Acts in Marriage Solemnization Text: A Pragmatic Study of Church and Court Marriage

Abstract

 Marriage institution is a very important and serious institution. Its importance and
seriousness stems from the fact that it is the union of two distinct adults- each with his / her
own peculiarities- for the purpose of procreation and companionship among others. This
therefore requires a very careful and serious approach and the format for its enactment
appropriately articulated. This study entitled Acts in Marriage Solemnization Texts: a
Pragmatic Study of Court and Church marriage is an analytic study of the pragmatic
techniques employed in both Christian and Court marriages. It is with the aim of determining
the effectiveness or impact of the text in sustaining the institution of marriage in this divorceridden age of ours. The theoretical framework of Speech Act is the basis for the study. More
particularly, Searl’s taxonomy of speech Act which gave more prominence to illocutionary
force was the focus. Consequently, the texts were analyzed as the actions taken by whoever
officiates at the marriage ceremony with the aim of determining the perlocutionary effects they
have on the couple while they live their marital lives. Our basic finding reveals that Christian
marriage text has more of Assertives, moderate Commissives and little Directives. There are
however no presence of Expressives and Declaratives. The Court marriage text on its own has
the highest percentage of Directives, equal percentage of Commissives and Assertives, little
Declarative and very little Expressives. In sum, the court marriage text employed all the five
Acts. The paper concludes that the nature of the text is reasonably responsible for the
perception and consequently the attitude of the couple in the institution of marriage.