Performatives Used In Kenyan Courtroom Discourse

This study investigated performatives used in Kenyan Courtroom Discourse. It identified the performatives used in the courtroom proceedings.Performatives are verbs used in courtroom discourse for purposes of disputing,directing,requesting,declaring,confessing,expressing,promising or denying allegations among other functions. In this paper, performatives used in Kenyan courtroom interaction are identified using excerpts of examination and cross-examination sequences derived from civil and criminal cases. The paper was based on the assumption that conversation in courtroom uses performatives which are prevalent and specific to court as an institution. The objective was: To identify   performatives used in the courtroom proceedings. The research question was: What are the prevalent performatives used in courtroom conversation? The study used Speech Act Theory proposed by Austin (1962) and refined then advanced as a theory of discourse by Searl in 1969 and Critical Discourse Analysis Theory by Fairclough (1992).It used 32 court cases collected through tape-recording and non-participant observation. The tape-recorded data were transcribed using Jefferson transcription notation stated in Levinson (1983:369-370). Critical Discourse Analysis by Fairclough (1972) and Conversational Analysis by Hymes (1972) were used in the analysis. The illocutionary structures in the speakers’ utterances against the perlocutionary structures in the respondents’ utterances were analyzed to establish the differences. Findings of the study indicate that performatives such as declaratives, directives, requests, denials, confessions disputations, and expressive are prevalent during courtroom conversation. They entail speaker’s intention on the listener. These were observed in question-answer exchanges, which are interpreted as indirect speech acts (Kryk-Kastovsky 2009:440).The indirect address presents the interactional rules of engagement in courtroom discourse. This prohibits the usual, natural and dynamic reply to questions as conducted in casual and non-institutional conversation. Due to this, the study concluded that speech in courtroom use performatives which are prevalent and specific to courtroom discourse. Finally, the study recommends First, that Kenyan citizens should form a habit of visiting the law courts so as to familiarize with the performatives used in courtroom conversation. Secondly, that forensic linguistics be introduced in education syllabus to equip the public and the young citizens with the necessary knowledge for courtroom interaction. Key words: Performatives, Forensic Linguistics, Courtroom, Prevalent, Perlocutionary, illocutionary, Critical Discourse Analysis, Cooperative Principle, Conversational Analysis

The victorious English language: hegemonic practices in the management academy

This study explores hegemonic linguistic processes, that is, the dominant and unreflective use of the English language in the production of textual knowledge accounts. The authors see the production of management knowledge as situated in central or peripheral locations, which they examine from an English language perspective. Their inquiry is based on an empirical study based on the perspectives of 33 management academics (not English language speakers) in (semi) peripheral locations, who have to generate and disseminate knowledge in and through the English language. Although the hegemony of the center in the knowledge production process has long been acknowledged, the specific contribution of this study is to explore how the English language operates as part of the “ideological complex” that produces and maintains this hegemony, as well as how this hegemony is manifested at the local level of publication practices in peripherally located business and management schools

Navigating Authoritative Discourses in a Multilingual Classroom: Conversations With Policy and Practice

Using Bakhtinian concepts of persuasive and authoritative discourse, this study reports on science and English language arts instructional practices in a multilingual, rural, fourth-grade classroom in Kenya. Situated in English as a medium of instruction (EMI) and through the use of case study, the study explores classroom discourse data to illustrate how teachers use instructional practices to reproduce, contest, or navigate prevailing institutional monolingual policies when mediating students’ access to literacy and content. By analyzing classroom discourse, the authors argue that restrictive language policies that aspire for fixity disconnect multilingual learners from their daily realities. In contrast, they call for a (re)construction of multilingual pedagogy that capitalizes on the strengths of learners, teachers, and linguistic communities by embracing students’ languages and language varieties in language learning and literacy development. In particular, implications are drawn for the use of EMI for emerging bilingual and multilingual learners. The authors identify the need to prepare teachers for a multilingual reality through legitimizing multilingual pedagogies such as translanguaging