Haggling as a Socio-Pragmatic Strategy in Selected Urban Markets: An Amalgam of English and Nigerian Languages

Abstract

This study undertakes a socio-pragmatic investigation of haggling exchanges between vendors and their customers in three large open-air market locations in southwest Nigeria; one in Ibadan (Bodija market) and two in Lagos (Katangwa and Agege) metropolis respectively. Audio recordings of haggling exchanges between selected vendors and their prospective customers were analysed in order to identify and categorize various socio-pragmatic elements and functions in the encounters. The study employs Dell Hymes’ ethnography of communication and aspects of the pragmatic theory of Mey and Gricean Co-operative Maxims. Findings reveal that several languages come into contact with one another, including English, Yoruba, Pidgin, Igbo and Hausa in the market transactions in Lagos and Ibadan metropolis in Nigeria. Respondents employ various bargaining and pragmatic strategies which include greetings, humour, cajoling, flattery, pleading, swearing, abuse as well as code-switching and code-mixing. This study helps to establish some socio-pragmatic patterns in language use in contact situations in the Nigerian multilingual/ multicultural market contexts. It also shows the pragmatic use of Interrogatives, Declaratives, Exclamatives and Imperatives in bargaining interactions.

Keywords: Socio-pragmatics, haggling, Nigerian languages, pragma-intonation