A Psycho-Sociolinguistic Analysis of Retorts in Igbo

Abstract

This study evaluates the psycho-sociolinguistic impact of retorts on individuals in Igbo language use. Specifically, it looks at the social and psychological factors that give rise to the use of retorts and their impact. Social factors could include age, gender, occupational status, status in the society, level of education and so on. Psychological factors involve the state of mind of the individuals as at the time the retorts were made. This is a qualitative research that adopts the use of unstructured interviews and observational analysis. From the analysis of the data, it is shown that the social factors which affect the use of retorts include age, gender, environment and relationship. It is observed that a person’s origin could also affect how one reacts to a retort because a greater number of respondents disagreed to responding rudely and agreed to respond politely when retorted at. Our analysis indicates that the use of retorts does not have a great deal of negative psychological impact on individuals. Our findings also show that a greater number of people agreed to feeling embarrassed, but although they were embarrassed, they also agreed to laughing over the incident and not getting angry. The incident also did not affect their relationship with the person negatively. Face theory and communication accommodation theory were used in this research work, where every human lives in a world of social encounters which involves him or her in either face-to-face or a mediated contact with other people.