On Speech Acts: An Analysis of Acting President Yemi Osinbajo’s Democracy Day Speech

This research work studied the concept of speech acts vis-a-vis the speech of Acting President Yemi Osinbajo on Democracy Day in 2017. The work adopted the linguistic framework of pragmatics, using the theoretical proposition of Speech Acts theory as propounded by J.L. Austin and modified by John Searle's classification. It has been established through studies of political speeches that speakers perform various acts in the course of presenting or delivering their speeches. This study further examined specific illocutionary acts employed by Acting President in his speech. These specific illocutionary acts being crux of speech acts were brought out via the analysis of some selected portions of the speech. The study had far reaching academic implications for Linguistics and scholars of speeches all over the world.