Language use in reconciliation: the case of Nigerian Bauchi State Shariah commission

Reconciliation is interactional and useful to society in helping resolved misunderstandings, especially in the context of family conflicts. However, the existing literature revealed fewer studies been done to examine and give insights into the language use during reconciliation proceedings. Therefore, this study explores the language used in the reconciliation of the Nigerian Bauchi State Shariah Commission. The study is closely related to forensic linguistics as it connects language use, its meaning and interpretation within a legal paradigm. Specifically, this study is an initial attempt to identify: the types of speech acts (SA) used during Reconciliation Case Proceedings (RCP), the politeness strategies employed and to explore the ways in which the participants manage the reconciliation acts using
Grice’s cooperative principle. This study is conducted to analyse the naturally occurring situations, capable of influencing the course of one’s life which is lacking in the Nigerian judicial context. Data for the study were obtained from 12 Reconciliation Case Proceedings of family disputes and marital issues of 72 participants through audiovisual recordings and observations. A qualitative method was used with the thematic data analyses. Searle's taxonomy of speech acts theory, Brown's and Levinson's politeness theory and Grice's cooperative principles (CP) were utilised to interpret and explain the findings of the study. The findings revealed the existence of six major types of Speech Acts with 27 emerging subcategories. The study also identified seven major types of politeness strategies and 34 subcategories. Four major CP maxims and 11 submaxims were found, that showed the participants’ cooperative efforts in achieving successful resolution of disputing issues during the RCP. Theoretically, this study has confirmed, and expanded the basis of Speech Acts, politeness strategies and CP in the academic terrain of correlating language, law, crimes / offences and trials. This study also contributed in providing the sociopragmatic perspective of utilizing the speech acts theory in the Nigerian
shariah-based judicial context and classes of people, locally and globally, in understanding the role and use of these acts and strategies particularly to shariahbased RCP. The emergence of formalities and other Face Threatening Acts in RCP has clearly shown that the concept of “face” extends to communal perspective in contrast to Brown’s and Levinson’s individualistic perception.