Reflection of Discourse Assignments in the Configuration of Yorùbá Personal Names

Abstract

Using the Speech Act Theory as propounded by Austin (1962) and articulated in Searle (1969), Cole
(1975), Traugott and Pratt(1980:229), among others, the paper expatiates on how the speech act
configurations are instantiated through the Yoruba name words. The configured Yoruba name- texts used
as data for the study are made possible through the nature of lexical complexity and loaded sociosemantic
capacities inherent in the name-words. The objective of the study, therefore, is with a view to
casting an in-dept look at what pragmatic roles the Yoruba names could perform, apart from their mere
banal usage as tags for identifying the individuals. The article primarily outlines the general characteristics
of speech acts in discourse and also discusses the structural contents of Yoruba names in order to
determine the extent of their participation in the various name words in the language discourse. The
primary sources were the names collected from the Voters Registration Cards obtained from the
Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) Offices in the South- western geo-political zone of
Nigeria, where speakers of the Yoruba language originated. The data was supplemented by the
introspection of the author as a native speaker of the language, oral interviews and library sources. The
study found that the characterisation of speech acts could be gleaned from the socio-cultural foundations
which underlie the fabrication of the name-words as they license gratitude, questioning ,solitude
,condolence ,apology, reports, denial, summon, declaration, etc. in their pragmatic imports .It is therefore
concluded that the Yoruba Personal Names(YPNs) can be pragmatically differentiated from the personal
names in the western cultural contexts on the bases that YPNs posses packaged-information which make
them able to perform hosts of discourse roles in communication ,apart from their being a template of
sentence and an encyclopaedia where one can glean the Yoruba view-points on ethical values ,beliefs and
history, cultural identities, genealogy ,fauna and floral.