A speech act analysis of selected dialogues in Nigerian home movies

Abstract

This study conducts a speech act analysis of selected dialogues from the Nigerian films Kambili: The Whole 30 Yards and Omo Ghetto: The Saga, using Searle’s theory. It aims to identify and categorise illocutionary acts and to explore the contextual functions of these acts in the movies. The central research question is: How do the types of illocutionary acts, as categorised by Searle, vary across dialogues in the selected movies, and how do these acts function in their specific contexts? A qualitative method employing descriptive and content analysis was used to examine how meaning is conveyed through words, clauses and expressions. The difference in focus between clauses and expressions lies in their linguistic scope and function. Ten dialogues from each of the movies that played significant roles in the movie’s plot or character development and those containing speech acts or rich pragmatic elements were purposively selected for analysis. Findings reveal that directives (e.g. requesting, advising) were the most frequent acts (n = 93, 34.3%), followed by expressives (n = 88, 32.5%), assertives (n = 75, 27.7%), commissives (n = 13, 4.8%), and declaratives (n = 2, 0.7%). These acts reflect how characters perform roles and shape social realities in the films. It further reveals that the dialogues occur in a social context shaped by street culture, informal power hierarchies and urban survival strategies. The study concludes that speech acts in Nigerian cinema are performative tools that mirror societal interactions, values and intentions, revealing the deeper functions of language in cinematic storytelling.