Discourse Analysis of wəddi mən, Oral Game of Honeymoon in the Eastern Tigrai
No Thumbnail Available
Date
2020-08
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
AAU
Abstract
In the rural areas of the Eastern Tigrai, when people visit the honeymooners, they often
prefer to play an oral game called wəddi mən, which means 'whose son is...', and
functionally, 'whose bridegroom/ bride is..., fiancé/ fiancée is...', as an entertainment and
socio-linguistic event. This paper investigates on the Discourses that are used in wəddi
mən. The main objective of this research is to thematically describe the Discourses of
wəddi mən and their functions. wəddi mən is an event that has currently been replaced by
some modern entertaining games such as play cards and modern music. Because this
socio-linguistic practice is still oral, it has seriously been endangered. Therefore, it needs to
be researched and transformed into written status. Thus, this work may be playing its role
in documenting this oral language use for the first time.
Conceptually, this research considered Osisanwo's (2005) Discourse features cited in
Osoba & Sobola (2014: 203). These features are: conversation, Discourse participants,
opening and closing of Discourse, holding floor, turn-taking, overlapping, speech errors,
repair mechanism, role sharing, elicitation in talk, and adjacency pairs. Halliday's theory of
systematic functional linguistics (SFL), an approach and theory that views languages as a
social phenomenon which is more concerned with the functions and meanings than with
the structural aspects of languages, is theoretically framed to this research.
This research is designed based on the descriptive approach of qualitative research
design. The data for this research are gathered from the remote rural areas of purposely
selected six Weredas of the Eastern Tigrai. The main tools for gathering the data for this
research have mainly been ethnographic observation and semi-structured interviews.
This study found out different sociolinguistic and cultural practices reflected by the
Discourses used in wəddi mən. It has thematized the Discourses based on their functions
and meanings. The participants portray the issues of power assignment, power hierarchy,
power exercise and power transfer in their interactional communications using the
Discourses. This research also found out the Discourses of naming and addressing in
wəddi mən in reflection to the cultures of naming and addressing of their community. It has
iii
also analyzed how the participants use the Discourses that show how people make and fix
appointments with other interlocutors thereby reflecting the culture of division of labor
among the masculine and feminine genders in their society. Moreover, this study has found
out some Discourses that reflect the attitude and the feeling of the bridegroom and the
bride towards each other. Besides, it has come up with findings of taboo Discourses that
are used by the participants as taboo as they are for entertainment and life skill training in
their interaction. Furthermore, this research has also analyzed gendered Discourses; for
example, Discourse of sex preference at first birth in their interaction as a reflection of the
culture of the society. The other concept which this research has come up with is the
Discourses of politeness during the interactional communications of the participants. In
their communications, the participants address each other using honorific terms not to
belittle their interlocutors. Finally, the participants conclude the game using the Discourses
of blessing as illustrated in the Discourses in 4.17. In the game of wəddi mən, it is the bride
who blesses the end of the game.
Description
Keywords
research is to thematically describe the Discourses of wəddi mən and their functions