Pragmatics of oyiwaladↄ ŋŋ (Thank you): The case of Ga

Abstract

The study considers the marker Oyiwaladɔŋŋ (thank you) in Ga ( Niger Congo, Kwa branch), under the expressive speech act and linguistic routine The marker has a variety of functions and explore the factors (social and situational) affecting the different uses of ‘thank you’. Content analysis involving the conversational theory of relevance in existing works is adopted for this study. We are looking at the basis for ‘thank you’ and its variants as polite strategies. The study discovered ethnographic situations and communicative events for Oyiwaladɔŋŋ (thank you) including, (1) Oyiwaladɔŋŋ for humor, (2) for acceptance of services, (3) for irony or sarcasm in conversations, (4) for phatic functions, (5) for dismissal of a person or service, (6) for rejection of an offer or services and (7) gratitude for major or minor favour. Keywords: Oyialadɔŋŋ ‘Thank you‟, discourse marker, conversational analysis, politeness