Taxonomy and Role of Illocutionary Acts of Request in Shariah-Based Reconciliation Case Proceedings of Northern Nigeria

Year 2020, Volume: 2 Issue: 1, 75 - 91, 30.05.2020

Ado Mohammed

Abstract

In the attempt to overhaul the justice process and ameliorate individuals or parties’ problems, Shariah-based Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR/Reconciliation) is developed. Hence, this paper explored the illocutionary acts of request employ in (the sociopragmatics aspect of the Hausa Muslims of Northern Nigeria, West Africa) the Shariah-based reconciliation Courts judicial discourse. With the aid of audiovisual recorder, 12 various case proceedings of family disputes on marital issues were recorded. The data were coded and analysed using Nvivo, focusing on Searle’s Directive taxonomy speech acts of request. The results revealed that the Request utterances are dominantly utilised during the Shariah-based Reconciliation Case Proceedings (RCP). A total of 39 participants used 140 Interactive Turn-Takings (ITT) and court officials, especially the arbitrators were found as the common users of the Request utterances either to seek audience, agreement, explanation or permission to speak. Court officials also utilised Request utterances to ask question, require confirmation and or to maintain order when any speaker is getting out of track during the RCP. Finally, the study demonstrates that it is a cultural practice of speakers in RCP to use the phrase “for Allah sake” to show the level of their politeness and to minimise the thought of imposition by the addressee/s, together with the rhetorical use of the word “Allah” and metaphorical expressions. By implication, the common use of request utterances in RCP, suggest Arbitrators’ level of interest in ensuring peaceful solutions to issues brought before the Shariah-based reconciliation Courts.

Keywords

Sociopragmatics, Request, Speech Acts

References

• Abubakar, M. S. (2009). The role of sulh in arms, economic, and political resolution of conflict among Muslims and Non-Muslims. In The Eleventh Annual Judges Conference organised and held at Kango conference hotel by centre for Islamic legal studies institute of administration Ahmadu Bello University Zaria, Nigeria. Atkinson, J. M. and Drew, P. (1979). Order in court: The organization of verbal expression in Barkindo, I. (2009) Sulhu in Islamic constitutional law: The role of Emirate in dispute resolution. In The Eleventh Annual Judges Conference organised and held at Kango conference hotel by centre for Islamic legal studies institute of administration Ahmadu Bello University Zaria, Nigeria. Boyatzis, R. (1998). Transforming qualitative information: Thematic analysis and code development. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Braun, V. Clarke, V. (2006) Using thematic analysis in Psychology. Qualitative Research in Psychology, 3 (2): 77-101. ISSN 1478-0887.University of the West of England. Broadbent, N. (2009). Alternative dispute resolution. Legal Information Management, 9(03): 195-198. Carr, C. T., Schrok, D. B. and Dauterman, P. (2012). Speech acts within Facebook status messages. Journal of Language and Social Psychology, 0261927X12438535. Corntassel, J. (2009). Indigenous storytelling, truth-telling, and community approaches to reconciliation. ESC: English Studies in Canada, 35(1):137-159. Creswell, J. W. (2012). Educational research: Planning, Conducting and evaluating quantitative and qualitative research. New Jersey: Pearson Education. University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Du, J. (2004). Legal linguistics. Shanghai: Shanghai Foreign Language Education Press. Edwards, H. T. (1986) Alternative dispute resolution: Panacea or anathema? Harvard Law Review, 668-684. Gibson, J. L. (2002). Truth, justice, and reconciliation: Judging the fairness of amnesty in South Africa. American Journal of Political Science, 540-556. Gibson, J. L. and Gouws, A. (1999). Truth and reconciliation in South Africa: Attributions of blame and the struggle over apartheid. American Political Science Review, 93(03): 501-517. Gummi, H. J. L. H. (2009). An overview of the modus operandi of the multi-door court houses. In The Eleventh Annual Judges Conference organised and held at Kango conference hotel by centre for Islamic legal studies institute of administration Ahmadu Bello University Zaria, Nigeria. Hamber, B. Kelly, G. (2008). The challenge of reconciliation: Translating theory into practice. A Sustainable PEACE? 3. Hodson, D. (2008). The EU mediation directive: The European encouragement to family law ADR. International Family Law, 209-16. Hunt, R. (2010). Alternative Dispute Resolution. ADR Bulletin, 11(1): 5. Ivey, C. L. (2012). Me and God, we are cool: reconciliation between religious and sexual identity among LGBT members. Doctoral dissertation, Kansas State University. Keffi, S. U. D. (2009). The legal, social and economic roles of As-sulh from the perspective of jurisprudence (Fiqh) of the Maalik school. In The Eleventh Annual Judges Conference organised and held at Kango conference hotel by centre for Islamic legal studies institute of administration Ahmadu Bello University Zaria, Nigeria. Keshavjee, M. (2013). Islam, Sharia and Alternative Dispute Resolution: Mechanisms for Legal Redress in the Muslim Community (Vol. 6). IB Tauris. Keyton, J. (2015). Communication research: Asking questions, finding answers (4th ed.). New York: McGraw Hill Higher Education. Khoyi, A. M. Behnam, B. (2014). Discourse of Law: Analysis of Cooperative Principles and Speech Acts in Iranian Law Courts. Asian Journal of Education and e-Learning, 2(4). Kreidler, C. W. (1998). Introducing English semantic: 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN Kymlicka, W. Bashir, B. (eds) (2008). The politics of reconciliation in multicultural societies. Oxford University Press. Liao, M. (2003). A study on the questions and answers and the interactions on the court. Beijing: Law Press. Lv, W. (2006). Control of power of judges’ discourse. Foreign Language Studies, 02. Lv, W. (2011). A study on the power of speech in the court. Beijing: China Social Science Press Ma, Y., & Xie, X. (2007). The micro structure of the discourse of the strong role in proceedings. Academic Forum, 12. Mnookin, R. (1998). Alternative dispute resolution. Obeng, S. G. (1999). Grammatical Pragmatics: Power in Akan Judicial Discourse. Pragmatics, 9(2). Patton, M. Q. (1990). Qualitative evaluation and research methods. Newbury Park, CA: Sage Publications. Philpott, D. (2007). what religion brings to the politics of transitional justice. Journal of International Affairs, 61(1): 93-110. Posner, R. A. (1986). The summary jury trial and other methods of alternative dispute resolution: Some cautionary observations. The University of Chicago Law Review, 366-393. Pupavac, V. (2004). War on the Couch the emotionology of the new international security paradigm. European journal of social theory, 7(2): 149-170. Ramsbotham, O. Miall, H. Woodhouse, T. (2011). Contemporary conflict resolution. Polity. Resnik, J. (1994). Many Doors--Closing Doors--Alternative Dispute Resolution and Adjudication. Ohio St. J. on Disp. Resol., 10, 211. Resolution, A. D. (2013). Alternative dispute resolution. Edwards, H. T. (1986). Alternative dispute resolution: Panacea or anathema?.Harvard Law Review, 668-684. Ryan, C. (1997). Alternative dispute resolution. Industrial Relations Centre, Queen's University. Searle, J. (1969). Speech acts. An essay in the philosophy of language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Searle, J. (1975). Indirect speech acts. In: Peter Cole and Jerrold Morgan (eds), Syntax and Semantics, volume 3: Speech Acts, 41-58. London: Academic Press. Searle, J. (1979). Expression and meaning: studies in the theory of speech acts. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Shavell, S. (1995). Alternative dispute resolution: an economic analysis. The Journal of Legal Studies, 1-28. Shuy, R. W. (2007). Language in the American courtroom. Language and Linguistics Compass, 1(1‐2): 100-114. Singh, H., Kaur, P., Thuraisingam, T. (2011). Language for reconciliation in religious discourse: A critical discourse analysis of contradictions in sermons explored through the activity theory framework. Staub, E. (2006). Reconciliation after genocide, mass killing, or intractable conflict: Understanding the roots of violence, psychological recovery, and steps toward a general theory. Political Psychology, 27(6): 867-894. Stone, K. V. (2004). Alternative Dispute Resolution. Usman, J.A. M. (2009). Practice and procedure in matrimonial arbitrations. In The Eleventh Annual Judges Conference organised and held at Kango conference hotel by centre for Islamic legal studies institute of administration Ahmadu Bello University Zaria, Nigeria. Uthman, M. B. (2009). An overview of the substantive law of sulh in civil and criminal cases. In The Eleventh Annual Judges Conference organised and held at Kango conference hotel by centre for Islamic legal studies institute of administration Ahmadu Bello University Zaria, Nigeria. Van der Merwe, H. (2003). The role of the church in promoting reconciliation in post-TRC South Africa. Religion and reconciliation in South Africa, 269-281. Wali, H. J. A. B. (2009). The viability of alternative dispute resolution (ADR) to sharia-based states. In The Eleventh Annual Judges Conference organised and held at Kango conference hotel by centre for Islamic legal studies institute of administration Ahmadu Bello University Zaria, Nigeria. Wang, X. (2014). An analysis of legal language used by a strong judge in court: A Case Study. In The Fourth International Conference On Law, Language and Discourse (LLD),82. Wilson, R. A. (2003). Anthropological studies of national reconciliation processes. Anthropological Theory, 3(3): 367-387. Yamamoto, E. K., Obrey, A. K. (2009). Reframing redress: A Social Healing through Justice Approach to United States-Native Hawaiian and Japan-Ainu Reconciliation Initiatives. Asian Am. LJ, 16, 5. Yonghong, H. A. N. (2014). The (2000-2014) and its implications for China. In The Fourth International Conference On Law, Language and Discourse (LLD), 190. Yu, S. (2010). A study on the court language. Beijing: Peking University Press. 87