Abstract
This study investigates the pragmatic features of selected courtroom discourse in Niger State with the objective of exploring how language functions as a tool for managing legal interactions and negotiating meaning within the courtroom. Despite the strategic role of language in shaping legal outcomes, there is limited empirical investigation into how pragmatic features operate in courtroom discourse in Niger State. This gap limits our understanding of how language functions as social action in courtroom discourse. Therefore, this study examines how courtroom participants in both Magistrate and Sharia courts in Niger State employ pragmatic strategies to achieve communicative goals during legal interactions. Specifically, it seeks to identify the pragmatic acts that shape meaning in courtroom discourse and to determine how these features influence outcomes. The analysis was carried out within the framework of Mey’s (2001) Pragmatic Acts Theory to account for how meaning is negotiated through contextualized language use in courtroom discourse. The study interrogates how courtroom participants deploy linguistic actions to pursue legal, relational and socio-cultural goals. Data was collected from selected relevant case transcripts across Magistrate and Sharia courts in Niger State. Through qualitative pragmatic analysis, the paper reveals that pragmatic acts such as stating, informing, probing and pleading are employed to achieve courtroom communicative goals. The findings further show that the participants achieve pragmatic goals of revealing, convincing, instructing and soliciting; with revealing having the highest frequency of occurrence. Thus, the paper concludes that language use in the courtroom is not merely a medium of communication, but functional tool for achieving social, emotional and institutional purposes.
Keyword: Arguments; Litigants; Pragmeme;
Transcripts; Discourse
DOI: 10.36349/sojolics.2026.v02i01.016
author/ShuaibuAdamu
journal/Sokoto JOLICS 2(1) | June 2026 |
