CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.0 Introduction

This study investigates the features of Discourse in the interaction Among Market Women in Oba market, Benin with their customers. Language is made up essentially of written and spoken modes. There are formats and methods of analysis attached to each of the modes.

The written language has a long history of analysis while the spoken form has

only recently gained attention in Linguistic analysis. Our interest in carrying out

this research is to further the development of the analysis of the spoken language.

In this introductory chapter, some key concepts, sub - themes and terminologies

used in the study will be presented.

1.1 Background to the Study

Many linguists describe language as the most important attribute of man.

Allenton (18) in his own view defines language as;

-----the fully developed natural human communication involved in transmitting ideas or information from person to person.

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He sees language as a tool for information transfer.

Thomas and Wareing (6-9) in their book Language, Society and Power, postulate

that one of the obvious ways of thinking about language is that;

It is a systematic way of combining smaller units into larger units for

the purpose of communication, for instance, we combine the sound segments of our language (Phoneme) to form words(Lexical items) According to the rules of language we speak.

Language is essentially a rule-governed system of this kind, but there are other

ways of thinking about how language works. James Caper as cited in Obi- Okoye

(2) considered language as:

A system of communicating with one another using sounds, symbols and words in expressing meaning, ideas or thoughts.

Thus language can be used in many forms primarily through oral and written

communications. Equally body language could be used to communicate thoughts

and feelings.

In this work, we are interested in such questions as: What function does a given

utterance do? Is it a statement, question, command or response and how do the

participants know

Although, there were some linguists who saw language as a series of interrelated

levels mediating, and showing relationships between context and phonetic

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substance as seen by Hallid