Pragmatic Markers in an Appellate Court Judgment: General Brigadier, A. M. Adekunle (Rtd) vs Rockview Hotel

Abstract

Linguistics is the scientific study of language; however, its meta-implications in Appellate court judgment are given as much scholarly attention as other legal genres. Most studies on courtroom and particularly court judgement have focused on stylistic analysis, speech act and genre analysis, consequently, studies on non-propositional meanings are still lean. Therefore, this study in the bid to further describe the language of judges and account for how language is organised to achieve justice, investigated the nature and function pragmatic markers in a select Nigerian Appellate Court Judgement. Using a Purposive random sampling technique, the study selected a property case judgement titled General Brigadier, A.M Adekunle (Rtd.) V. Rockview from the Nigerian Weekly Law Reports (1999-2004). It adopted Fraser’s 1996 Pragmatic Marker Theory and mixed method of analysis –The quantitative research method was used in analysing the frequencies of the types of pragmatic markers employed by the judge while pragmatic imports of the markers in the ApCJ were discussed qualitatively. These analyses revealed that the selected ApCJ, though linguistic, is also replete with the four variants of pragmatic markers: Basic (44.9% marker), commentary (37.8%) and discourse markers (10.35%) and parallel (3.45%) identified by Fraser’s. The appellate judge used the basic markers particularly (the declarative markers) to build up the fact of the case and signal his opinions about them and the imperative markers were the verdict pronounced. Commentary markers with (37.8%) were the second class of pragmatic markers observed in the (ApCJ). It comprised the following: Hearsay (3.45%), evidential (13.8%), contrastive markers (3.45%) assessment markers (13.7%) and emphasis marker (6.9%). The judge used more evidential markers and assessment to predicate his judicial argumentation, implicitly justifying the trial court’s judgement and thereby build logical bases for partly disallowing the appeal.  In conclusion, the language of ApCJs is laden with pragmatic markers which serve essentially to build up issues and provide judicial argumentation and ultimately construct the verdicts. Pragmatic makers are greatly exploited by the appellate judge for effective adjudication. Therefore, applied linguists and Forensic experts should critically investigate them to ascertain the correctness of the ratio dicidendi and the judge’s obiter dictum -crucial variables for establishing judicial accountability and fairness.