Abstract

The nature and forms of corrupt practices in Nigeria have been studied from various political, social, economic and literary perspectives. Most of these studies have proposed different suggestions for reducing and eradicating the social menace of corruption. However, not much literature abounds in the linguistic study of the phenomenon, especially from the pragmatic perspective. Therefore, this work investigates the pragmatics of Niyi Osundare’s The Wedding Car whose main theme is corruption in different forms and at different social levels in Nigeria. In view of the highly embarrassing level of corruption in Nigeria in recent publications of the huge loots by public officers who have depleted the country’s coffers (even her foreign reserves), this study seeks a more effective and immediate solution to this menace that is responsible for the present (almost hopeless) state of economic recession experienced in Nigeria. Therefore, based on the theoretical framework of relevance, this study employs the pragmatic tools of presupposition, entailment, and implicatures to explore the nature of corrupt practices in Nigeria, and hinder or totally eradicate these practices. Within the linguistic theory of Relevance, these pragmatic tools are expected to aid relevant contextual interpretations of the data. Being a dramatic text, the data constitute stage directions and characters’ utterances that are randomly but purposively selected based on their relevance, to explicate the themes of corruption, wastefulness, social injustice in The Wedding Car. In addition, the selected data are examined pragmatically to explicate the roles of the different characters in the projection of the theme on one hand, and in its eradication on the other hand. This study concludes with a feasible solution of arresting the culprits and confiscating the contraband, which is recommended as a means of totally eradicating corruption in Nigeria, over time.