African Cultural Identity and Conversational Implicature: A Critical Analysis of Chief Gaa by Sola Owonibi

This study is concerned with conversational implicatures in the work of Sola Owonibi. We study this work Chief Gaa with the aim of showing that what speakers say may mean different things from what they intend to say or what the hearers may imply. It is noted from the analysis that the readers and listeners have to work out what is implied in the conversations between the characters in the text. The work gives a profound insight into a typical African cultural democratic system of governance before the intrusion of the white men. A diligent analysis of the utterances of major characters in the text reveals certain expressions by implicature can only be attributed to the use of langauge in conversational context. The work also within the Grice’s theory reveals the extensive use of conversational implicature. H.Paul Grice’s Cooperative Principle helps in understanding the speakers and the listeners cooperative use of inference in arriving at what is implied by the author. This implicature helps in understanding our cultural identity in the use of rich Yoruba language in transmitting our cultural value.