Abstract This paper investigates four bilingual interjections: na wa, shikena, ehn, and ehen, with the objective of exploring their sources, meanings, frequencies, spelling stability, positions, collocational patterns and discourse-pragmatic functions in Nigerian English. The data which were obtained from the Nigerian component of the Global Web-based English corpus were analyzed quantitatively and qualitatively, using the theory of pragmatic borrowing. The results indicate that na wa, which is loaned from Nigerian Pidgin, is actually a modified form of a Hausa expression, na wahala, shikena is borrowed from Hausa, while ehn and ehen are loaned from Yoruba. Na wa is an emotive interjection, shikena and ehen are cognitive interjections, while ehn can function both as phatic and as emotive interjections. Both ehn and ehen also function as pragmatic markers. The study thus extends research on the discourse-pragmatic features of Nigerian English.

“So you know ehn … ” The use of bilingual interjections in Nigerian English

Conversations in Dholuo entail use of words and phrases whose unique function is to sustain the interactions and facilitate co-construction of the talk. This is achieved through lexical choices that elicit further participation by motivating both speaker and addressee. These items, however, lack semantic content. Nonetheless, they have a communicative function and their role of giving the conversations a structure by encoding the emotive aspects of interpersonal interaction are of a pragmatic nature, hence their interpretation is derived from the contexts in which they are applied. They regulate the structure of the conversations by linking the successive turns and maintain discourse coherence. In this article, we adopt a framework advanced by Fraser and the parameters of Holker to examine the functional roles and relevance of pragmatic markers as a conversation management strategy in the construction of Dholuo interactions. It emerges that these pragmatic markers encode diverse extra linguistic information including the speaker’s attitudes towards the topic and their degree of interest in the talk. The pragmatic markers also enable speakers to take and maintain floor control as well as to request for elaboration.

A functional-pragmatic analysis of conversation management strategies in Dholuo

The application of discourse analysis to Yoruba discourse is expected to add a new perspective to the understanding of the language and its usage in context, and also give the learner or analyst new tools with which to cater for certain pragmatic as well as discourse needs. Since the central aim of much language use is understanding or communication, then our focus as analysts should be to reinforce users’ or members’ interpretive skills especially as regards a few ‘nuggets’ of language that people typically employ to ‘say’ so much without necessarily ‘speaking’ that much. These nuggets ‐ referred to in this paper as response-comment elements ‐ constitute a small class of words in Yoruba, having very limited (if any) content or conceptual meaning but exhibiting remarkable pragmatic force in context. As discourse analysis is a study of language in context, this paper will only consider each of the response-comment elements in a continuous stretch of language larger than a sentence. The reason for this is that the elements cannot be studied in isolation because of their peculiar feature of being dependent on context for their interpretation. The Yoruba language has quite a lot of expressions that can substitute for the ones studied in this paper, but the study will be restricted to the ones that have established idiomatic prominence and popularity. For instance, Akiika (corresponding roughly to English Hear! Hear!) has several pragmatic correlates, e.g. that’s a good point; well, you’re right about that; there’s some truth in that; I never thought of that, etc. although unlike these forms, Akiika is culturally imbued with a certain degree of sagacity, and is generally regarded as ‘a linguistic property of elders.’ However, despite the similarity in their discourse value, this paper examines only the pragmatic functions of markers like Akiika. Response-comment elements may be seen as another kind of discourse markers and, given their structural location, they may also be compared to the [Birmingham School] Feedback move, in which function the analyst needs to consider the interactive and functional position occupied by these presumably trivial forms. As ‘feedback’ they have the function of signalling to the current speaker the need to go on or to stop talking. As interactants at talk are continually looking forward to feedback, these elements allow speakers to know what the other person feels about their contribution. From the foregoing, the paper hopes to demonstrate that RCEs convey two types of information: first, they display the speaker’s attitude to the entire (or segments of) ongoing talk; second, they determine the course of the discourse as it goes on (or if it should) through the connections between the utterances. However, as Trujillo Saez (2003) remarks about discourse markers, the use of RCEs “is a choice of style” ‐ confirming Blakemore’s (1992:177) view that “every speaker must make some decision about what to make explicit and what to leave implicit, and … every speaker must make a decision about the extent to which he should use the linguistic form of his utterance to guide the interpretation process.” The data used for this work was surreptitiously obtained while listening in to numerous conversations conducted by native speakers of Yoruba, and to present a satisfactory analysis of the subject, the paper provides translations of all the conversational fragments and ensures that the translations are in alignment with Standard English. 2. Discourse markers The question may be asked, why study discourse markers? Schiffrin (1987) hints that the analysis of discourse markers is part of the more general analysis of discourse coherence ‐ how speakers and hearers jointly integrate forms, meanings, and actions to make overall sense out of what is said. But although markers enhance the overall meaning of discourse, Schiffrin (p.55) cautions that they are hardly the only devices by which discourse meaning is achieved. In other words, other

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Response-Comment Elements in Yoruba Conversational Discourse

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Response-Comment Elements in Yoruba Conversational Discourse