A Speech Acts Analysis of Soji Cole’ S Embers

ABSTRACT

Drama is a literary work that conveys action through dialogue of characters. In pragmatics, a lot of work has been done using speech acts theory and other frameworks, many focused on prose fiction and poetry. As a result, this research aimed to fill a knowledge gap by focusing on speech acts performed by characters in drama texts, with the goal of identifying illocutionary acts performed by characters in Soji Cole’s Embers and understanding the context in which words are employed.

Searle speech acts theory, served as the theoretical framework. The study adopted descriptive design. Dialogues were purposively selected from Embers based on the relevance of the speech to the study. The data were subjected to pragmatic analysis.

Four categories of speech acts identified by Searle are significant in the play. They include representatives acts, directive acts, expressive acts, and commissive acts. Nine representatives acts such as stating, informing, agreeing are identified. Five directives acts such as commanding, requesting, inviting, are also identified. The commisives acts of promising, offering and threatening, are used by the characters. Finally, expressive acts of greeting, thanking, apologizing, are also identified. The use of declarative speech acts is not present in the text. To explore the illocutionary acts, context, and subject matter in the text, illustrative excerpts from Embers were used for each subheading.

The playwright has written the play primarily to educate the audience on what happens in IDP camps, as evidenced by the characters’ frequent use of aggressive illocutionary acts in their dialogue. The numerous theme preoccupations assist readers to become acquainted about the activities in IDP camps and society at large.