Conversational Competence as a Criterion for Marital Peace and Harmony: A Speech Act Analysis of Ola Rotimi’s Our Husband Has Gone Mad Again

Abstract

Marriage is a bonding activity in continuous sustenance between a conventional man and a woman (or women) and vice versa. A couple in a marriage contract ought to have common interest and respect for each other. And they ought to converse with each other on the atmosphere of reciprocal reverence. A couple who exist, however, solely for their own selfish gratification is not experiencing a full and sated life together. And soon enough, such couples are bound to break apart. Using the play, Our Husband Has Gone Mad Again by Ola Rotimi, this paper beams a panoramic view on how the knowledge and compliance to Grice’s “Conversational Maxims” can aid in the fostering of marriages in Nigeria. Showcasing the conversations of Major Rahman Taslin Lejoka Brown and his wives in the aforementioned play with Paul Grice’s conversational maxims as yardstick, this paper reveals how Brown’s conversations with his wives constantly resulted to conversational implicature, thus serving as a blue-print on how couples should not converse in marriages so as to avoid conflict and/or divorce as seen in the play.