What is it about?
This article is about how Akan (Ghana) conversational participants say one thing by way of another in order to persuade people, minimize social tensions, and settle personal scores. The paper proves that verbal indirection plays an important role in politeness and in managing interactions
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Why is it important?
The article calls into question notions of speaker-hearer and draws attention to triadic and polyadic interactions. It also demonstrates that plain speech may be inappropriate in communicative situation where tensions are high and directness may be inappropriate.
Perspectives
I enjoyed writing this paper given how much I learned from my own community. I thought I knew about so-called appropriate societal communicational mores until I learned that I knew very little. Paying close attention to the interactions brought to light the considerable amount of indirection employed by people, especially, when the subject matter of the discourse involved face-threat and possible disgrace.
Distinguished Professor Samuel Gyasi Obeng
Indiana University System
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Verbal indirection in Akan informal discourse, Journal of Pragmatics, January 1994, Elsevier,
DOI: 10.1016/0378-2166(94)90046-9.
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