The Process of Inferencing in Language: A Comparison of English and Yoruba Languages
The Process of Inferencing in Language: A Comparison of English and Yoruba Languages
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Date
1998-05
Authors
FADIMU, OLUWATOYIN
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Abstract
ABSTRACT
The use of English language, both oral and written, is
always intriguing particularly at the metaphorical level. It has
always been fascinating to observe that in the attempt of a
writer to 'conceal' some information in his writing, he ends up
provoking his audience to make inferences (whether correctly or
wrongly). The question one is tempted to ask is, 'why a writer
(or speaker) should make some information overt, and others
hidden. If this is a literary technique, how does it aid the
process of interpretation?'
This study set out to examine the use of language in a
special way by studying newspaper articles and texts from
magazines. It focused on two languages - English and Yoruba.
The purpose of the focus on these two languages was to compare
the techniques that make statements prone to inferencing in the
two languages and to highlight the areas of similarity and (or)
dissimilarity. These two languages employ expressive or
subjective language (that is, language that has some emotive
function to perform) among other styles. They both use figures
of speech extensively, although in terms of interpretation,
Yoruba texts and speeches are often translated as 'wholes' for
effectiveness, fragmented translation though possible, will not
provide accurate interpretation of a Yoruba text.
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The study is divided into five chapters. The first chapter
introduces the research problem and states the aims and scope of
the study. It also provides justification for research.
Chapter two discusses the review of related literature to
the study of language and the process of interpretation.
Chapter three discusses the theoretical framework adapted
for the study which is a combination of modified functional
grammatical approach to interpretation and frame-system theory.
Chapter four provides the analysis of the selected texts and
the discussion of the data. It also includes the comparison of
the linguistic and non-linguistic observations made on the
English and Yoruba texts which form the corpora of this study.
Chapter five summarizes the research work and conclusions
are drawn from the analyses in chapter four. Areas of further
study are also suggested in this chapter.
From this study, it became obvious that all the elements
which are present in a particular piece of writing or utterance
which will make the audience to attempt to interpret it beyond
the literal level are present in both English and Yoruba.
It was also discovered that, in the two languages, the
writer or speaker is the one who initiates the process of
inferencing by deliberately making some information overt and
some others hidden. He also provides conversational clues to
assist his audience to make inference.
Description
A thesis submitted to the Postgraduate School,
Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, in partial
fulfillment of the requirements for the degree
of Master of Arts in English Language
Department of English
Faculty of Arts
Ahmadu Bello University
Zaria - Nigeria
Keywords
Process, Inferencing, Language, Comparison, English, Yoruba, Languages