A SOCIOLINGUISTIC STUDY OF THE ROLE OF SILENCE IN YORUBA CULTURE

ABSTRACT

The focus of this project work is “A sociolinguistic study of the role of silence in Yoruba culture. The motivation for the study is to provide a clear understanding about the communicative role and function of silence during communication in Yoruba culture. The goal of this study is to clear people’s misunderstanding and misconceptions on silence as a tool for communication because silence is relevant in human society. The theoretical framework used for this research is Speech Act Theory which was initiated by John Austin in his book “How to do things with words”(1962). While John Searle did further study on the theory. Concurring to Saville-Troike(1985) who stated that any form of analysis that is applied to speech could also be applied to the analysis of silence. Silence is used as a communication tool performing at the level of intentionality ( illocution) with the expectation of producing an outcome(perlocution). Qualitative approach was conceived suitable for the project work as the study explore a social phenomenon “SILENCE”. The research work adopted focus group discussion in collecting data. The participants involved in this discussion were five selected Yoruba speaking students in the University of Benin. They stated  their cultural and individual perspectives on the role of silence using instances in different social settings. With the data collected, several key findings emerged. These findings entailed the interpretations of silence that occurs in different social settings in Yoruba culture. For example; during an important traditional sacrifice in Yoruba culture, silence is required and it signifies the sacredness of the occasion and allows the priest or leader to perform his duties without any interruption.