A DISCOURSE ANALYSIS OF JESUS’ CONVERSATION WITH THE SAMARITAN WOMAN
ABSTRACT
It is a known fact that Discourse Analysis is the analysis of language in use. This work showed how discourse analysis and pragmatic elements can be used in decoding facts and foregrounded information in the Holy Bible especially Jesus’ conversation with the Samaritan woman. The discourse elements such as: participants, context, turn-taking, exchange structure, reference, presupposition, inference, intention were used to bring out the foregrounded information in the conversation.In conclusion, we were able to show that addressee deduced or inferred more information from addressor’s utterance beyond what the original intention might have been.
TABLE OF CONTENT
Title page i
Certification ii
Dedication v
Acknowledgment vi
Abstract vii
CHAPTER ONE
- General Introduction 1
- Purpose 2
- Scope and delimitation 2
- Justification 3
- Methodology 3
CHAPTER TWO
2.1 Introduction 4
2.2 Discourse 4
2.3 Discourse Analysis 5
2.4 Elements of discourse analysis 8
2.4.1Participants 8
2.4.2 Context 8
2.4.3 Turn-taking 11
2.4.4 Exchange structure 12
2.4.4.1 Initiation, response and feedback 12
2.4.4.2 Adjacency pairs 13
2.4.5 Topic 13
2.5 Pragmatic concepts of discourse 14
2.5.1 Presupposition 14
2.5.2 Implicature 15
2.5.3 Reference 17
2.5.4 Inference 18
2.5.5 Intention 18
2.6 Data description 19
2.6.1 Jesus Christ 20
2.6.2 The Samaritan woman 20.
CHAPTER THREE
3.1 Introduction 21
3.2 Datum 1 21
3.3 Datum 2 27
3.4 Datum 3 31
CHAPTER FOUR
4.1 Summary 37
4.2 Findings 38
Bibliography 41
CHAPTER ONE
- GENERAL INTRODUCTION
Over the years, several researches have been conducted in the field of discourse analysis with various definitions given to it. Brown and Yule (1983:1) opine that “the analysis of discourse is necessarily the analysis of language in use”.
Ambiguity is the word used by Stubb (1993:1) to describe discourse analysis. He says; “the term discourse analysis is very ambiguous…to refer to mainly the linguistic analysis of naturally occurring connected spoken or written discourse”.
Cooks (1996:1) argues that “although the main focus of discourse analysis is on language, it is not concerned with language alone. It also examines the concept of communication”.
Discourse analysis has been applied to the analysis of many literary works by scholars. Cooks (1996) uses discourse analysis to analyze advertisement. Woods (2006) examines the discourse of advertising, politics, law, medicine and the discourse of education respectively. Laniru (2010) uses it for “who wants to be a millionaire,” a television program in Nigeria.
This investigation is an attempt to take discourse analysis some steps further, using its basic elements such as turn taking, exchange structure, context, participants and so on, alongside some pragmatic features to make explicit the implicit aspect of the interaction between our participants, Jesus and the Samaritan woman as recorded in John chapter four of the holy Bible. Our expectation is that this will give a better understanding and insight into the conversation.
1.2 PURPOSE OF THE STUDY
The Holy Bible is one of the most sought after books in the world today. Jesus Christ who has His name or image as the central subject of discourse from Genesis to Revelation is possibly the most mentioned name in the universe. However, the interpretation of many of the teachings, conversation and events he partook in, are being subjected to diverse meaning explication by several people both in the field of religion and outside religion.
