Gubernatorial Speeches and Pragmatic Meanings: A Speech Act Analysis of Inaugural Speeches of Ayodele Fayose of October 16, 2014 and Kayode Fayemi of October 16, 2018

Abstract

Political journey of a political office holder especially at the presidential or governorship level begins with an inaugural address. The address is characterized by ingenious use of language by working or manipulating the listeners (Citizenry) towards supporting his administration. This study is a comparative analysis of the inaugural speeches of Governors Ayodele Fayose on October 16, 2014 and Kayode Fayemi on October 16, 2018 using the Speech Act theory of Austin (1962) and Searle (1969). The study was aimed at identifying the illocutionary forces of the speech acts employed in the two speeches. The data were drawn from the two speeches and forty-six (46) speech acts were obtained, processed and analyzed. Five categories of speech acts identified by Searle (1969) are significant in the speeches as follows: Commissives (39.1%), assertives (28.3%), expressives (17.4%), directives (10.9%) and declarative (4.3%) of the total data. The result shows that the speech acts used in the speeches, though used by different persons are similar in structure, number and purpose. Lastly, our analysis revealed that the preponderance of commissive acts in the speeches are due to the nature of the speeches in which promises, pledges and vows were made by the governors.