Abstract
The work titled “An Exophoric Analysis on Language Use of Divorced Women in Kwami Local Government Area of Gombe State” aims to examine the socio-cultural and religious factors influencing language use in divorce, and to explore the perceptions and attitudes of community members toward the use of language in divorce in Kwami LGA of Gombe State. The study adopts a qualitative research design, rooted in discourse analysis, to explore how divorced women in the Kwami LGA area use exophoric references in narrating their divorce experiences. Qualitative methods are best suited for investigating language use in real-life contexts because they prioritize depth, meaning, and interpretation over numerical generalizations (Creswell, 2013). The frameworks such as Brown and Levinson’s Politeness Theory, Speech Act Theory, and Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) were adopted in the research and integrated into divorce discourse research in the Nigerian context. The findings show that exophoric referencing is not merely a linguistic phenomenon but a deeply cultural and pragmatic resource. Through exophora, divorced women in Kwami anchor their personal narratives in shared religious, cultural, and communal frameworks, thereby legitimizing their voices and navigating the stigma of marital dissolution. The research recommends further anaphoric research in the related field.
Keywords: Divorce discourse, Divorce discourse, Language use, Divorced women, Socio-cultural context
DOI: www.doi.org/10.36349/sojolics.2025.v01i01.014
author/Aliyu, F. N., Garko, A. U., &Ayegoro, R. A.
journal/Sokoto JOLICS 1(1) | June 2025 |
