ABSTRACT
The Ethnography of a linguistic text is a
sociolinguistic approach to determine the communicative competence of the text.
A lot of speech events have been studied using Dell Hymes Act of SPEAKING.
However, there is a dearth of such studies on the socio-political columns of
Nigerian Newspaper especially using the ethnographic theory to determine the
level of communicative competence in it. Therefore this research applied the
level of communicative competence of the socio-political columns in Nigerian
newspapers using the ethnographic communication theory, in order to demonstrate
the extent to which ethnography of communication can be used to determine
effective communication.
The data for this study are limited to five
newspaper columns in five major national newspapers namely: ‘Return of
Austerity’ by Steve Nwosu in the Column “Frank Talk” of Daily Sun (2014); ‘The Republic of Deception’ by Tony Afejuku in
the column “In and Out” of Nigerian
Tribune (2016); ‘Father and Son’
by Sam Omatseye in the Column “In Touch” of The
Nation (2016); ‘On the Matter of the dog named Buhari’by Abimbola Adelakun
in the column “Thursday with Abimbola Adelakun of The Punch (2016); and ‘The Mark Zuckerberg Visit’ by Reuben Abati in The
Guardian (2016). Thus, the speech community for this work is the columnist
and their readers.
The ethnographic studies of the various
columns have been undertaken with respect to the four components of
communicative competence. The analyses revealed that although the selected
columnists employed different styles and approaches to communicating their
ideas, they all shared some common traits. Some of the traits include the use
of rhetorical questions, coinages, code switching and code mixing. Grammatical
competence in terms of the use of tenses, repetitions, use of conjunctions,
sentence construction, punctuation marks, choice of words; Sociolinguistics
competence in terms of codes-witching and code-mixing, coinages; Strategic
competence in terms of the use of humor, personification, lengthy paragraph,
rhetorical questions, use of allusion, socio-cultural contexts and Discourse
competence in terms of consistency in italicizing, cohesion and coherence.
The
study finally concluded that the socio-political columns of the five Nigerian
Newspapers reflect the various features that constitute the four components of
communicative competence. The overall contribution of the study to scholarship
is underscored by various forms of interpretation into the communicative traits
and competence of the speech community. Further studies in the area of
economic, religious columns of other newspaper source.
CHAPTER
ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background to the Study
This
research is an attempt to embark on an ethnographic study of socio-political
columns in selected Nigerian Newspapers, with the aim of demonstrating the
applicability of ethnography of communication to the selected socio-political
columns. Ethnography is a broad area of scholarship in social science and
anthropology, where culture and society are structurally and functionally
analyzed. According to Wardhaugh (2006), the function of an ethnographer is “to
observe first-hand how a group of people behave in their natural settings” (p
249). In terms of its genesis, ethnography is rooted in anthropology but is
said to have become useful to sociologists and linguists over time (Denzen
& Lincoln, 2011).
This
study is therefore predicated on the sociolinguistic approach to ethnography
rather than its root, which is centrally anthropology. More specifically, the
discussions in the study touched on discourse analysis and sociolinguistics,
which were aspects of linguistics that deal with functional and contextual
examination of language. It seeks to explore Hymes’ idea of the ethnography of
communication as a means to understanding language in use rather than language
as a set of structural rules, focusing on the ethnography of communication as
theoretical frame work. The ethnography of Communication, a 20th
Century conception developed by Hymes is essentially a sociolinguistics
approach to analysis of discourses (Olateju, Oyebode & Ademilokun, 2014).
The ethnography of communication relates ethnography the description and
structural/functional analysis of society and culture with language, which is a
cultural tool that helps people share knowledge such as arts, morals, beliefs
and everything acquired by man in every human society.
Furthermore,
this interesting area of communication/linguistic studies is an approach to
understanding society, culture and the reconstruction of a given ethnic or
distinct group of people within a society. Cameron (2001) stated that the ethnography
of communication could be perceived as an application of ethnographic methods
of anthropology and sociology to the communication pattern of a group of
people. Communicative competence is described as the overall knowledge of a
user of language in terms of not just syntax, morphology and phonology but also
in various social contexts. In other words, it is not enough to be sufficiently
knowledgeable in rules that govern grammar, words and phrases. Language users
must also understand appropriate contextual application of language to have
attained what Hymes described as “communicative competence”.
It
is noteworthy that before constructing the act of SPEAKING Model with the
purpose of creating a template with which linguists could understand the
culture of an ethnic group through the communicative process, Hymes had brought
up the idea of communicative competence in reaction to Chomsky’s idea of
competence and performance. According to him, people can construct utterances
that are ungrammatical yet socially appropriate (Hymes, 1989). Factoring the
social context within which language is used underscores the essence of communicative
competence. Although Hymes conceptualized communicative competence, the four
areas that make up communicative competence were developed by other linguists
such as Canale & Swain (1980). This study examined the four factors of
communicative competence areas in the selected columns, with the overall goal
of understanding the communicative competence of socio-political columnists in
Nigerian Newspapers.
This
study sprouted from a desire to further understand Language use and
communicative competence within a group of people in the society, or more
specifically, a specific speech community. While scholars have argued that
language is more than communication (Atupa, 2011), the core function language
performs in society is to act as a medium through which people share ideas and
feelings. One important inference that can be deduced from this is that
language cannot function outside the society just as much as the study of
language cannot be limited to the usual functional/structural areas of
linguistics.
As
a further development to Noam Chomsky’s transformational grammar as well as
other scholars’ theories in morphology, phonology, semantics and pragmatics,
language studies have taken a social science slant which has led to the
emergence of studies such as sociolinguistics and discourse analysis. This
progression was, of course, ignited by a reason which (Jaworski & Coupland,
1999) described as the need for linguists to understand the threads that run
through language, meaning and society.
Moreover,
the issue of performance and competence, which after Chomsky theorized, led to
an understanding that language use and effective communication has many
variables that transcend structural and transformational grammar. These
variables, having been considered by a good number of linguists since Hymes
demonstrated that meaningful consideration of competence in communication must
recognize the functionality of language.
Consequently,
this study examined socio-political columns with focus on functional aspects of
language studies, primarily, pragmatics, sociolinguistics and discourse
analysis. It will rely on the ethnography of communication, specifically
communicative competence, for critical assessment of the primary discourse
data. The subfields, Sociolinguistics and discourse analysis is discussed in
detail in chapter two of this study.
Although
there are various scholarly definitions of discourse analysis, two of the lot
helps to create a meaningful background to this research work. Discourse
analysis, as defined by (McCarthy, Matthiessen & Slade, 2002), is the
analysis of language in its social context a definition that helps to situate
this research as sociolinguistics. Likewise, (Fairclough, 1992) states that
discourse is “more than just language use: it is language in use, whether speech
or writing, seen as a type of social practice” (p. 28). While both agree to discourse analysis being
a study of language as a social tool, (Fairclough, 1992) specifies that the
discourse could be in speech or written.
The
term, the ethnography of communication, when first conceptualized by Hymes, was
ethnography of speech. The idea borders on the examination of language use
within the wider context of the socio-cultural practices and beliefs of members
of a speech group or speech community. Through ethnography of communication,
Hymes established a system (SPEAKING) whereby the linguistic competence of an
ideal speaker is measured not merely by producing grammatically correct
sentences but also by considering the appropriate socio-cultural contexts
within which language is used.
Since
Hymes, various scholars have theorized on ethnography as it relates to language
studies and communication. For instance, Canale and Swain (1980) conceived
certain components that define communicative competence. The components were
later expanded by Canale (1983) to include: Grammatical competence, discourse
competence, sociolinguistic competence and strategic competence. Invariably,
Canale’s proposition concluded that communicative competence of a language user
is determined by all four components. It is against this background that the
researcher proposed to conduct the theory of the ethnography of communication
in selected newspaper column using Canale’s model of communicative competence.
In
addition, the study recognizes political columnists and their readers as
comprising a speech community which has various unique contexts of language
use. It is generally understood that a speech community is perceived not merely
by common language shared by members of this community but mainly by common
linguistic norms and contexts (Atupa, 2011). One can therefore propose that a
speech community is not necessarily physical. What is paramount is for the
community to share idiosyncrasies and rules for conduct of speech. This research
will attempt to demonstrate the linguistic norms common to political columnists
and their audience. In addition, it will endeavor to demonstrate the
application of the ethnography of communication to written texts.
1.2 Statement of the
Problem
The
application of the ethnography of communication to research endeavours is not
uncommon in language studies since Hymes proposed his SPEAKING Model. In fact,
researchers in linguistics and philosophy of language have applied the Model to
numerous speech communities with meaningful findings that continually validate
its usefulness. Besides, language students with interest in sociolinguistics,
discourse analysis and pragmatics all over the world have sufficiently
conducted researches on the SPEAKING Model. This study took a departure from
Hymes’ SPEAKING approach to the ethnography of communication but retain its
objective of demonstrating that communicating effectively is influenced by both
linguistic competence and communicative competence. It will essentially attempt
to use Canale’s (1983) model of communicative competence as tool for the ethnography
of communication.
There
is no gainsaying the fact that despite the fact Hymes conceived the idea of
communicative competence, it was developed as a theory by other linguists over
time. Unlike Hymes’ act of SPEAKING, the ethnography of communication theory using
the four components of communicative competence has not been fully explored in
relation to the diverse speech communities that abound in Nigeria. This
research seeks to apply the ethnography of communication theory using
communicative competence to socio-political columns, though with a certain
audience that makes up the speech community (the columnists and their readers),
in order to demonstrate the extent to which ethnography of communication can be
used to determine effective communication.
1.3 Objective of the Study
The
aim objective of this study is to demonstrate the applicability of the ethnography
of communication to socio-political columns in Nigerian Newspapers, by
examining communicative competence exhibited in selected columns as case
studies. The specific objectives are to:
1.
describe the nature and communication
conduct within the selected speech community;
2.
analyze the level of strategic competence
within the selected columns;
3.
explain the level of linguistic
competence within the selected columns in the Nigerian newspaper;
4.
explicate the level of sociolinguistic
competence within the selected speech community;
5.
describe the level of discourse
competence within the selected speech community and
6.
ascertain the level of overall
communicative competence of socio-political columnists as demonstrated in the
analysis of the selected case studies.
1.4 Research Questions
The
following are the research questions to which the study hopes to provide useful
answers
1.
What is the nature and communicative
conducts that could define the selected speech community?
2.
To what level is strategic competence
reflected in the selected columns?
3.
In what way is grammatical competence
reflected in the selected columns in the Nigerian newspaper?
4.
How has sociolinguistic competence
reflected in the selected speech community?
5.
To what level is discourse competence
reflected in the selected speech community?
6.
To what degree do the columnists in the
selected cases studies achieve communicative competence?
1.5 Scope
of the Study
Since there are diverse speech
communities, both in the physical and ideological senses, this study is limited
to political columns and their audiences. The study also comprises review of
substantial secondary material which are related to the topic. For instance,
Holmes (2013), Gee (2004), Wardhaugh (2006), Yule (2006), Osisanwo (2003)
Olateju, Oyebode & Ademilokun (2014) to mention a few contain materials
that will be synthesized for the purpose of this research. Chapter Two of the
study will discuss areas of language study such as discourse analysis, pragmatics
and sociolinguistics. The working theory for data analysis has its foundation
in Hyme’s ethnography of communication but was essentially developed by
Canale’s (1983) in a four-component of communicative competence. Although there
are various perspectives on communicative competence beyond Canale, the
analysis in Chapter four of this study will be narrowed to the four components:
grammatical competence, discourse competence, sociolinguistic competence and
strategic competence.
The
materials used for this research are limited to five newspaper columns in five
major national newspapers namely: ‘Return of Austerity’ by Steve Nwosu in the
Column “Frank Talk” of Daily Sun
(2014); ‘The Republic of Deception’ by Tony Afejuku in the column “In and Out”
of Nigerian Tribune (2016); ‘Father
and Son’ by Sam Omatseye in the Column “In Touch” of The Nation (2016); ‘On the Matter of the dog named Buhari’by
Abimbola Adelakun in the column “Thursday with Abimbola Adelakun of The Punch (2016); and ‘The Mark Zuckerberg Visit’ by Reuben
Abati in The Guardian (2016).
1.6 Significance of the Study
The
relevance of the ethnography of communications in language studies and
communication today cannot be overemphasized. It helps linguists, communicators
and philosophers of language understand the workings of language beyond
grammatical structure or form in every identified speech community. It also
underscores Hymes’ objective for the investigative SPEAKING model which was
developed to examine the diversity of speech in real situations or language in
use. However, before developing this
model, he had conceived the notion of communicative competence in reaction to
Chomsky’s idea of linguistic competence and performance. Chomsky (1965)
elaborates his idea of competence and performance with the terms
“grammaticality” and “acceptability”. According to him a language user’s competence
is directly related to the level of grammaticality of his use of the language.
In addition to that, he aimed to tie performance to his idea of
“acceptability”. Hymes (1972) argued that study of language must go beyond
Chomsky’s notions to accommodate socio-cultural dynamics that impact on
language.
Hymes’
act of SPEAKING Model, which was consequently developed to perform studies in
ethnography of communication, also relies on measurable socio-cultural
parameters to the communicative competence in various speech communities. This
model has played a crucial role in helping sociolinguists to have a holistic
understanding of language use in numerous speech communities all over the
world. However, other theories that have been developed in continuation of
research communicative competence have been used as much as the act of SPEAKING
Model. One of such is Canale’s (1983) model of communicative competence when
recognizes four components that can be used to examine communicative competence
in any speech community. This provides a meaningful justification for this
research endeavor.
1.7 Theoretical
Framework
The
theory proposed for this study is Canale’s Model of communicative competence
which is founded on Hymes’ work on ethnography of communication as well as
communicative competence. According to Canale (1983) “Communicative Competence
refers to both knowledge and skill in using this knowledge when interacting in
actual communication”. Canale is careful to use the phrase “actual
communication” instead of communicative performance. This owes to the fact that
performance in communication entails numerous variables that are unrelated to
linguistics but must be factored when describing performance.
Canale
and Swain (1980) therefore recognized that a comprehensive framework for
analyzing communicative competence must entail three components. First,
communicative competence must entail knowledge of the rules of morphology,
grammar and phonology. Secondly, it must entail knowledge of socio-cultural
rules as well as rules of discourse. In other words, for a user of language to
efficiently understand the social meaning of utterances, he or she must know
discourse and socio-cultural rules on the language. Thirdly, communicative
competence must entail knowledge of the strategies that can be used to make up
for insufficient competence.
Canale
(1983) readapted the components of communicative competence as theorized by
Canale and Swain (1980) to have the four components that are generally accepted
today. While Canale and Swain (1980) recognized grammatical competence,
sociolinguistics competence and strategic competence, Canale (1983) introduced
discourse competence to the components.
The
components in Canale’s (1983) model of communicative competence are
comprehensively described as follows:
1. Linguistic/Grammatical Competence:
This refers to the knowledge of the language codes which includes the grammar
and vocabulary and the conventions of its written presentation. The elements in
this regard are: phonetics and phonology, syntax and semantics and morphology.
2. Sociolinguistic Competence:
This refers to the knowledge of socio-cultural rules of use which includes
knowing how to use and respond to language appropriately. The word
“appropriately” is key as it could depend on, setting, topic, politeness
indices, speaker-listener relationship and so on.
3. Discourse Competence:
This refers to the knowledge of how to produce and comprehend oral or written
texts in the modes of speaking/writing and listening/reading respectively. It
is having the knowledge of combination of language structures into a cohesive
and coherent oral or written text of different types. It deals with organizing
words, phrases and sentences in order to create conversations, speeches,
poetry, email messages, newspaper articles etc.
4. Strategic competence: This
refers to the knowledge of how to recognize and repair communication breakdowns
before, during or after they occur. For example, during a conversation,
background noise or other factors may hinder communication; thus the speaker
must know how to keep the communication channel open.
This
study recognizes that there are a number of other scholars who had further
theorized on communicative competence beyond Canale’s (1983) model. Some of
them include Van Ek’s (1986) model of Communicative Ability, Bachman’s (1990)
Communicative Language Ability, Celce-Murcia, Donyei and Thurell’s (1995) model
of Communicative Competence and a few other more recent ones. However, given
the universal acceptance of Canale’s (1983) model over the years, it provides a
solid theoretical framework for the ethnographic analysis of communicative
competence in the selected case studies.
1.8 Conclusion
This chapter has supplied a detailed
introduction to the study, paying special attention to what to expect in each
of the five chapters that make-up the entire research work. It has also
provided a background to the study, the research objectives, theoretical
framework, significance of the study and the literary theory that would be employed
for the analysis of the source materials. The study will be concluded in the
same manner as this introductory chapter, focusing of the outcome(s) of the
research.
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