Speech Act Analysis of Hate Utterances on Selected Social Media Platforms in Nigeria

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Abiodun C. Ayeni

Abstract

This paper critically examines, from a speech act perspective, instances of hate speeches found on selected social media platforms in Nigeria with the aim of revealing their pragmatic import. Since language is an instrument of action, the Speech Act Theory (SAT) by Austin (1962) and Searle (1969) serves as the theoretical framework. Sixty-three hate utterances and songs were retrieved from six selected social media platforms: Facebook, WhatsApp, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok and Online Newspapers and Magazines between 2014 and 2022. Twenty (20) hate speeches were selected and subjected to illocutionary act analysis (direct and indirect) forty (40) speech acts. The perlocutionary effects of the locutions were also measured from the illocutionary force of each utterance. The findings revealed that Commissive and Assertive illocutionary hate expressions were deployed by users as verbal weapons of intimidation and blackmail to demean, dehumanise, subordinate and silence the target. Hence, the study concludes that hate utterances found in this study were consciously selected to inflict sufficient emotional and psychological damage on the target, to subordinate and, perhaps, silence them.

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