A pragmatic analysis of a woman's talk: a case study of Agikuyu women speakers.

Abstract

Woman's language is characterized by condensed force of utterance and by avoidance of strong or aggressive language; it is also associated with natural indirect speech attributes. Does this influence conversational rules in tum making our conversation unsuccessful? That is why this study is essentially a pragmatic study on woman study based specifically on the Agikuyu women speakers. It makes a pragmatic exploration on the factors that influences the women conversation. The primary aim of the study was to examine the extent to which various linguistic strategies, politeness, indirectness and nonabrasive language can be used to demonstrate speakers’ accountability on the Gricean Cooperation Principle. The data was collected from women recorded interviews. The researcher was also able to interact with some women and collect some opinions on certain selected language expressions. This was done at four different localities within Ngong Division of Kajiado. The collected data was then analyzed using Grice (1975) Second Theory of Implicature. The results of the data analysis showed that politeness, indirectness and use of nonabrasive language (some aspects of a woman's talk) influenced cooperation principle in the conversations.