A PRAGMATIC ANALYSIS OF LANGUAGE USE AT USELU MARKET IN BENIN

ABSTRACT
The present research discusses the socio linguistic aspects of language use in the “Traditional market setting” where sales of goods and services take place. By Traditional market” is meant ‘a setting where transactions are carried out in the indigenous African way’. Usually in the open with all types of wares ranging from food stuff to utensils on display. The research seeks to explicate the discourse structure, speech act, conversational structure and context of a traditional market setting in Benin-city with Uselu market as a case study.
The study employed pragmatics as a tool of investigation, which centres exclusively on the context/situations of language use. This tool was used to analysed the data obtained from traders and other categories of person engaged in one activity or the other at Uselu market. These data were obtained with the aid of a tape recorder and a questionnaire in a bid to sample the people linguistic preference in market transaction.
It was discovered at the end of the study that the vast majority of traders at Uselu market actually prefer to use pidgin as a medium of communication closely followed by Ẹdo. This was based on the general linguistic distribution of persons in the market where a large percentage are of the Ẹdo linguistic stock.