American Research Journal of English and Literature

 This study investigates the potency of language in conflict resolution in Africa in particular, and the world at large. Insights from sociolinguistics, pragmatics, discourse analysis and stylistics enrich the study. Since the Millennium Development Goals in Africa does not exclude peace and development, the dynamics of language in the resolution of conflicts is a worthy academic endeavour. One of the reasons why the international community has not been able to resolve some conflicts in Africa is its failure to effectively explore the pragmatics of language in peace-talks. The data of this study are generated from conflict resolution dialogue (adjacency pairs) between two warring communities: Azuwa and Ezinma. This study hinges on two theoretical frameworks: Roman Jackobson’s Elements of Communication and Acheoah’s Pragma-crafting Theory. The study concludes that effective use of language in conflict management presupposes the use of diverse discourse strategies which include imagery, special clause structure, repetition, call to action, the use of third-party, feedback, speech acts, personal pronouns, mutual contextual knowledge, among others.