A PRAGMATIC INVESTIGATION OF FACE THREATING ACT IN ONDO WEST LOCAL GOVERNMENT AREA OF ONDO STATE, NIGERIA

The use of language could either be for positive or negative purposes. As a result of this, the success or failure of any conversation solely depends on the interlocutors. This study investigated face-threatening acts in the Nigerian context to highlight the intentional use of utterances for attack in discourse situations. Culpeper's (1996) Model of Impoliteness was adopted as a theoretical framework. Participatory observations and recorded conversations of the interlocutors using linguistic exchanges served as sources of data. Data were got from nuclear families, offices, and market settings in Ondo West Local Government Area, Ondo State, Nigeria. The participants are ESL speakers. The study discovered that face-threatening act is intentionally used to attack face in a conversation. It also revealed the strategies employed by the participants to express impoliteness in order to create a negative emotional atmosphere between the speaker and the hearer. Utterances of coerciveness and amusement were embedded in facethreatening acts. The study recommends that language scholars should intensify efforts to carry out empirical studies on face-threatening acts in other areas of human endeavour, as this will reveal how negative use of language is employed in discourse.