INVESTIGATION INTO THE DISCOURSE FEATURES IN FEMI OSOFISAN’S MIDNIGHT HOTEL
CHAPTER ONE
- INTRODUCTION
Language is the only unique endowment from God to humans, which makes us totally different from other creatures. Though, these other creatures have a language, yet they do not communicate exactly the same way as humans do.
Discourse, an aspect of language, to the discourse analysts, means actual instances of communicative action, using language. Discourse is not absolutely focused on language as an abstract system. It is seen as linguistic communication involving transaction between a speaker and hearer in an interpersonal activity in which its form is determined by its social purpose.
Discourse can be in the form of conversation, it may also be in written or spoken form. Discourse for instance, deals with spoken language, which occurs naturally, such as interviews, conversations, speeches and commentaries. Examples of written discourse include essays, chapters in a book, road signs and notices, etc. Discourse analysis on the other hand is a systematic examination of discourse focusing on the constituent units and structures of sentences of specific texts that is, grammatical relations such as subject-verb-object, up to the level of text.
Conversation, another type of discourse, as has been mentioned in this section is an example of discourse. Conversation generally involves an exchange between two or more people in which each participant may produce more than one utterance and each contribution builds upon previous contributions either directly or indirectly.
Dramatic texts are made up of conversations, more technically referred to as dialogues. This research will study some of the conversations in Midnight Hotel by Femi Osofisan to show its relevance to culture, and religion. In achieving this, discourse tools like role-sharing, adjacency pairs, discourse markers, presupposition, implicature and most importantly, context will be used to achieve a coherent discourse analysis of the dramatic text.
- AIMS AND OBJECTIVES
This research primarily aims to investigate the discourse features in Femi Osofisan’s Midnight Hotel. Its objectives are:
- To give a clear picture of how discourse analyses can be used in the interpretation of texts.
- To show that conversations need to conform to the context of the interaction.
- To bring to the awareness of the keen observer, the pattern of conversations.
- To give a sound knowledge of such techniques on which effective conversation can be built.
