Open Access
American Research Journal of English and Literature
ISSN (Online): 2378-9026
DOI: 10.46568/arjel
A Linguistic Appraisal of Brown and Levinson’s Face Management Act View Using Charles Chinedu Ochendu’s Fools’ Paradise
1Department of European Languages, Federal University Birnin-Kebbi, Nigeria.
2Department of English, Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida University, Lapai, Niger State, Nigeria
Acheoah John Emike, Tokunbo Olopade, Linda Jummai Mustafa, “A Linguistic Appraisal of Brown and
Levinson’s Face Management Act View Using Charles Chinedu Ochendu’s Fools’ Paradise”, American Research Journal
of English and Literature, Vol 9, no. 1, 2023, pp. 28-34.
Abstract
It is fascinating to appraise linguistic theories through the analysis of literary texts. This paper is an appraisal of Brown
and Levinson’s Face Management View (cited in Bossan Rita [1]) through the analysis of corpora selected from Charles
Chinedu Ochendu’s [2] novel, Fools’ Paradise. Language theories or postulations provide useful insights on language use
across genres, including the novel genre. The Face Management View captures not only the sociocultural and psychological
of face threatening acts, but also their communicative potentials in written and spoken texts. The selected conversational
turns were subjected to analysis to reveal whether or not face threatening acts (FTAs) and face saving acts (FSAs) were
performed, the pragmatic motivations for performing FTAs and FSAs and the implications on the message of a text. The
study concludes that even though the theory is bereaved of the dynamics of non-verbal communication, it is suitable for
explaining the psychological context of language use in human interactions.
