Politeness Phenomena in Omobowale’S the President’S Physician

Abstract

The study conceives that the analysis of drama transcends the analysis of performance. Therefore, a critical attempt must be made to gain an insight into the individuality of the writer’s style. To have a gainful analysis, therefore, our study is premised on the theoretical framework of Politeness Principle. The politeness analysis enabled us to apply Brown & Levinson’s politeness phenomena in studying the politeness strategies deployed by Omobowale in using both the positive and negative politeness strategies which were obviously employed in the text. The study concludes that Omobowale made a judicious use of the three different continua of tenor, that is, power, contact and affective involvement in contexualising the text as a whole even as he employed the former in relaying to us what goes on in the entire Waverian society, a replica/symbol of Nigeria and other dictatorial African countries, and to convince us that the roles played by participants have effect on their use of language.

Keywords: FTA, politeness, The President’s Physician, (non)verbal, style