INVESTIGATION INTO THE DISCOURSE FEATURES IN FEMI

INVESTIGATION INTO THE DISCOURSE FEATURES IN FEMI OSOFISAN’S MIDNIGHT HOTEL

1.1 INTRODUCTION IN CHAPTER ONE

Language is the sole unique gift from God to humanity that distinguishes us from other creatures. These other creatures do have a language, but they do not communicate in the same way that humans do.

To discourse analysts, discourse is a component of language that refers to actual occurrences of communicative action involving language. Language as an abstract system is not the only goal of discourse. It is seen as linguistic communication including a transaction between a speaker and a listener in an interpersonal activity, the form of which is dictated by its social aim.

Discourse can take the shape of a discussion, but it can also be written or spoken. Discourse, for example, is concerned with naturally occurring spoken language, such as interviews, conversations, speeches, and commentary. Essays, book chapters, road signs and notices, and other forms of written speech are examples. Discourse analysis, on the other hand, is a systematic investigation of discourse that focuses on the constituent units and structures of sentences in individual texts, i.e., grammatical relations such as subject-verb-object up to the text level.

Conversation, another sort of discourse, is an example of discourse, as discussed earlier in this section. Conversation is commonly defined as an exchange between two or more people in which each participant may contribute more than one speech and each contribution either directly or indirectly builds on prior contributions.

Conversations, or dialogues, are the building blocks of dramatic literature. This study will look at some of the talks in Femi Osofisan’s Midnight Hotel to see how they relate to culture and religion. Role-sharing, adjacency pairs, discourseA markers, presupposition, implicature, and, most crucially, context will be employed to construct a cohesive discourse analysis of the dramatic text.

1.2 MAIN GOALS AND OBJECTIVES

The primary goal of this study is to look into the discourseA elements in Femi Osofisan’s Midnight Hotel. Its goals are as follows:

To provide a clear picture of how discourse analysis can be applied to text interpretation.

To demonstrate how discussions must adhere to the context of the interaction.

To bring the pattern of dialogues to the attention of the observant observer.

To provide a solid understanding of such strategies upon which productive communication can be built.

JUSTIFICATION 1.3

To the best of the researcher’s knowledge, Discourse Analysis as a theoretical concept was not employed to analyze Midnight Hotel by Femi Osofisan. Only two studies on the proposed play were discovered by the researcher. They are known as “Satire as a Social Art.”

“Analysis of Ola Rotimi’s Our Husband Has Gone Mad Again and Osofisan’s Midnight Hotel” “The Moral, Social, and Political Decadence in Nigerian Society: A Case Study of Femi Osofisan’s Midnight Hotel” (Rufus, G. (2013). Neither of these two addresses the specific topic of this research. This study is thus justified because it tries to analyze the text’s social, political, and cultural themes. It is also expected that the study will contribute to the study of Discourse Analysis, particularly at the undergraduate level.

1.4 STUDY SCOPE AND LIMITATIONS

This study focuses on the discourse elements in Femi Osofisan’s Midnight Hotel. The analysis will be restricted to Discourse Analysis Elements such as discourseA topic, participants, turn-taking, adjacency pairings, discourse interruption, and role-sharing. There are different techniques to discourseA analysis, but the researcher will apply some Pragmatic DiscourseA Analysis principles such as context (linguistic, socio-cultural, physical, psychological), assumption, inference, and implicature.

1.5 METHODOLOGY OF RESEARCH

This research is a dialogue.Midnight Hotel by Femi Osofisan is a drama that has been analyzed. There are 331 exchanges in the text. A random sampling was performed, and every 22nd exchange was chosen, beginning with the second exchange and continuing until the 331st exchange. This brings the total number of trades to fifteen (15). This pick is appropriate since it is unbiased, and it is thought to be beneficial for accessibility, theme coverage, and complete data analysis.

The data analysis will be given in the form of an exchange structure. Each of the fifteen (15) data points will be analyzed to ensure readability and comprehension.