COOPERATIVE PRINCIPLES IN A NIGERIAN CHRISTIAN SERMON

BY

DR. EMMANUEL ADEDAYO ADEDUN

Department of English

University of Lagos, Nigeria

and

DR. OLAJUMOKE OLUWATOYIN MEKILIUWA

Department of General Studies

Federal College of Education (Technical)

Lagos, Nigeria

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COOPERATIVE PRINCIPLES IN A NIGERIAN CHRISTIAN SERMON

By

DR. EMMANUEL ADEDAYO ADEDUNAND

DR. OLAJUMOKE OLUWATOYIN MEKILIUWA

ABSTRACTIn the light of the assumptions and expectations that underlie communicative behaviour in sermonic discourses and their dependence on contextual inferences rather than linguistic meanings, this paper utilizes the cooperative principles to examine a Nigerian Christian sermon by one of the leading preachers in Nigeria. It is found that the preacher expects the audience to understand his message by relying on the background or previous knowledge which they both share. The paper argues that the fact that utterances are felicitous in spite of the breach of cooperative principles reveals a major weakness in Christian sermonic discourses and reinforces the impression that they are shrouded in mystery. {Key Words: Christianity, Sermon, Religion, Pragmatics, Co-operative Principles}.

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COOPERATIVE PRINCIPLES IN A NIGERIAN CHRISTIAN SERMON

Introduction

The interpretation of meaning in human interactions is the

major preoccupation of pragmatics and the pragmatician’s

primary concern is to provide an explanation of how it is

that speakers of any language can use sentences to convey

messages that do not bear any relation to the linguistic

context of the sentence, yet such sentences are considered

coherent. The assumptions and expectations that underlie

communicative behaviour which give insight into how speakers

communicate more than they say are therefore germane to the

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linguistic analysis of meaning. The implication of this is

that, a pragmatic consideration of language is triple

faceted, focusing on functions, and contexts of language use

as well as the social principles that underlie discoursal

varieties of language in society.

Often referred to as the “wastebasket of linguistics” (Mey,

2001), pragmatics does not easily lend itself to a

definition and delimitation of its scope, though scholars

such as Levinson (1983) Leech (1983), Horn (1988), Yule

(1996), Coupland and Jaworski (2006) and Cutting (2008) all

agree that major themes in micro and macro pragmatic

analysis of language include speech acts, Grice’s

Cooperative principle, Politeness principle and the

contribution of context (implicatures, deixis, reference and

presuppositions) to meaning.

Because of the vastness of scope of the field, this paper

examines one of the social principles, that is, the

cooperative principle that underlies the pragmatic use of

language and the interpretation of meaning in a public

discourse: a Christian Pentecostal sermon.

The Cooperative Principles

The social roles of participants in discourse and the

principles that govern such interactions are the focus of

Grice’s 1975 work, Logic and Conversation. In that study,

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Grice proposed that, in all communication, there is a

general, though tacit agreement between speaker and hearers,

which is governed by conventions or rules. This, he referred

to as the Cooperative principle (CP). Communication is said

to take place when speakers and listeners obey and do not

violate these cooperative maxims. Broadly classified into

four, the maxims of quality, quantity, relation and manner

are seen as one super-ordinate or meta-maxim: make your

contribution such as is required, at the stage at which it

occurs, by the accepted purpose of the talk exchange in

which you are engaged (Grice, 1975:47).

In an elaboration of the cooperative principle, Cutting

(2008) distinguishes between flouting, violating and

infringing of maxims. These are instances where the maxims

are not observed. To flout a maxim implies that the maxim is

not being observed, and in doing this, speakers expect

hearers to appreciate the meaning implied. As it is the case

with indirect speech acts, the speaker, in flouting a maxim

signals to the addressee that his words be taken literally.

Conversational implicatures (CIs) are instances when the

cooperative principles are flouted. These conversational

implicatures are assumptions over and above the meaning of

the sentence used which the speaker knows and intends that

the listener will make in the face of an open flouting or

violation of the cooperative principle in order to interpret

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the speaker’s utterances in accordance with the cooperative

principle.

On the other hand, when a speaker intentionally generates a

misleading or false implicature when he knows that the

hearer will not know the truth and will only understand the

surface meaning of his words, then the speaker has violated

the maxim. Finally, a speaker infringes a maxim when he

fails to observe the maxim probably because of linguistic

imperfections, as in a child or a second language learner

using a language or if performance is cognitively or

emotionally impaired.

Grice’s maxims offer a framework in this study for examining

the social relations that exist in discourse, how learners

cooperate socially in their use of language, and how meaning

is constructed and interpreted in sermons as a discourse

type.

For Yule (1996) and Cook (1989), a major tool in

interpreting meaning in discourse is the knowledge structure

or schema that the participants bring to the speech event.

The schema theory proposes that individuals process

information in the light of the background or previous

knowledge that they bring to a new speech event.

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These conventional knowledge structures, according to Yule,

exist in the memory and they function like familiar patterns

in the interpretation of new experiences. Participants in a

speech event will normally activate several schemas or

follow a script during the event. Indeed, the ability of

learners to arrive automatically at interpretations of the

unsaid is based on these pre-existing knowledge structures.

The social construction and joint production of meaning and

the observation (or otherwise) of these communicative

principle and maxims are examined in this study of Christian

sermonic discourse.

Sermons as a Discourse Type

Sermons are a subtype of religious discourse. They are

instances of language use by members of society as they

communicate with one another for transactional and

interactional religious purposes. Sermons have been

described as planned formal speeches designed to develop

faith in the hearers and to urge them on to new beliefs, new

courses of action or to spiritual progress (Larsen, 1989;

Osakwe, 1999; Johnstone, 2002).

Religious language as used in sermonic discourse is

pragmatic because it makes assumptions of people and of the

world around. Meanings are constructed and conveyed by the

preacher and, the congregation during sermonic delivery are

expected to rely on their background knowledge, biblical or

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epistemic, as well as other contextual information to

interpret communicated meanings. Examinations of sermonic

discourse have been done in Eidenmuller (1992) and Osakwe

(1999). These studies confirm that pragmatic and stylistic

factors are germane to the understanding of meaning in

public discourses such as sermons.

Data Description and Analysis

The data for this study were gathered from the transcript of

the sermon “The Foundation for Ever-Increasing Glory”

delivered by Dr. David Oyedepo, presiding bishop of Faith

Tabernacle (a.k.a Winners’ Chapel) with headquarters in

Sango Ota, Ogun State. The Faith Tabernacle is reputed to be

the largest church auditorium in the world (Guinness Book of

Records, 2009). The audiotape of the sermon was transcribed

(see appendix) into clauses and then examined for use of

cooperative maxims.

Discussion

The thematic preoccupation of the preacher in this sermon is

that of eternal glory. In elaborating this theme, the sermon

is woven around the metaphor of a house and its foundation.

‘Glory’, an intangible concept is likened to a house with

foundations. The ‘foundation’ of ever-increasing glory, as

revealed by the preacher is meekness and humility. The

speaker develops this theme through illustrations, exegesis

and explanations.

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The sermon is initiated through preambles such as general

observations and comments whose main function is to create

social harmony and comity between clergy and laity. The main

discourse however, is developed through thematic repetition

and reiteration of utterances that remind hearers, again and

again of the preacher’s focus and goal. At transactional

boundaries, for instance, it is usual for the preacher to

remind his hearers of his theme through repetition of

utterances such as:

My meat is to do the will of Him that sent me and to

finish His work.

Except a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies,

it abideth alone.

A unique feature of this sermon is that there are few

cohesive ties or lexico-grammatical connections between

utterances in the text. While the sermon lacks structural

links and formal connection breaks down, coherence and

thematic unity is however maintained through thematic

repetition and other pragmatic tools. The implication of

this is that meaning is not conveyed in this sermon through

lexico-grammatical ties alone, meaning is to be decoded here

through recourse to pragmatic tools.

In all communication and interactions, speakers and hearers

are assumed to follow and obey the cooperative maxims. In

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this sermon however, Grice’s maxims of relation and quality

are flouted.

Maxim of Relation

The maxim of relation admonishes a speaker to be relevant;

that is, utterances should be related one to another and

related to the topic of discussion. The preacher, in this

sermon openly flouts this maxim, for there is no clear

grammatical or semantic relatedness between utterances.

Rather, he moves from topic to topic within the discourse

without any covert links between sentences. We have the

juxtaposition of clauses with no explicit semantic

connection between propositions. This, according to Stubbs

(1983), is a feature of unplanned speech. An example of this

is in Extract I below. The utterances are numbered for ease

of reference.

Extract I

(1) Until you understand my heartbeat for God, you’ve notdiscovered my secret. (2) Now, I’m going to say it to you now, I havenever stood, me and my wife and pray for money once. (3) Except agrain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it abideth alone.

In this extract, there are no lexical ties between the

sentences. Though repetition of the pronouns ‘I’, ‘my’ and

‘you’ occur across sentence boundaries, this does little to

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contribute to meaning in the extract. To interpret the

speaker’s meaning therefore, addressees must rely on other

kinds of knowledge and situational context other than the

co-text. The congregation through pragmatic tools can infer

here that sacrificial living, (encapsulated in the metaphor

of a grain of wheat dying) is the heartbeat of the preacher

and, may also be the key to his abundant living, hence he

and his wife have never lacked money.

Extracts 2 and 3 are also examples:

Extract 2

(1) We do nothing except it’s commanded and you want to see howcolourful and glorious that can be. (2) “Can these bones live?” heasked Ezekiel.

Extract 3

(1) Seek ye first the kingdom of God and all the demands of Hiskingdom and all these things shall be added unto you. (2) Littleseeds in the ground are becoming a big, big tree spreadingbranches with birds of the air, lodging their nests on it.

In Extract 2, there is no semantic relation between

sentences (1) and (2), for there are no cohesive ties that

connect them. Moreover, the identity of the pronoun ‘he’ in

(2) is vague, for there is no antecedent to which it points.

This implies that the speaker also flouts the maxim of

manner. Communication and meaning therefore depend on the

congregation’s cognitive ability to use context to make

inferences. One of such contexts is background or biblical

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knowledge of hearers with which they infer that ‘he’ refers

to God and that the two utterances are also somewhat

semantically related.

In Extract 3, there are also no grammatical or lexical

devices for cohesion between (1) and (2). The thrust of

sentence (1) – the kingdom of God and that of (2) – seeds

growing into a tree are not semantically connected. Meaning

is however derived through other contextual information.

Through knowledge of biblical metaphors by the

interlocutors, hearers are able to understand that the

kingdom of God, in comparison to a little seed sown, has the

ability to grow great and big.

In Extract 4 below, we see another instance where the maxim

of relation is flouted:

Extract 4

(1) A sold out life will shine for all eternity. (2) If the foundation bedestroyed, what can the righteous do? (3) There is no way a seedwill enjoy glory until it is planted. (4) Until your life becomes a seed,your destiny is limited. (5) It is the quantity of your dedication thatdetermines the beauty of your destination. (6) Paul the apostlecame and said, “For me to live is Christ and to die is gain.” (7) Woeis me if I preach not the gospel.

In this extract, there are no immediate ties between (1),

(2) and (3). There is however a lexical tie between (3) and

(4) through the repetition of the lexical item ‘seed’ across

sentence boundaries and this provides a form of cohesion.

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Also, the repetition of ‘life’ in (1), (4) and ‘live’ in (6)

serve as remote cohesive ties between these sentences.

The overall lack of interconnectedness results however in

difficulty in interpreting the speaker’s meaning in this

extract. Here, contextual clues such as thematic unity of

the sermon must be considered to account for meaning. The

recurrent theme of sacrificial living as well as

metaphorical allusions to ‘a sold out life’, ‘seed

planting’, ‘a grain of wheat’ all offer an implicature of

speaker’s meanings.

Maxim of Manner

The maxim of manner commands speakers to avoid obscurity of

expression and ambiguity. The preacher in this sermon also

flouts this maxim as he uses several obscure and vague

expressions, pronouns and names in the sermon without prior

or later clarifications, as in these examples:

(1) He said, “I will put none of these diseases upon thee

as I brought them on the Egyptians.”

(2) A seed shall serve him. He shall in turn serve them.

(3) I have his mandate to use his name.

(4) Tonight, I’ll be bringing us a brief word at his

command. I can’t do anything here according to him

except he says so.

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(5) … we can describe his glory as an unending glory.

In these extracts, the pronouns he, him, and his cannot be

interpreted endophorically for there are no antecedents to

these referents. Anaphora or cataphora therefore provide no

clues as to the identity of these items; rather these are

deictic expressions which rely on exophoric information to

decode meaning. Hearers, through biblical knowledge are able

to infer that these pronouns refer to God. The congregation

of course, also rely on their knowledge structure to decode

the assumptions that underlie these utterances. In 6 - 10

below, we provide further examples of vague expressions

which speakers assume that the congregation knows and

understands:

6) The university is setting the pace.

7) He came straight from the bosom of the father.

8) The name is our staff of authority in the kingdom.

9) Our ministry runs only on the instruction of the

master.

The extracts above reveal that in Christian sermonic

discourse, preachers often use ‘Christianese’, a religious

jargon that is peculiar to that religious ‘speech

community’. Examples of this are the noun phrases: the

kingdom, the master, the father, and others such as the

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spirit, daddy, brother, the enemy. These expressions while

assumed by the speaker to be clear to the congregation,

remain vague and obscure to the ‘stranger’ in the religious

community since he is not privy to such shared meanings. The

congregation however, are able to activate their knowledge

schema and identify the referents of these words as God (the

father, daddy, the master), satan (the enemy), the kingdom

of God (the kingdom), brother (a fellow believer). ‘The

university’ in (6) is interpreted through epistemic

knowledge shared by preacher and congregation. Bishop

Oyedepo (the preacher) is known to the congregation as the

Founder/Chancellor of Covenant University, a privately owned

university in Ota, Ogun State, Nigeria.

Religious language as can be inferred from these usages is

put to social as well as theological uses. It functions to

unite its users through mutually understood codes while

alienating strangers from intra group communication. This

confirms Saville Troike’s (1982) view that chief among

functions of language is that of creating or reinforcing

boundaries, unifying its speakers as members of a single

speech community and excluding outsiders from intra group

communication.

The maxim of manner is once again flouted when the preacher

cites or mentions biblical characters or names without

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clarifying their identities. The underlying assumption here

is that everyone knows who these are. Take for instance:

10) I’m not sure he has ever preached once in his life

without Daniel.

11) Paul came on the scene and Paul said, “For me to live

is Christ. …”

12) Joshua said, “Choose ye this day whom you shall serve.”

13) “Can these bones live”, he said to Ezekiel.

14) David, a man after God’s own heart….

15) I was reading Watchman Nee several years ago.…

The preacher alludes to these characters assuming that they

are familiar to the congregation and as such there is no

breakdown of communicative meaning. The congregation, by

inference know also that David, Ezekiel, Joshua, Paul and

Daniel are biblical characters. The epistemic knowledge

shared by the speaker and addressees in this sermon is

brought in to decode the identity of “Watchman Nee” as a

popular Christian writer, whom the preacher assumes is well

known to this congregation.

Maxims of Quality/Quantity

The maxims of quality and quantity are not openly flouted or

violated in this discourse. The maxim of quality for

instance, commands speakers not to say that which is

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believed to be false. For obvious reasons, this maxim is

observed in sermonic discourse, as preachers, seen as God’s

spokesmen, are expected to speak that which is theologically

accurate and true. As evidence of the truth, speakers

provide adequate logical proof, from biblical texts, as well

as biographical or contemporary stories which are cited to

confirm knowledge, facts and information shared by the

speaker.

One instance where the maxim of quality can be assumed to be

flouted is where a speaker uses figures of speech such as

hyperboles to emphasize a point or for rhetorical

intentions.

In decoding meaning in this sermon, it is also evident that

addressees must rely on situational and contextual knowledge

rather than the co-text. According to Johnstone (2002,

p.203), when speakers speak, they “expect their audiences to

employ interpretive strategies to infer how utterances are

meant to be understood.” One of such interpretive strategies

in this sermon is the pre-existing knowledge that the

congregation brings to the speech event. It is this that

gives them a cue as to when and how to respond to the

preacher’s utterances and it gives them a clue, also that

the sermon has come to an end. When and where the

cooperative maxims break down, the congregation resorts to

this background (biblical or epistemic) knowledge, to decode

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deep layered meanings. It is evident from this study

therefore that “relationship among leaders and followers,

outsiders and insiders within any order, religious or not,

are guided by implicit and explicit principles governing

motive, purpose and actions” (Eidenmuller, 1998, p.1). From

this analysis of pragmatic use of language in sermonic

discourse, it is clear that, “If we are to find the answer

to the problem of what gives stretches of language unity and

meaning, we must look beyond the formal rules operating

within sentences and consider the people who use language

and the world in which it happens as well” (Cook, 1989,

p.99).

Conclusion

This study has examined how meaning is conveyed and

interpreted in sermonic discourse. The study revealed that

background assumptions and knowledge shared by preacher and

congregation in sermon delivery account for how meaning is

constructed and inferred by participants in the discourse.

We can safely conclude therefore, that interpretation of

meaning in sermon delivery is not determined by linguistic

contexts only, nor dependent on textual resources; rather it

is dependent on other situational and contextual factors.

Where the cooperative principles break down in

communication, meaning does not in fact, break down.

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This study further revealed that though the principles

outlined in pragmatics, one of which is the cooperative

principle, are said to be the basic assumptions that govern

the way people interpret meanings in interactions with one

another; these principles may actually be prescriptive,

hypothetical and idealistic rather than descriptive of

actual human interactions. Granted that people indeed act

strategically in communicative interactions, Grice’s maxims

of quality, quantity, relation and manner are often flouted

by speakers, sometimes deliberately. Utterances are however

regarded as felicitous regardless of this perceived

breakdown in the communicative principles. This, ironically,

reveals a major weakness in sermonic discourse, for, where

the maxims are flouted, it reinforces the impression that

religious discourse is a “hidden” discourse and that

religion is abstract and mystical, shrouded in secrecy. This

impression is reinforced by the language structures employed

by speakers.

Religion however, need not be mysterious or ‘hidden’,

religion need only be an expression of man’s relationship

and communication with his God. Religious language need not

create boundaries; rather clerics should seek to break down

linguistic barriers between speakers and hearers through the

use of plain, simple and clear language.

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