong usage can lead to serious
avoidable complications in human relationships, thereby contributing
meaningfully to peace or its absence in a given community and in given
situations.”
Communication,
on its part, is “the entire process through which the source purposely conveys
messages inform of information, experience, ideas, facts, beliefs, attitudes
and predisposition to the receiver” (Mandonget al. 2011, p. 99). Three main
components can be used to summarize the process of communication: Somebody
(source), something (message) and someone (receiver). It is important to note
that human existence without the Siamese twins of language and communication
will indeed, be unthinkable.
Adequate
understanding of the nature of language use will be difficult without
understanding the concept of pragmatics. Pragmatics, like syntax, morphology,
phonology and semantics, is an aspect of language which entails knowledge of
the social context. In other words, it is concerned with the relationship
between sentences, written or spoken, to the environment or context in which
they are used. In pragmatics, interpretation is not based on word or sentence
meaning (which is the thrust of semantics) but on speaker meaning. Pragmatics
is very important because it bridges the gap created by semantics and because
it is quite possible for an interlocutor to pass across a message which has
nothing to do with the words of the sentence (Kempson, 1970). It is indeed
needed for a full, deep and generally more reasonable account of human language
behaviour.
An additional
advantage of pragmatics is that it employs the concept of irony as an indirect
form of communication. The concept of irony “involves conveying not the direct
literal meaning of the utterance in question, but its opposite” (Sequeiros
2019, p. 6). From a pragmatic theory point of view, this indirectness creates
an extra cognitive effort that would be required to unveil the meaning of the
utterance and the irony principle would be needed to provide the requisite
cognitive effects.
To illustrate
this, consider how pragmatic meaning is relative to a speaker of the language
in the sentence in (1) below where there is a background knowledge that Mr.
Paul is indebted to Mr. John or Mr. John had previously threatened to kill Mr.
Paul.
(1) Sentence: John will arrive
in five minutes.
Pragmatic meaning: Run away
In some cases,
however, pragmatic interpretation does not require background knowledge.
Consider the illustration in (2).
(2) John: Nigeria and Cameroon
play good football
Peter: Cameroon plays good
football.
2.1 Peaceful Co-Existence: An
Insight
Peaceful
co-existence is a state of tranquility, a state of security or order within a
community provided for by law and custom, harmony in personal relations (Gumut,
2016). It involves the people of a community staying devoid of acrimony.
The Nigerian
society is such that speakers of Igbo, Yoruba, Hausa and the over 200 other
ethnicities have to interact with one another. They have different cultures,
interests, religions, likes, dislikes, aspirations, etc., hence it is normal to
have misunderstandings now and then as rightly pointed out by Walter (1992, p.
1) that “conflict is a phenomenon that is an important part of human existence
and a natural part of our daily lives”. Also, David (2016, p. 30) asserts that
“conflict is an intrinsic and inevitable part of human existence… it is the
pursuit of incompatible interests and goals by different groups”.
From the above
positions, therefore, the fact that conflict is a part and parcel of human
existence means that efforts at peace making and indeed peaceful co-existence
should not only be intensified but be part of human existence. But
unfortunately, this is not so. Peace, according to David (2016, p. 34), is “the
prime value in contemporary Africa today, the most valuable ‘public good’ but
the most elusive”.
3.1 Theoretical Framework
Theoretical framework is aimed at establishing
an organized or systematic base for the research work. H.P Grice’s Pragmatic
Theory of Communication and Geoffrey Leech’s Pragmatic Theory of Politeness
Principle were employed in view of their interplay with the Irony Principle. In
fact, the Irony Principle can only be explained through the Cooperative
Principle and the Politeness Principle.
Halliday formulated the Interpersonal Rhetoric
under which are the Irony Principle (formulated by Leech), the Cooperative
Principle (formulated by Grice) and the Political Principle (formulated by
Leech) and there is a frequent interplay among these subdivisions.
The Cooperative Principle has four maxims:
· Quantity: Give the right amount of information i.e.
i. Make your contribution as
informative as is required.
ii. Do not make your
contribution more informative than is required.
· Quality: Try to make your contribution one that is true i.e.
i. Do not say what you
believe is false
ii. Do not say that for which
you lack adequate evidence.
· Relevant: Be relevant (stay on topic)
· Manner: Be perspicuous i.e.
i. Avoid obscurity of
expression
ii. Avoid ambiguity
iii. Be brief (avoid
unnecessary prolixity)
iv. Be orderly
Politeness,
according to Leech, concerns a relationship between two participants whom he
calls ‘self’ and ‘other’, the latter referring to the second or third party.
Leech proposed six maxims under politeness principle, which all, in different
ways, recommend the expression of polite beliefs in interlocutions:
· Tact maxim
a. Minimize cost to other
b. Maximize benefit to self
· Generosity maxim
a. Minimize dispraise of other
b. Maximize praise of other
· Approbation maxim
a. Minimize dispraise of other
b. Maximize praise of other
· Modesty maxim
a. Minimize praise of self
b. Maximize dispraise of self
· Agreement maxim
a. Minimize disagreement
between self and other
b. Maximize agreement between
self and other
· Sympathy maxim
a. Minimize antipathy between
self and other
b. Maximize sympathy between
self and other
Note that the
maxims are just behavioural conventions and not absolute rules, hence they are
often violated. Grice calls such quiet violation (when the violation is not
obvious at the time the utterance is made) and open flouting (when the
violation is not obvious at the time the utterance is made)
3.2 Irony
Principle in Pragmatics: A Conceptual Analysis
In general
sense, irony is a technique in which characters and situations are treated in
such a way as to show incongruities between appearance and reality, intention
and achievements. Irony involves surprising, interesting and amusing
contradictions.
There are four
forms of irony are which are:
- Verbal Irony (or rhetorical Irony): This involves a discrepancy
between what is said and what is really meant.
- Dramatic Irony: The audience knows more about a character’s
situation than the character knows, foreseeing an outcome contrary to the
character’s expectations.
- Situational Irony (or Irony of Situation): Discrepancy between the
expected result and actual result.
- Cosmic Irony (or Irony of Fate): God or fate manipulates events to
inspire false hopes which are eventually dashed. (Baldick, 1990, p. 187)
The Theory of
Irony Principle which falls under Verbal Irony formulated by Leech (1983, p.82)
states that: “If you must cause an offence, at least do so in a way which
doesn’t overtly conflict with the politeness principle but allows the hearer to
arrive at the offensive point of your remarks directly or indirectly”. The
Irony Principle involves a situation where a speaker says something but means
another in such a way that he is impolite but appears to be polite. The idea is
that the speaker intends to cause an offence but tactfully allows the hearer to
gradually realize the offensive point.
The Irony
Principle is a stylistic device that enables a speaker to bring two meanings
into open conflict; the first meaning (literal) appears to be truth, but an
underlying or hidden meaning (figurative) unfolds as the intended meaning. It
is one of the 3 sub-divisions of the Interpersonal Rhetoric (Leech,1983, p.
82), the other two being cooperative principle and politeness principle to
survive. This means that the Irony Principle can only be explained from the
perspective of the Politeness Principle. It can be explained in direct relation
to their role in effective interpersonal communication.
The Theory of
Politeness Principle emphasizes polite linguistic behavior while the Theory of
Cooperative Principle formulated by Grice (which is conversational) posits that
interlocutors try to cooperate to construct meaningful conversations. The
maxims under politeness principle are tact, generosity, approbation, modesty,
agreement and sympathy while those under the cooperative principle are
quantity, quality, relevance and manner.
Understanding
the Irony Principle requires a complex act of interpretation; not just an
interpretation of words uttered but also of inference of unstated meaning, and
an understanding of the relationship between the two (Ibeanu, 2016). Irony
Principle can thus be summed up as insincere politeness expressed to achieve a
goal. It is important to note that the ironic force of a remark is often marked
by understatement or overstatement, thereby making it difficult to interpret
the remark at superficial level.
A common
feature that connects the diverse classes of irony presented in the foregoing
paragraph is that a relationship of complicity emerges between the speaker and
listener. It is in this light that Garmendia (2015) contends that:
when an
expression is echoed with an ironical attitude, the speaker forces the hearer
to construct meaning in common, in a pleasant game that highlights the
complicity between both of them. Irony reinforces the relationship between
interlocutors, activates points of view and shared knowledge, cements their
affinities. (Garmendia, 2015, p. 15).
Illustratively,
Reyes (1994, p. 54) posited that the context of certain utterances compels a
statement to be interpreted ironically as illustrated in (3) where a similar
ironical interpretation is evoked when Mr. Habu says to Mr. Yusuf after
witnessing a mother losing patience with her children:
(3) How wonderful it is to
have children!
In (3) Mr. Habu
uses a description that is not appropriate with the scene of the communication
and the utterance will be interpreted ironically by Mr. Yusuf. The statement of
Mr. Habu implicitly echoes the kind of statement that relates to“loving parents”
as such, Mr. Habu invariably disassociates himself from the opinion conveyed.
In such a communication scene, Mr. Yusuf will obviously have to implore extra
cognitive effort to derive the range of possible implicatures of ironical
interpretation of that statement such as in (4):
(4) a. Having children is not
always wonderful.
b. There are
parents who project their aggression on their children.
c. Mr. Habu
feels superior to parents who project their aggression on their children.
d. Mr. Habu is
conceivably thinking whether to have children and is considering what it might
be like.
e. Mr. Habu
believes that it might be a good idea to have children, although it could lead
him to project his aggressiveness on them.
The assumptions
in (4) could be part of the range of implicatures communicated by Mr. Habu,
albeit not all of them would fundamentally have to be intended with the same
degree of strength. Whilst it is possible for the statement to be either
strongly intended, weakly intended or even be the sole responsibility of the
hearer, it seems to suggest that in irony, the thoughts communicated are not
necessarily well constrained and delimited.
The last two
might be only weakly intended or may even be the sole responsibility of the
hearer. This seems to suggest that in irony the thoughts communicated are not
necessarily well circumscribed and delimited.
3.3
Methodology
This research is centered on the pragmatic
analysis of the usages of the Irony Principle. The Irony Principle is treated
as a figure of speech or tropes in Grice’s Theory of Communication, and it is
analyzed in a similar way as the overt flouting of the maxim quality (i.e.,
where hearers need to derive implicature in order to preserve the application
of the maxim). This implicature typically necessitates a contradictory
proposition that is connected to the utterance produced.
The study
examines four of its usage in relation to giving peace a chance. The method of
analysis is based on Discourse Analysis (the analysis of connected speech and
its relationship to the contexts in which they are used) using Leech (1983, p.
82) as a guide. Data adduced in the study are drawn Chinua Achebe’s A
Man of the People.
4.0 Irony Principle and Peace
Making
a.
Edna: He
will kill you if he finds you here
Odili: That
would be wonderful (P.104)
Edna uses a
hyperbolic utterance to scare Odili out of the house but Odili makes use of the
irony principle as a shield for peace. Odili’s response is a false form of
politeness and an open flouting of the maxim of quality of the Cooperative
Principle (Do not say what you believe is false). Thus, he has ‘lied’ in order
to appear polite and peaceful whereas Edna expectedly realizes the ironic
intent of the remark.
b.
Odo finds
Odili in their house after repeated warnings not to come and the conversation
below takes place:
Odo: Were
you not the one I told the other day not to come here again?
Odili: Yes
Odo: Wait
for me (P. 105)
Odo’s utterance
‘wait for me’ is loaded with irony as he does not mean that Odili should wait
for him. What he signifies is that before he returns, Odili should have left
the house. Thus Edna’s father has ‘lied’ thereby openly flouting the maxim of
quality as it is obvious to Odili, at that very time, in order to uphold the
politeness principle. Despite the fact that he hates Odili, he still feels that
Odili deserves some respect, perhaps due to his level of education. He has
other rude options like ‘Get out of her house!’ In other words, ‘Wait for me’
is a peaceful way of saying ‘Please leave my house.’
c.
Below is
an interlocution between Chief Nanga and Odili:
Chief Nanga:
They are going to give me doctoral degree. Doctor of Laws, LLD
Odili:
That’s great. Congratulations.
This
interlocution takes place during Chief Nanga’s visit to Anata Grammar School
where he once taught and where Odili, his former student, is now teaching.
Chief Nanga, who is a minister of culture, is boastful of an impending
conferment on him of an honorary doctorate degree in the United States of
America. Odili does not believe that Chief Nanga deserves the award as
background knowledge shows that he had strongly decried the unprecedented
reception being given Chief Nanga.
By replying
‘That’s great. Congratulations,’ Odili employs the irony principle to show
politeness and peaceful disposition as he does not mean what he says. He does
not feel that Chief Nanga deserves to be congratulated because he feels he has
done nothing to merit it. Odili’s reply is thus to politely show disdain and
disapproval for the sake of peace.
d.
When Chief
Nanga succeeds in seducing Elsie, (Odili’s girlfriend), an exchange of words
ensues:
Chief Nanga:
Is it about the girl? But you told me that you are not serious with her…and I
thought you were tired and had gone to sleep.
Odili: Look
here, Mr. Nanga, respect yourself…you have won today but watch it, I will have
the last laugh. (P.72)
The embattled
Odili makes use of irony principle through a metaphor. The meaning goes beyond
the surface meaning of ‘laughing’. He has failed to observe the maxims of
relation and quality. These open flouting of the maxims are done to maintain
politeness and peace.
e.
A:
The Igbos and Yorubas are peace loving.
B: The Igbos
are peace loving.
In the above,
background knowledge is insignificant in making inference of the Irony
Principle. Speaker B’s response is a deliberate attempt to suppress the fact
that the Yorubas are not peace loving in order to uphold the Politeness
Principle. B’s response is thus an open flouting of the maxim of quantity since
it is not as informative as it should be. This shows how the Irony Principle
can be explained in terms of the politeness principle and the cooperative
principle. ‘A’ will eventually realize the conversational implicature. ‘B’ has
politely told ‘A’ that the Yorubas are not peace loving.
Crystal (1987)
opines that pragmatics is concerned with the choice of language in social
interaction and the effect of the choice on others (p. 50). Though the choice
of language is the prerogative of the interlocutor, he must ensure that sense
is derived from the utterance, which semantically, may seem to be incomplete or
have a different meaning from what the speaker may intend.
5.0 Recommendations
This study has shown how the Irony Principle can help to enhance
peaceful co-existence and serve as a shield against conflicts. Interlocutors in
general and leaders in particular (political, religious, community,
traditional, etc.) should maximize its usage.
6.0 Conclusion
In this paper,
we have established the effectiveness of the irony principle as a mechanism in
peaceful co-existence. We have also shown its significance in closing the door
to conflict and aggression whenever human emotions, such as criticism, insults,
displeasure, disappointments, disapprovals, among others, are expressed. We
further established that by appealing to the Irony Principle during
communication, the wall of friendship is consolidated, and the possible
eruption of conflict and aggression are correspondingly prevented from any
possible eruption.
No man is an
island. Nigeria has people with different views, Ideas, races, principles,
interests, etc. hence it is natural to have conflicts. In other words,
conflicts are inherent in the human society and the use of the Irony Principle
i.e., polite linguistic behaviour helps to prevent conflict and enhances
peaceful co-existence.
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