Journal of Modern Education Review, ISSN 2155-7993, USA

August 2018, Volume 8, No. 8, pp. 624–633

Doi: 10.15341/jmer(2155-7993)/08.08.2018/007
 Academic Star Publishing Company, 2018
http://www.academicstar.us

A Pragmatic Analysis of Obolo Names

Jones G. I. Ayuwo
(University of Port Harcourt, Nigeria)

Abstract: Pragmatics is frequently conceptualized as the science of language use, the study of
context-dependent meaning and the study of speaker-intended meaning, presupposing the existence of language,
language user and context on the one hand, and context-independent meaning on the other. This paper is
pragmatic analysis of Obolo names. In view of this, the objectives of this paper therefore were to find out how
Obolo proper names were analysed based on context as well as how these personal names were interpreted in the
Obolo worldview. To actualize this, the researcher gathered data through introspection, personal interviews, and
extensive library materials on pragmatics. Lawal’s (1992) model of pragmatic theory was also used to analyze the
data gathered. Following this analysis, the paper observed that Obolo personal names are majorly contextual in
nature and that virtually all Obolo proper names have a background meaning on which they stand; they also have
direct, indirect as well as intended speech act they perform. The paper also observed that Obolo personal names
have situational, psychological as well as sociological competences. This means that Obolo proper names don’t
just serve as a way of identification of their bearers but also have such import that depicts experiences and
situations surrounding the bearers or bearers’ parents.
Key words: pragmatics, context, names and Obolo personal names

1. Introduction

No language exists in a vacuum. Hence, all languages have a way of interacting with their users in a
countless number of ways. Among those ways is in the area of naming. Naming especially in Africa serves as a
major way of distinguishing individuals’ identity in a society. This is because “in African societies names are
believed to have some great deal of control on the bearer. There is universal contention also that personal names
do influence attitude, behavior, success, failure, future and character”. That is how relevant naming is to an
African. This paper focuses on naming as it pertains to Obolo. Obolo is a language spoken by people numbering
about 100,000 (Aaron, 2000) in the South-South region of Nigeria. The language is used extensively by the people
in the day-to-day running of their affairs. But, the English language and Nigerian Pidgin are also widely used by
the Obolo people. Among the older folks Igbo and Ibibio are used for the purposes of trade and religious
activities.
Naming is a specific linguistic act that is linked intimately with values, traditions, hopes, fears and events in
people’s lives. This makes it a relevant aspect of pragmatics. Names equally communicate the many preferences
of their owners (or givers) in terms of real life objects, actions, features and beliefs (Rosenhouse, 2002). The word

Jones Gilbert Ijoh Ayuwo, Ph.D., Department of Linguistics and Communication Studies, University of Port Harcourt; research
areas/interests: linguistics and onomastics. E- mail: [email protected].

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chosen to identify a child has enormous symbolic power; the name not only identifies, it also sends a message,
expresses a hope or prayer, perpetrates cultural or religious tradition (Alford, 1987 cited in Ayuwo, 2014). Crystal
(1999) sees onomastics as a branch of semantics that studies the etymology of proper names. Ayuwo (2014)
observes that Obolo names contain theophoric, monumental, testimonial, ideational, solicituous, relational,
admonitory and temporal backgrounds. Also, Obolo names as has been observed may sometimes readily not have
the literal meaning of such names at heart instead; they regard and hold firmly the family and communal view
about such names. This has always been an influential factor in Obolo naming system. Based on the foregoing, the
objectives of this paper would be to find out how Obolo proper names are analysed based on structure and context
as well as how these personal names were interpreted in the Obolo worldview.

2. Pragmatics in Context

Pragmatics is frequently conceptualized as the science of language use, the study of context-dependent
meaning and the study of speaker-intended meaning, presupposing the existence of language, language user and
context on the one hand, and context-independent meaning on the other. To capture its multifaceted nature,
definitions tend not to concentrate on the questions of what pragmatics is and what it does, but rather on what it is
not and what it does not do. The majority of conceptualizations pay tribute to Charles Morris’s definition as “the
study of the relation of signs to interpreters” (Morris, 1971, p. 6) and to Austin’s differentiation between
constative and performative (Austin, 1971 cited in Bublitz & Norricks, 2011), foregrounding the performance of
communicative action and the effects the uttering of words may have. Against this background, pragmatics is
considered to be the study of invisible meaning (Yule, 1996, p. 127), the science of the unsaid (Mey, 2001, p. 194),
the study of meaning as it “emerges in language use” (Marmaridou, 2000, p. 1), and the study of linguistic acts
and communicative action and their appropriateness (Bublitz, 2009; van Dijk, 2008; Fetzer, 2004, 2007).
There have been various attempts to systematize the multifaceted and heterogeneous field of pragmatics, or
to bring some order into the pragmatic wastebasket (Bar-Hillel, 1971 in Bublitz, Norricks, 2011), as is reflected in
the differentiation between the broad fields of scholarly pragmatics: general (or non-linguistic) pragmatics and
linguistic pragmatics. Implicit in the philosophy-anchored general-action and linguistic-action based paradigms is
the premise that pragmatics is conceptualized best as a perspective, which comprises a general pragmatic
perspective, a social perspective, a compositional perspective and a relational perspective.

3. Context

The analysis of context-dependent meaning is at the heart of pragmatics, and for this reason context is one of
its key objects of investigation. Bublitz and Norricks (2011) aver that the theory, practice and implementation of
context are also of relevance to diverse fields of investigation, ranging from philosophy and computer-mediated
communication to cognitive science, in particular dialogue management, artificial speech production, artificial
intelligence, distributed knowledge representation, robotics and information technology. The heterogeneous nature
of context and the context-dependence of the concept itself have made it almost impossible for the scientific
community to agree upon one commonly shared definition or theoretical perspective, and frequently, only a
minute aspect of context is described, modelled or formalized (Akman et al., 2001; Blackburn et al., 2003).
Because of its multifaceted nature and inherent complexity, context is no longer considered an analytic prime but
rather seen from a parts-whole perspective as an entity containing sub-entities (or sub-contexts).

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The multilayered outlook on context contains a number of different perspectives. First, context is conceived
as a frame of reference whose job it is to frame content by delimiting the content while at the same time being
framed and delimited by less immediate adjacent frames. The nature of the connectedness between the different
frames is a structured whole composed of interconnected frames (Goffman, 1986). The gestalt-psychological
figure-ground scenario prevails in psychological and psycholinguistic perspectives on context. It is also adopted in
cognitive pragmatics as is reflected in the relevance-theoretic conception of context as an onion, metaphorically
speaking. The individual layers are interconnected and their order of inclusion corresponds to their order of
accessibility (Sperber & Wilson, 1995), as is reflected in inference and other kinds of reasoning.
Second, context is seen as a dynamic construct, which is interactionally organized in and through the process
of communication. This view prevails in ethnomethodology (Garfinkel, 1994; Goodwin & Duranti, 1992 cited in
Bublitz; Norricks, 2011), interactional sociolinguistics (Gumperz, 2003) and sociopragmatics (Bublitz, 2009;
Fetzer, 2007), where context is assigned the dual status of process and product. The dynamic outlook is based on
the premise of indexicality of social action, and the joint construction of context. In the primarily qualitatively
oriented paradigms, context is connected intrinsically with adjacency pair, conditional relevance and the
turn-taking system on the micro level, and with institution on the macro level, whose order is captured through
context-independent and context sensitive constraints and requirements. Closely related to the conception of
context as a dynamic construct is its relational conception, which conceives it as relating communicative actions
and their surroundings, relating communicative actions, relating individual participants and their individual
surroundings, and relating the set of individual participants and their communicative actions to their surroundings
(Fetzer & Akman, 2002).
Third, context is seen as given as is reflected in the presuppositional approach to context, which is also
referred to as common ground or background information (Stalnaker, 1999). Here, context is seen as a set of
propositions, which participants take for granted in interaction. This allows for two different conceptions of
context: a static conception in which context is external to the utterance, and an interactive one, in which context
is imported into the utterance while at the same time invoking and reconstructing context.
The context-dependence of context is reflected in its status as given and external to the utterance,
reconstructed and negotiated in communication, indexical, and never saturated. A further classification of context
is anchored to a holistic conception of context embedding its constitutive parts of model user, conversational
contribution, surroundings and their presuppositions, viz. cognitive context, linguistic context and social context
(Fetzer, 2004).
Linguistic context comprises language use and is delimited by the constraints and requirements of genre.
Language is composed of linguistic constructions (or parts) embedded in adjacent linguistic constructions (further
parts), composing a whole clause, sentence, utterance, turn or text. Linguistic context is functionally synonymous
to co-text (Widdowson, 2004; de Beaugrande & Dressler, 1981; cited in Bublitz, Norricks, 2011), denoting a
relational construct composed of local and global adjacency relations.
Cognitive context is the foundation on which inference and other forms of reasoning are based. Constitutive
elements of cognitive context are mental representations, propositions, contextual assumptions and factual
assumptions. Since cognitive contexts are anchored to an individual but are also required for a cognitively based
outlook on communication, they need to contain assumptions about mutual cognitive environments. Thus,
cognitive context is not only defined by representations but also by meta-representations. In the
social-psychological paradigm, cognitive context is conceptualized along the lines of the gestalt-psychological

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distinction between figure and ground and the related metacommunicative concepts of frame and framing
(Bateson, 1972; Goffman, 1986 cited in Bublitz, Norricks, 2011). Frame is seen as a delimiting device, which “is
(or delimits) a class or set of messages (or meaningful actions)” (Bateson, 1972, cited in Bublitz, Norricks, 2011,
p. 36). Because of its delimiting function, “psychological frames are exclusive, i.e., by including certain messages
(or meaningful actions) within a frame, certain other messages are excluded” and they are “inclusive, i.e. by
excluding certain messages certain others are included” (Bublitz & Norricks, 2011, p. 37). This also holds for
context which, analogously to frame is also structured and metacommunicative, or to use Bateson’s words: “the
hypothesis depends upon the idea that this structured context also occurs within a wider context — a metacontext
if you will — and that this sequence of contexts is an open, and conceivably infinite, series” (Bateson, 1972, p.
245 in Fetzer, 2004).
Social context comprises the context of a communicative exchange and is defined by deducting linguistic
context and cognitive context from a holistic conception of context. Constituents of social context are, for instance,
model users, the immediate concrete, physical surroundings including time and location, and the macro contextual
institutional and non-institutional domains. The connectedness between language and language use on the one
hand, and linguistic context, social context and cognitive context on the other is reflected in deixis, viz. temporal
deixis, local deixis, participant deixis, discourse deixis and social deixis (Hanks, 1996). Furthermore, the category
of model user (as speaker and hearer) can no longer be conceived of as an analytic prime but needs to be refined
by the accommodation of footing (Goffman, 1981). The importance of social context to communication is spelled
out by Hanks as follows: “Hence it is not that people must share a grammar, but that they must share, to a degree,
ways of orienting themselves in social context. This kind of sharing — partial, orientational and socially
distributed — may be attributed to the habitus, or relatively stable schemes of perception to which actors are
inculcated” (Hanks, 1996, p. 235).

4. Implicature

The cooperative principle counts as a universal principle in pragmatics, where it represents the solid base to
which communication in general and the formulation and interpretation of communicative action in particular are
anchored. This holds especially for the calculation of context-dependent communicative meaning and the
necessary processes of inference required for the contextualization and enrichment of underspecified conversional
contributions. To use Ariel’s words, “underdeterminacy is an inherent characteristic of human language, since no
natural language sentence can encode interlocutors’ intended statements fully” (Ariel, 2008, p. 265). In a similar
vein, but more explicitly, Levinson (1995) argues that intentionality is a fundamental premise of natural-language
communication. In his words, “human interaction, and thus communication depends on intentionascription.
Achieving this is a computational miracle: inferences must be made way beyond the available data. It is an
abductive process of hypothesis formation, yet it appears subjectively as fast and certain — the inferences seem
determinate, though we are happy to revise them when forced to do so” (Levinson, 1995, p. 241).
Underdeterminacy and the necessary processes of inferencing are connected with the Gricean paradigm and
its differentiation between what is said and what is meant, which both refer to utterances produced in context
(Grice, 1975); and they are also connected with Relevance Theory (Sperber & Wilson, 1995). In both frames of
reference, communication is seen as a context-dependent endeavour, in which communicative meaning may go
beyond the level of what has been said.

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Hence, what is said cannot be equated with pure linguistic meaning but rather is “closely related to the
conventional meaning of the words (the sentence) […] uttered” (Grice, 1975, p. 44). Unlike the rather
controversial status of “what is said” in semantics and pragmatics, “what is meant” has always been equated with
“what is implicated”.

5. Theoretical Framework

The theoretical framework adopted for this paper is the pragmatic theory by Lawal’s Models of pragmatic
theory (1992). This model as adopted from Nwadike (2017) is represented in Figure 1.
Context Competence Background information Speech Acts

Cosmological Cosmological Presuppositional Perlocutionary

Sociological Sociological Implicature -Conventional
-Non-conventional
Social Social MCBs -Intended
Psychological Psychological Via -Unintended
Situational Situational Inference
Illocutionary
Linguistic Linguistic
-Direct
-Indirect
-Intended
-Unintended
-Conventional
-Non-conventional

-Locutionary
-Overt

Figure 1 Aspects of Pragmatic Theory

The above diagram shows that the model has four component parts with each part having a hierarchical
arrangement. The diagram shows also six hierarchical contexts upon which a name can be interpreted. Nwadike
(2017) discusses these contexts below:
Cosmological Context: this is related to the language user’ knowledge of the world, his factual knowledge
and worldview in general in relation to the utterance or a particular instance of language use.
Sociological Context: this is related to the sociocultural and historical setting pf an utterance. In talking about
the sociocultural context, we could talk about whether the interlocutors share the same cultural values or not.
Social Context: this is concerned with the factors that govern the interpersonal relation between interlocutors
in a speech act, which may include factors such as distance, class, etc.
Psychological Context: covers the speaker’s state of mind, attitude and beliefs in the situation of an utterance.
In this study of names, it is the state of mind of the namer(s) that determines the kind of name that a child may be
given.
Situational Context: this involves those factors which are obtainable in the physical setting of the discourse.
These factors include the participants in a speech act, object that can be found and the topic of discourse.
Linguistic Context: this involves all those properties of language that include the lexical, phonological, and
morphosyntactic structure of a language.

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6. Methodology

The paper selected some Obolo personal names including male and female names. Data were collected by the
researcher and his assistants using direct observations at naming ceremonies, chieftaincy installation ceremonies,
etc. where names are given and used for various purposes. Also, data were gathered through introspection,
personal interviews and extensive library work for materials on pragmatics. These data were analyzed adopting
Lawal’s (1992) model of theory of pragmatics. This model served the purpose of classifying the various names
into four groups.
6.1 Pragmatic Analysis of Obolo Names
Table 1 Circumstantial Names
Background Speech
Name Gloss Gender Context Competence Comments
information Acts
This is considered psychological
God is
Òwàjìmímìn Male Psychological Psychological Inference Direct because it has to do with child’s
great
parents’ state of mind
This name suggests that the
parents of the child rely on God
God is for protection and provision. This
Òwàjìógàk Female Psychological Psychological Inference Indirect
supreme is sometimes how they feel and not
directly because of the birth of the
child.
This suggests the miraculous birth
God is
Òwàjìmówâ Unisex Psychological Psychological Presupposition Direct of the child and all that surrounds
present
his birth.
This does not have to do with the
child directly but with his parents’
Grace of presupposition that with all that is
Ǹsánòwàjì Female Psychological Psychological Presupposition Indirect
God happening in their lives and
around the; God’s grace is with
them.
This name tells of the love and
Ìmáòwàjì God’s love Female Psychological Psychological Presupposition Indirect mercy of God or a deity in the life
of the child’s parents.
This name often suggests that the
God has parent(s) of the child must have
Òwàjínọ̀mbéré heard my Unisex Situational Situational Inference Direct been anxious of a child or male
prayer child. Hence, upon the arrival of a
male child he feels his joy is full.
This name is prevalent when the
I will not parents of the child feel they had
be a become an object of mockery in
Kpéyákíchákèmì Unisex Situational Situational Inference Indirect
laughing the past but sequel to the arrival of
stock again the child they will no longer be
laughed at.
This is often the name given when
It is male
the father does not get a male child
Óríèkémmá that I Female Situational Situational Inference Direct
even though he is anxious about
prefer
getting one.
A male This suggests that child is a female
Óríèmônùñ child will Female Situational Situational Inference Direct but the father is still hopeful about
come getting a male child.
I did not This name communicates an
expect that expression of unexpected sex of a
Ǹkákéréíbéìrèyí Female Psychological Psychological Inference Direct
this is the child. It reflects the namer’s state
one of mind.

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The circumstance here is that the

namer is having the first ever male
First male
Ókpángúñ Male Situational Situational Inference Direct child; not as if he does not have
child
female children. So, he wishes that
the situation reflect on the child.
This name is common if the
delivery was done at a place that is
Large
Éwéílé Unisex Situational Situational Inference Direct least expected or the child was
market
born in a place other than his
home.
This name is often given to a child
Óróníjà Small bush Unisex Situational Situational Inference Direct
that was delivered in the bush.
This name has little or nothing to
do with the child but with the
Òwàjìókíbàn God guides Unisex Psychological Psychological Inference Indirect
parents who believe that they have
some sort of guidance from God.
The namer of this name in this
God is my context expresses his state of mind
Òwàjìósùmèmì Unisex Psychological Psychological Inference Indirect
keeper which feels God has been the one
keeping him.
God has This name suggests that the namer
Òwàjìónírọ́ Unisex Situational Situational Inference Direct
done well is happy with the sex of the child.
This name is a reflection of the
Adumu family’s religious background. It
Àdúmúóbèm Unisex Psychological Psychological Inference Indirect
guards shows that the family of the child
relies on a deity for safety.

Table 2 Names on Reincarnation and Death

Background Speech
Name Gloss Gender Context Competence Comments
Information Acts
This name comes as a result of the
namer’s believe in reincarnation.
Sometimes because of the way the
Ǹtéògúgà Mother’s father Male Psychological Psychological Inference Direct
child came; the look of the child
and some other time because of the
special mark the child carries.
This name emanates from the
believe that the child that has been
Úlộkǹgwàñ A relation Unisex Psychological Psychological Inference Direct born is a relative who was dead.
This is a way of expressing the
namer’s psychological state.
The name suggests that the mother
The friend of of the child had a friend so dear
Únìníógúnwà Unisex Psychological Psychological Inference Direct
(the) wife but dead. So the child that is born
has the resemblance of that friend.
This is so named if the namer’s
has got a wealthy in-law and
Wealth is (the thinks that neighbours are jealous
Ìkpòkòréúgòt basis) for good Unisex Situational Situational Inference Indirect of him. It also suggests a situation
in-laws where the namer desires a good
in-law to alleviate him from
poverty.
The name suggests that death must
have taken the namer’s children
I plead with
M̀ kpáǹríáñòwò Unisex Situational Situational Inference Indirect before the arrival of this child.
you, death
Death is seen as a being whose
conscience can be appealed to.
This suggests that the child is the
May my name
Èríéñáíkàchép Male Psychological Psychological Inference only male child the father has got
not be lost Indirect
and he believes his name will no

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longer be forgotten because of the

arrival of a male child.
The name suggests the pain death
has made the namer go through; in
most cases the child is not the first
Death did this nor the second child that has come
M̀ kpáórọ́èmì Unisex Situational Situational Inference Indirect
to me the namer’s way. Hence, upon the
arrival of the child which survives
birth the namer wishes to express
his pain.
This name is common if the namer
If it were not believes that because of death of
Írîkárèm̀ kpá Unisex Situational Situational Inference Indirect
for death parent(s), loved one or child(ren)
he was deprived certain privileges.
The name suggests that the namer
Death you
in the past had suffered child
M̀ kpáîkèm have had Unisex Situational Situational Inference Indirect
mortality and so wishes to rebuke
enough
death upon the arrival of this one.
The name is common when the
namer has a history of loss of
Death keep
M̀ kpáchítótú Unisex Situational Situational Inference Indirect relatives, parents or children. Or
quiet
when the child so named is a
survival of death.
The name suggests that the namer
has suffered loss of children for a
Leave it for
Télényìmkpá Unisex Situational Situational Inference Indirect number of times and is not sure
death to decide
that even the child so named
would stay.

Table 3 Names on Physical Characteristics

Background Speech
Name Gloss Gender Context Competence Comments
Information Acts
A child of The name suggests that the female
Ùjàgúñ Female Situational Situational Inference Intended
beauty child is beautiful.
Beautiful The name suggests that the female
Énènwàràñújà Female Situational Situational Inference Intended
woman child so named is beautiful.
The name is given to a female child
Ńkwáùjà Egg of beauty Female Situational Situational Inference Intended
who is observed to be very beautiful.
The name is given to a male child
who is perceived to be strong due to
Únyéne A strong man Male Situational Situational Inference Intended
may be the way he came or the
prophecies made about him.
This name is usually given to a male
Àtáògúóta A great hunter Male Situational Situational Inference Intended child who the namer believes to be a
very great hunter.

Table 4 Names on Birth Days and Seasons

Background Speech
Name Gloss Gender Context Competence Comments
information Acts
This name suggests that the child so
named was born on a Sunday.
Child of
Gúñóróné Male Situational Situational Inference Intended Sometimes, it could also suggest that
Sunday
one remarkable thing happened to the
namer on a Sunday.
This name readily suggests that the
Person of
Énekáláóróné Male Situational Situational Inference Intended child so named was born on a
Saturday
Saturday.
One born This name does not only mean that
Énéúrá during dry Unisex Situational Sociological MCBs Intended the child was born during dry season
season but it also suggests the namer’s

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 A Pragmatic Analysis of Obolo Names

perception about that season.

This name does not only mean that
One born
the child was born during raining
Énéìbòt during the Unisex Situational Sociological MCBs Intended
season but it also suggests the
rains
namer’s perception about that season.
One born The name suggests that the child so
during the named was born during the harmattan
Ògúékìrìkà Unisex Situational Sociological MCBs Intended
harmattan season.
season

6. Conclusion

This paper has painstakingly analyzed Obolo personal names pragmatically. This was with aid of Lawal’s
(1991) models of pragmatic theory. This model was adopted and adequately utilized for the success of the study.
Of all the names collected for this study, the circumstantial names were more in number; hence most commonly
used for naming. This can be associated with the fact that the Obolo people’s worldview is built around
circumstances or situation, experiences and history. These they tend to reflect in the names they bear. In the view
of Nwadike (2017), “given the child a name based on such situation points to the fact that, that situation also
affects the child/bearer of the name” (p. 18).
Circumstantial names as classified in this paper are names that suggest that the situation does not only affect
the bearer but also the namer(s) and the community. According to Labaran (1990), most circumstantial names are
determined by the circumstance surrounding the birth of the bearer (or the entire life) of the people who bear them.
She goes on to observe that the circumstances may be historical, socio-economic, social, etc. it is from these
factors that the names are derived and also explained. In fact, this to a high extent agrees with what this paper has
observed.
Apart from circumstantial names which are quite common, the Obolo people also have days and seasons.
These names emanate from the birthday or birth season of the bearer. Names such as: Gúñóróné “Child of
Sunday”, Énéìbòt “One born during the rains”, Ògúékìrìkà “One born during the harmattan season”, etc. are found
in the Obolo anthroponyms. However, most people who bear such names are most likely to have other name(s)
whether English or Obolo which would regard as their real names.
As reflected in this work, Obolo personal names are also given based on the bearers’ physical characteristics.
The fact that some Obolo personal names are given based on the bearer’s physical characteristics actually affirms
the asrgument that some names are description of their bearers. Examples are such names as: Ùjàgúñ “A child of
beauty”, Ǹkwáújà “Egg of beauty”, Únyéne “A strong man”, and so on. The former is a description of the look of
the bearer. The latter is sometimes given to the bearer several years after birth upon his prowess in the business of
hunting. In all, these names describe their bearers.

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