Abstract
As a subfield of linguistics, pragmatics has kept evolving, drawing scholars attention to the constantly growing nature of knowledge and scholarship. A recent addition to pragmatic theories is postcolonial pragmatics. Its application to text analysis has continued to engage the attention of scholars who do pragmatic research. In this study, we attempt to introduce postcolonial pragmatics as well as provide insights into how texts from the Nigerian postcolonial context could be analysed in line with the analytical tenets of postcolonial pragmatics. We examine eleven excerpts following five postcolonial pragmatics components, namely, collectivist cultures and in-group norms, kinship, ethnicity, religion, and social class or status. Also, the pragmatics of codeswitching and politeness as conceptualised in postcolonial pragmatics theory are discussed with textual examples drawn from the Nigerian postcolonial context. This study enriches the understanding of how ideations are emplaced in context, and how discourse participants generate meaning from interactions as motivated by the peculiar linguistic environment in which they put English to use. Besides, by accounting for the peculiar ways Nigerians use English, we contribute to extending the frontiers of postcolonial pragmatics.
Introduction
This article explores ways through which postcolonial pragmatics as a theoretical framework can be applied to pragmatic research in the Nigerian context. Since its emergence, postcolonial pragmatics has increasingly become a viable pragmatic theory that scholars employ to explicate the dynamic nature of language use, especially colonial languages in postcolonies. The emergence of new Englishes across excolonial societies has necessitated the evolution of theories that are compatible with African thoughts and capable of appropriately engaging indigenous ways of thinking through English. The evolution of new Englishes accounts for the continuously evolving nature of the English language. Scholars have advanced the argument that the way English has been adapted, “domesticated”, “nativised”, and “indigenised” in many ex-British colonies has brought significant changes in the syntax and semantics of the language (Ugwuanyi & Aboh, 2025).
These changes, in syntax and semantics, even in lexis, are motivated by Nigerians’ desire to express their lived experiences in their distinct Nigerian ways and in a language that expresses as well as resonates their Nigerianness, leading to the emergence of a variety of World Englishes known as Nigerian English. This unique way of using English in Nigeria is also known as Nigerianism (Aboh, 2018; Eburuaja & Udoh, 2021). According to Eburuaja and Udoh (2021), “Nigerian English emerged and evolved due to the nativisation of the English language in Nigeria, so it can be defined as the type of English spoken and used by Nigerians” (2025, p. 3). English, perhaps Nigerian English, exists alongside indigenous languages such as Nigerian Pidgin, Hausa, Igbo, Tiv, Idoma, Yoruba, Bette-Bendi, Efik, Ibibio, among several others. In such a multilingual context, it is not uncommon to find people who speak more than two of these languages.
The foregoing details the hybridised identity of many Nigerians. Some Nigerians speak about five indigenous languages. While this kind of multilingualism would appear unusual in most Western societies, “it is a normal fact of life and a natural consequence of migration in the complex multiethnic societies” (Anchimbe & Janney, 2017, p. 105). These Nigerians can speak or understand these languages because of migration and the multiethnic composition of the Nigerian linguistic ecosystem. These multilingual and multiethnic situations make many Nigerians a cornucopia of languages, cultures, and identities. It therefore suggests that, given Nigerians' postcolonial experience and upbringing, they are hybridised beings. It also implies that a theory or framework that is conversant with Nigerians' hybridised identities will be required to appropriately explain the dynamic complexity of their linguistic biography. Obana and Haugh stress the fact that “theoretical assumptions underpinning pragmatics often do not readily address characteristic features of languages beyond those typical of European languages, particularly English” (2023, p.11). As already hinted, the aim of postcolonial pragmatics is to provide a framework that addresses the peculiar features of excolonies.
Following proponents of postcolonial pragmatics, we aim to account for how postcolonial pragmatics could be applied to the analysis of language practices in Nigeria. Although studies such as Otong (2019), Ugwuanyi and Aboh (2025), among others, have drawn analytical insights from postcolonial pragmatics to drive the analysis of texts in the Nigerian context, there is still a need for more research in the field, given that studies in the area are grossly inadequate. Additionally, given its relative newness, not many scholars are conversant with the pragmatic theory and its application to text analysis. Thus, in undertaking this study, we extend the frontiers of postcolonial pragmatics and enrich the understanding of the context-determined nature of pragmatic analysis. We start by outlining the features and concerns of postcolonial pragmatics, discuss the methodology, and proceed to provide practical examples of how postcolonial pragmatics analysis could be understood in the postcolonial Nigerian context.
These changes, in syntax and semantics, even in lexis, are motivated by Nigerians’ desire to express their lived experiences in their distinct Nigerian ways and in a language that expresses as well as resonates their Nigerianness, leading to the emergence of a variety of World Englishes known as Nigerian English. This unique way of using English in Nigeria is also known as Nigerianism (Aboh, 2018; Eburuaja & Udoh, 2021). According to Eburuaja and Udoh (2021), “Nigerian English emerged and evolved due to the nativisation of the English language in Nigeria, so it can be defined as the type of English spoken and used by Nigerians” (2025, p. 3). English, perhaps Nigerian English, exists alongside indigenous languages such as Nigerian Pidgin, Hausa, Igbo, Tiv, Idoma, Yoruba, Bette-Bendi, Efik, Ibibio, among several others. In such a multilingual context, it is not uncommon to find people who speak more than two of these languages.
The foregoing details the hybridised identity of many Nigerians. Some Nigerians speak about five indigenous languages. While this kind of multilingualism would appear unusual in most Western societies, “it is a normal fact of life and a natural consequence of migration in the complex multiethnic societies” (Anchimbe & Janney, 2017, p. 105). These Nigerians can speak or understand these languages because of migration and the multiethnic composition of the Nigerian linguistic ecosystem. These multilingual and multiethnic situations make many Nigerians a cornucopia of languages, cultures, and identities. It therefore suggests that, given Nigerians' postcolonial experience and upbringing, they are hybridised beings. It also implies that a theory or framework that is conversant with Nigerians' hybridised identities will be required to appropriately explain the dynamic complexity of their linguistic biography. Obana and Haugh stress the fact that “theoretical assumptions underpinning pragmatics often do not readily address characteristic features of languages beyond those typical of European languages, particularly English” (2023, p.11). As already hinted, the aim of postcolonial pragmatics is to provide a framework that addresses the peculiar features of excolonies.
Following proponents of postcolonial pragmatics, we aim to account for how postcolonial pragmatics could be applied to the analysis of language practices in Nigeria. Although studies such as Otong (2019), Ugwuanyi and Aboh (2025), among others, have drawn analytical insights from postcolonial pragmatics to drive the analysis of texts in the Nigerian context, there is still a need for more research in the field, given that studies in the area are grossly inadequate. Additionally, given its relative newness, not many scholars are conversant with the pragmatic theory and its application to text analysis. Thus, in undertaking this study, we extend the frontiers of postcolonial pragmatics and enrich the understanding of the context-determined nature of pragmatic analysis. We start by outlining the features and concerns of postcolonial pragmatics, discuss the methodology, and proceed to provide practical examples of how postcolonial pragmatics analysis could be understood in the postcolonial Nigerian context.
Content
Postcolonial pragmatics theory
Postcolonial pragmatics evolved out of the realisation that theories developed from predominantly monolingual and monocultural Western societies do not adequately address the amalgam of pragmatic patterns common in postcolonial societies. Arguing against the inadequacy of Western-based theories in providing useful insights into the significations emplaced in postcolonial discourses, Wierzbicka (1991) called for an understanding of the cultural scripts of a people and how they play out in the people’s use of language rather than appropriating the culture universalist approach in interpreting languages. In this regard, Wierzbicka critiques the one-sidedness of Western-based theories and their incapacity in explicating localised and conventionalised symbolic codes as are obtained in ex-colonies.
Proponents of this sociocultural pragmatic framework –Anchimbe (2011a, 2011b) and Anchimbe and Janney (2011, 2017) – developed, or are formulating, postcolonial pragmatics to account for the deficiencies of Western-based pragmatic theories. Postcolonial pragmatics is a crossbred pragmatic approach that puts text in sociocultural contexts by depicting the complex multicultural significations that background the production, interpretation, and consumption of texts. It “is an analytical framework for investigating the realities of postcolonial communities” (Otung, 2019, p.3). In this regard, postcolonial pragmatics can be understood as an instrumental analytic method that stresses the pragmatic and situational aspects of language use in larger postcolonial communities. It conceives the use of language in postcolonial societies as a hybrid of the colonised and colonisers’ identities (Anchimbe, 2020). Taking intermixed language and communicative practices in postcolonial multilingual societies as its focus, postcolonial pragmatics approaches speakers whose communication strategies have been shaped by the heterogeneous postcolonial environments in which they interact daily. Anchimbe and Janney (2017) argue that postcolonial pragmatics analysis explicates how various forms of identities are formulated in discursive situations, and how role projection, group maintenance, gate-keeping, and social empowerment and marginalisation are given expression in interactive contexts in postcolonial settings.
Proponents of postcolonial pragmatics argue against “the limitation of individualistic Western pragmatic theories in accounting for non-Western pragmatic practices” (Anchimbe & Janney, 2017, p. 106). They contend that we understand texts better when the cultural ecologies that embed their production are explicated. Given the peculiar linguistic situation of most postcolonies, Western-based pragmatic theories are inadequate in explicating the nuanced speech acts that characterise postcolonial discourse (Rocha Azevedo 2020). According to Rocha Azevedo, “postcolonial pragmatics consists of a framework based on an emic perspective which aims at taking into account the hybrid settings found in postcolonial societies in pragmatic analysis” (Rocha Azevedo 2020, p. 1). In the light of this, postcolonial pragmatics investigates pragmatic features in the use of excolonial languages in postcolonial societies, which are characterised by their distinct mix of ethnic communities, languages, cultures, and social practices. This implies that postcolonial pragmatics aims to interrogate language use in interactive encounters in communities that speak languages such as English, neither as a native nor as a foreign language, but rather as a second language. This language is often an official language and an interethnic lingua franca (Anchimbe & Janney, 2011).
What, then, are the basic assumptions of postcolonial pragmatics? Postcolonial pragmatics assumes that:
• colonialism created sociocultural and political mixes in many areas: Africa, South Asia, the Caribbean, etc.;
• pre-colonial cultures and colonially-introduced cultures (including languages, religions, political administrative systems, formal education, etc.) merged into new hybrid patterns;
• the outcomes include, among others, hybrid identities and hybrid languages yielding hybrid communication patterns, and
• pragmatic components of age, religion, ethnicity, and kinship, among others, are key to understanding how meaning is derived from language use in postcolonial societies (Anchimbe, 2018).
How all these aspects function together in these complex multilingual and multicultural spaces is worthy of research from emic perspectives, especially taking into account that most pre-colonial cultures have collectivist structures or are group-based. We analyse our data following the postcolonial pragmatics model, offering insights into the distinct ways English and its users make sense of their social universe.
Postcolonial pragmatics evolved out of the realisation that theories developed from predominantly monolingual and monocultural Western societies do not adequately address the amalgam of pragmatic patterns common in postcolonial societies. Arguing against the inadequacy of Western-based theories in providing useful insights into the significations emplaced in postcolonial discourses, Wierzbicka (1991) called for an understanding of the cultural scripts of a people and how they play out in the people’s use of language rather than appropriating the culture universalist approach in interpreting languages. In this regard, Wierzbicka critiques the one-sidedness of Western-based theories and their incapacity in explicating localised and conventionalised symbolic codes as are obtained in ex-colonies.
Proponents of this sociocultural pragmatic framework –Anchimbe (2011a, 2011b) and Anchimbe and Janney (2011, 2017) – developed, or are formulating, postcolonial pragmatics to account for the deficiencies of Western-based pragmatic theories. Postcolonial pragmatics is a crossbred pragmatic approach that puts text in sociocultural contexts by depicting the complex multicultural significations that background the production, interpretation, and consumption of texts. It “is an analytical framework for investigating the realities of postcolonial communities” (Otung, 2019, p.3). In this regard, postcolonial pragmatics can be understood as an instrumental analytic method that stresses the pragmatic and situational aspects of language use in larger postcolonial communities. It conceives the use of language in postcolonial societies as a hybrid of the colonised and colonisers’ identities (Anchimbe, 2020). Taking intermixed language and communicative practices in postcolonial multilingual societies as its focus, postcolonial pragmatics approaches speakers whose communication strategies have been shaped by the heterogeneous postcolonial environments in which they interact daily. Anchimbe and Janney (2017) argue that postcolonial pragmatics analysis explicates how various forms of identities are formulated in discursive situations, and how role projection, group maintenance, gate-keeping, and social empowerment and marginalisation are given expression in interactive contexts in postcolonial settings.
Proponents of postcolonial pragmatics argue against “the limitation of individualistic Western pragmatic theories in accounting for non-Western pragmatic practices” (Anchimbe & Janney, 2017, p. 106). They contend that we understand texts better when the cultural ecologies that embed their production are explicated. Given the peculiar linguistic situation of most postcolonies, Western-based pragmatic theories are inadequate in explicating the nuanced speech acts that characterise postcolonial discourse (Rocha Azevedo 2020). According to Rocha Azevedo, “postcolonial pragmatics consists of a framework based on an emic perspective which aims at taking into account the hybrid settings found in postcolonial societies in pragmatic analysis” (Rocha Azevedo 2020, p. 1). In the light of this, postcolonial pragmatics investigates pragmatic features in the use of excolonial languages in postcolonial societies, which are characterised by their distinct mix of ethnic communities, languages, cultures, and social practices. This implies that postcolonial pragmatics aims to interrogate language use in interactive encounters in communities that speak languages such as English, neither as a native nor as a foreign language, but rather as a second language. This language is often an official language and an interethnic lingua franca (Anchimbe & Janney, 2011).
What, then, are the basic assumptions of postcolonial pragmatics? Postcolonial pragmatics assumes that:
• colonialism created sociocultural and political mixes in many areas: Africa, South Asia, the Caribbean, etc.;
• pre-colonial cultures and colonially-introduced cultures (including languages, religions, political administrative systems, formal education, etc.) merged into new hybrid patterns;
• the outcomes include, among others, hybrid identities and hybrid languages yielding hybrid communication patterns, and
• pragmatic components of age, religion, ethnicity, and kinship, among others, are key to understanding how meaning is derived from language use in postcolonial societies (Anchimbe, 2018).
How all these aspects function together in these complex multilingual and multicultural spaces is worthy of research from emic perspectives, especially taking into account that most pre-colonial cultures have collectivist structures or are group-based. We analyse our data following the postcolonial pragmatics model, offering insights into the distinct ways English and its users make sense of their social universe.
Conclusion
Using postcolonial pragmatics as our theoretical point of reference, we analysed some extracts gathered from literary and non-literary situations. The analysis shows that there is a conjunction between Nigerians’ linguistic choices and their cultural realities. As a postcolony, Nigeria’s linguistic space features multilingualism, multiculturalism, intermixed or hybridised identities and ethnicities. Postcolonial pragmatics is, therefore, a response to the call for indigenous pragmatic frameworks dedicated to emancipatory research on non-Western pragmatics from the ethnocentric constraints of Western pragmatic theories. Thus, the difficulty of applying individualistic, monolinguistic notions of speech acts and principles of politeness to the study of collectivistic, multilinguistic discourse birthed postcolonial pragmatics.
Following the postulations of Anchimbe and Janney (2011), we have explained, through textual examples, how, as a consequence of colonialism and the consequent mixture between indigenous and colonisers’ cultural and linguistic practices, postcolonial societies are characterised by hybridised forms of ideations, language, social norms, and speech acts such as code-mixing and code-switching. This brings about communication strategies that have been shaped by these heterogeneous settings. The implication is that for research on social communication in excolonies to be nuanced and representative enough or appreciated, it must take into consideration the dynamic history of these societies’ emergence. The argument that postcolonial pragmatics advances is that the specific sociocultural context of interaction not only determines the way language is put to use, but also the meaning elicited. Central to this argument is the fact that the meaning of an utterance is tied to or derived from the overall sociocultural and interactive contexts, as well as the culture-specific elements and the speech acts and events in which they are entrenched. Thus, postcolonial pragmatics, as we have illustrated, advances the recognition of the diverse factors that condition the way excolonies perform their collectivist identity through language.
Following the postulations of Anchimbe and Janney (2011), we have explained, through textual examples, how, as a consequence of colonialism and the consequent mixture between indigenous and colonisers’ cultural and linguistic practices, postcolonial societies are characterised by hybridised forms of ideations, language, social norms, and speech acts such as code-mixing and code-switching. This brings about communication strategies that have been shaped by these heterogeneous settings. The implication is that for research on social communication in excolonies to be nuanced and representative enough or appreciated, it must take into consideration the dynamic history of these societies’ emergence. The argument that postcolonial pragmatics advances is that the specific sociocultural context of interaction not only determines the way language is put to use, but also the meaning elicited. Central to this argument is the fact that the meaning of an utterance is tied to or derived from the overall sociocultural and interactive contexts, as well as the culture-specific elements and the speech acts and events in which they are entrenched. Thus, postcolonial pragmatics, as we have illustrated, advances the recognition of the diverse factors that condition the way excolonies perform their collectivist identity through language.
References
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Aboh, R. (2018). Language and the construction of multiple identities in the Nigerian novel. NICS (Pty) Ltd.
Aboh, R. and Igwenyi, E. (2021). Igbo endearment terms: In-group identity construction in selected novels by Achebe and Adichie. South African Journal of African Languages. 42(1),123-130.
Anchimbe, E. A. (2011a). Postcolonial linguistic voices: Switching together identity choices and their representations. Postcolonial linguistic voices: Identity construction and representations, E. A. Anchimbe and Mforteh, S. A. (eds.). De Gruyter Mouton. (pp. 3-21).
Anchimbe, E. A. (2011b). On not calling people by their names: Pragmatic undertones of sociocultural relationships in a postcolony. Journal of Pragmatics, 43(6), 1472-1483.
Anchimbe, E. A. (2018). Offers and offers refusal. A postcolonial pragmatics perspective on world Englishes. John Benjamin.
Anchimbe, E. A. (2020). Postcolonial pragmatics. Abralin online lecture series. July 30, 2020. https://aovivo.abralin.or/en/lives/eric-a-anchimbe-2/
Anchimbe, E. A. and Janney, R. W. (2011). Postcolonial pragmatics: An introduction. Journal of Pragmatics, 43(6), 1451-1459.
Anchimbe, E. A. and Janney, R. W. (2017). Postcolonial pragmatics. In Routledge Handbook of Pragmatics. Routledge. (pp. 105-119).
Achebe, C. (1958). Things Fall Apart. Heinemann.
Achebe, C. (1965). A Man of the People. Heinemann.
Adichie, C. (2007). Half of a Yellow sun. Farafina.
Adelakun, A. (2008). Under the Brown Rusted Roofs. Kraft Books.
Ayola, A. and Alabi, T.O. (2018). Politeness and discourse functions in doctor-patient verbal interactions at the University College Hospital Ibadan, Nigeria. International Journal on Studies in English Language and Literature. 6(12), 1-12.
Bozdağ, Ç. and Karakasoğlu, Y. (2024). Multilingual media repertoires of young people in the migration society: A plea for a language and culture-aware approach to media education. Global Studies of Childhood 14(4), 448-461.
Dumaning, F. P. and David, M. K. (2011). Language use and bilingual consumers: An analysis of print advertisement in multilingual Malaysia. Bridging the gap of cross cultural communication. University Malaya. (pp 216-224).
Eburuaja, C. and Udoh, C. (2021). Nigerianisms and Nigerian socio-cultural identities: A sociolinguistic analysis of contemporary expressions in computer mediated communication AJELLS: Awka Journal of English Language and Literary Studies 8 (1), 1-8.
John, E. (2015). Born on a Tuesday. Cassava Republic.
Ibrahim, A.A. (2015). Season of Crimson Blossoms. Parresia Books.
Odebunmi, A. (2015). Pragmatics. In Issues in the study of language and literature: Theory and practice. Kamalu K, Tamunobelema I (eds.). Kraft Books. (pp 196-221).
Rocha Azevedo, D. S. (2020). Postcolonial pragmatics: Changing lenses. Revista da Abralin 19(2),1-5.
Obana, Y. and Haugh, M. (2023). Sociopragmatics of Japanese: Theoretical implications. Taylor & Francis,
Otung, G. E. (2019). Campus decorum: The realisation of apologies, complaints, and requests by Nigerian and German students. Master’s thesis, University of Bayreuth.
Sabao C. (2013). The sexual politics of the female body in contemporary Zimbabwean youth sociolects in interpersonal communicative contexts. The Journal of Pan African Studies 5(10), 80-89.
Ugwuanyi, K. and Aboh, S. (2025). Nigerian English: History, functions and features. World Englishes. 1 12.
Wierzbicka, A. (1991). Cross cultural pragmatics: The scientific of human interaction. Mouton DeGruyter.
Aboh, R. (2018). Language and the construction of multiple identities in the Nigerian novel. NICS (Pty) Ltd.
Aboh, R. and Igwenyi, E. (2021). Igbo endearment terms: In-group identity construction in selected novels by Achebe and Adichie. South African Journal of African Languages. 42(1),123-130.
Anchimbe, E. A. (2011a). Postcolonial linguistic voices: Switching together identity choices and their representations. Postcolonial linguistic voices: Identity construction and representations, E. A. Anchimbe and Mforteh, S. A. (eds.). De Gruyter Mouton. (pp. 3-21).
Anchimbe, E. A. (2011b). On not calling people by their names: Pragmatic undertones of sociocultural relationships in a postcolony. Journal of Pragmatics, 43(6), 1472-1483.
Anchimbe, E. A. (2018). Offers and offers refusal. A postcolonial pragmatics perspective on world Englishes. John Benjamin.
Anchimbe, E. A. (2020). Postcolonial pragmatics. Abralin online lecture series. July 30, 2020. https://aovivo.abralin.or/en/lives/eric-a-anchimbe-2/
Anchimbe, E. A. and Janney, R. W. (2011). Postcolonial pragmatics: An introduction. Journal of Pragmatics, 43(6), 1451-1459.
Anchimbe, E. A. and Janney, R. W. (2017). Postcolonial pragmatics. In Routledge Handbook of Pragmatics. Routledge. (pp. 105-119).
Achebe, C. (1958). Things Fall Apart. Heinemann.
Achebe, C. (1965). A Man of the People. Heinemann.
Adichie, C. (2007). Half of a Yellow sun. Farafina.
Adelakun, A. (2008). Under the Brown Rusted Roofs. Kraft Books.
Ayola, A. and Alabi, T.O. (2018). Politeness and discourse functions in doctor-patient verbal interactions at the University College Hospital Ibadan, Nigeria. International Journal on Studies in English Language and Literature. 6(12), 1-12.
Bozdağ, Ç. and Karakasoğlu, Y. (2024). Multilingual media repertoires of young people in the migration society: A plea for a language and culture-aware approach to media education. Global Studies of Childhood 14(4), 448-461.
Dumaning, F. P. and David, M. K. (2011). Language use and bilingual consumers: An analysis of print advertisement in multilingual Malaysia. Bridging the gap of cross cultural communication. University Malaya. (pp 216-224).
Eburuaja, C. and Udoh, C. (2021). Nigerianisms and Nigerian socio-cultural identities: A sociolinguistic analysis of contemporary expressions in computer mediated communication AJELLS: Awka Journal of English Language and Literary Studies 8 (1), 1-8.
John, E. (2015). Born on a Tuesday. Cassava Republic.
Ibrahim, A.A. (2015). Season of Crimson Blossoms. Parresia Books.
Odebunmi, A. (2015). Pragmatics. In Issues in the study of language and literature: Theory and practice. Kamalu K, Tamunobelema I (eds.). Kraft Books. (pp 196-221).
Rocha Azevedo, D. S. (2020). Postcolonial pragmatics: Changing lenses. Revista da Abralin 19(2),1-5.
Obana, Y. and Haugh, M. (2023). Sociopragmatics of Japanese: Theoretical implications. Taylor & Francis,
Otung, G. E. (2019). Campus decorum: The realisation of apologies, complaints, and requests by Nigerian and German students. Master’s thesis, University of Bayreuth.
Sabao C. (2013). The sexual politics of the female body in contemporary Zimbabwean youth sociolects in interpersonal communicative contexts. The Journal of Pan African Studies 5(10), 80-89.
Ugwuanyi, K. and Aboh, S. (2025). Nigerian English: History, functions and features. World Englishes. 1 12.
Wierzbicka, A. (1991). Cross cultural pragmatics: The scientific of human interaction. Mouton DeGruyter.