AN ANALYSIS OF REPRESENTATIVE ACTS IN THE ALÁÀFIN OF Ò ̣YÓ ̣’S PRAISE POETRY

Abstract

In everyday interactions, people often convey their intentions indirectly, a concept explored in the realm of illocutionary Acts (Searle,1967), which examines how speakers convey meaning and achieve communicative goals beyond the literal words spoken. This research is aimed to analyse one of the classes of illocutionary act of Representative in the praise poetry of the Alaafin Oyo. The classes of representative speech acts were analysed based on the Searle theory. The illocutionary representative acts in the Oriki are claiming, reporting, stating, informing, affirming, declaring, concluding. This research was analysed by applying descriptive qualitative method and data were taken from the oriki Alaafin that contain representative illocutionary speech acts. The researcher used observational method, Participatory and note taking technique method in collecting the data. It is found that that there are representative illocutionary speech Acts in the Orikì Alaafin in different context and these are there to state the fact about the Alaafin’s power of authority as believed by the chanters.