A PRAGMATIC ANALYSIS OF NON-STANDARD ENGLISH USAGE IN ABI DARE’S THE GIRL WITH THE LOUDING VOICE

ABSTRACT This study analysed non-standard English usage in Abi Daré’s The Girl with the Louding Voice through the lens of Relevance Theory. Non-standard English, often viewed as erroneous or deficient, serves as a creative medium through which meaning, identity, and social realities are expressed. Drawing insights from the pragmatic concepts of explicature, implicature, and contextual inference as outlined by Dan Sperber and Deirdre Wilson (1986, 1995), the study examined how these mechanisms operate in the non-standard utterances of the protagonist, Adunni. One hundred excerpts were purposively selected from the novel and subjected to qualitative textual analysis to uncover the pragmatic meanings conveyed beyond literal linguistic forms. The findings reveal that Adunni’s non-standard English is not a reflection of communicative incompetence but a pragmatic strategy for meaning construction, contextual adaptation, and emotional expression. Through pragmatic enrichment, the study demonstrates how the reader retrieves intended meanings with minimal cognitive effort and achieves optimal relevance. The research concludes that non-standard English in The Girl with the Louding Voice embodies linguistic creativity and cultural authenticity, functioning as a tool for effective communication and social critique rather than mere deviation from Standard English norms.