PRAGMATIC ANALYSIS OF GOVERNOR MONDAY OKPEBHOLO’S INAUGURAL SPEECH; A NEW DAWN BECKONS IN EDO STATE.
Abstract
Grounded in the frameworks of Austin’s Speech Act Theory, Grice’s Cooperative Principles, and Levinson’s model of deixis, this research work critically examines the pragmatic strategies embedded in Governor Monday Okpebholo’s inaugural speech. Through the systematic analysis of deixis, presupposition, implicature, speech acts, and inference, the research reveals how meaning is contextually constructed and pragmatically negotiated to serve persuasive, ideological, and institutional functions. The findings demonstrate that deictic expressions strategically anchor discourse participants, presuppositions subtly encode shared assumptions, implicatures convey indirect communicative intents, and speech acts perform key political functions such as asserting authority, projecting commitments, and establishing rapport. This research work ultimately concludes that political discourse, particularly gubernatorial rhetoric, transcends literal expressions, serving as a dynamic tool for ideological positioning and power negotiation within socio-political contexts.
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