BEYOND ERROR: NON-STANDARD ENGLISHAS PRAGMATIC STRATEGY IN ABI DARE’STHE GIRL WITH THE LOUDING VOICE
Keywords:
Non-standard English, relevance theory, pragmatic strategy, The Girl with the Louding Voice, linguistic creativeAbstract
This study reframes non-standard English in Abi Daré’s
The Girl with the Louding Voice as a pragmatic strategy
rather than a linguistic error. Using Sperber and Wilson’s
(1986, 1995) Relevance Theory, it examines how
Adunni’s non-standard utterances achieve meaning,
identity, and social critique through explicature,
implicature, and contextual inference. Analysis of 100
purposively selected excerpts reveals that Adunni’s speech is not a marker of communicative incompetence,
but a resource for meaning construction, contextual
adaptation, and emotional expression. Through pragmatic
enrichment, readers retrieve intended meanings with
minimal cognitive effort, achieving optimal relevance.
The findings demonstrate that non-standard English in the
novel functions as linguistic creativity and cultural
authenticity, serving as a tool for effective communication
and social commentary. This study challenges deficit
views of non-standard varieties and highlights their role
in literary meaning-making.
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