A pragmatic Analysis of Desire in the Nigerian Home Video

Academic Paper from the year 2020 in the subject Film Science, , course: Linguistics, language: English, abstract: The Nigerian home video industry, popularly referred to as, Nollywood, has become a household name both locally and internationally. Despite the setbacks it suffered, Nollywood has soared higher than most expected. It is on this premise that this study exposes the pragmatic undertone of the language use in Nollywood films to show its verisimilitude with normal day-to-day manner of communication. This study is based on the theory of Pragmatics as developed by J L Austin, John Searle and H. P. Grice. This theory is very relevant to this study as it exposes a lot that happens in normal communication ¿ the unsaid but meant. Among the many tools of Pragmatics, Context, Presupposition, Implicature and the Cooperative Principle are employed in this research. It was found out that context plays a crucial role in deciphering meaning in Nollywood films; again, the language use of Nollywood films shows a lot of presuppositions and implicature and that the Cooperative Principle is well illustrated by the language use of Nollywood films.